Hans Henny Jahnn country of citizenship Germany
Personal life
Hans Henny Jahn was born in 1894 in Stellingen, one of Hamburg's suburbs, and was the son of a shipwright.Jahn met Gottlieb Friedrich Harms "Friedel" (1893–1931), with whom he was united in a "mystical wedding" in 1913, at a secondary school (the St. Pauli Realschule) which they both attended, and they fled from Germany to Norway to avoid enlistment into the army for World War I, where they lived together between 1914 and 1918, and after the war ended they returned to Hamburg. They met Ellinor Philips in 1918. In 1919, Jahnn founded the community of Ugrino with a sculptor, Franz Buse. In 1926, Jahnn married Ellinor, and Harms married Sybille Philips, Ellinor's sister, in 1928. When Harms died in 1931 Jahn designed his gravestone. Once the Nazi period began, he fled Germany once again to Zurich and then Bornholm to escape the hostility of the Nazis towards the gay community.Jahnn's bisexuality, well-documented in his life, appears as well throughout his literary work, although it did not receive much recognition for some time due to his eccentric lifestyle, unconventional opinions, and homosexual relationship. Hans Henny Jahnn is buried alongside Harms and Ellinor at Nienstedten Cemetery, Hamburg, Germany.
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