Jakob Van Hoddis

German-Jewish expressionist poet, born Hans Davidsohn, of which his pen name "Van Hoddis" is an anagram. His most famous poem Weltende (End of the world) published on 11 January 1911 in Der Demokrat, is generally regarded as the preliminary expressionist poem which inspired many other poets to write in a similarly grotesque style; he is also seen as perhaps the only German predecessor of surrealism (which did not exist as a movement in Germany).

Unable to flee Nazi Germany, Van Hoddis, who suffered mental illness, had little chance of survival. On the 30 April 1942, he and all the other patients and staff (five hundred people) of his sanatorium were transported to Sobibór via Krasnystaw. None of them survived. The date of van Hoddis´ death remains unknown.