Der Sturm (Storm) was the fulcrum of the international avant-garde in Berlin from 1910 to 1932. Herwarth Walden (born Georg Levin, 1878–1941) founded the journal Der Sturm, in 1910. His first wife, the poet Else Lasker-Schüler, likely suggested both his nom-de-guerre and the newspaper’s title. Walden, a pianist who had studied with Conrad Ansorge, a former prodigy of Franz Liszt, had ambitions that exceeded the concert hall. Suggesting both the multiplicity of arts that Der Sturm would embrace, and the intention to reach a wide audience, the pianist-impresario-editor Walden traveled with the poet-playwright-artist Lasker-Schüler and the painter-printmaker-dramatist Oskar Kokoschka across Germany to distribute the first edition to the people. The group and their paper met with incomprehension, however, so they returned to cultivate a more select audience in the metropolis.
Oskar Kokoschka and Auguste Forel
