Why Lichtenberg?

Although Georg Lichtenberg died almost exactly 200 years ago, the world has not forgotten him. On the contrary, over the past few decades, his writings have been translated into all of the world´s major languages and a six-volume edition of his work recently sold 150,000 copies in Germany.

His writings have never been considered as classics in the conventional sense. What immortalized him in first place were his ‚Scribbled Notebooks‘. No one in Germany before or since has ever written so incisively and wittily on so many topics: physics, sexuality, the unconscious, religion, noses, even crowned heads... Lichtenberg was never beholden to anyone, whether they came from the benighted provinces of Germany or the glittering court of the King of England.

The Enlightment has its fair share of pendants, but Lichtenberg was never one of them. He has always been seen as an outsider and an enigmatic figure, which is why he is, and always will be, a star of German and European culture.

His life story shows how all kinds of adversity - poverty, malice, physical handicap - can be overcome. After 200 years, Lichtenberg still appears to us as a man of the future.