Sachs, Nelly

Nelly Sachs was born as Leonie Sachs, on December 10, 1891, in the Tiergarten section of Berlin. She grew up as the only child of the manufacturer William Sachs and Margarete Sachs, née Karger, in comfortable circumstances. Her first exposure to German literature was in her father’s library. She received private lessons for several years, until she began attending the private girls’ school Aubert in 1903. Her greatest wish at this point in her life was to become a dancer.

In 1908 Sachs completed school. She began writing to the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf, whose writing she admired, when she was 15 years old, and her first published work Legenden und Erzählungen (Legends and Stories) was written in a similar fashion as Lagerlöf’s. During this time, some of her poetry was published in several publications, much of it written in the Romantic style. Her father, with whom she was very close, died in 1930, after a long illness.

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