Benjamin Franklin Wedekind was born on July 24, 1864, in
Hanover,
German Confederation, Große Aegidienstraße 13 (today: Friedrichswall 10). His mother was Swiss and became pregnant with him in
San Francisco. His father, a German, had a Swiss castle in which Wedekind grew up, after the family had left Hanover in 1872. Until
World War I, when he was forced to obtain a German passport, he was an American citizen and traveled throughout Europe. He lived most of his adult life in
Munich, though he had a brief period working in advertising, for the
Maggi soup firm, in Switzerland in 1886. Having worked in business and the circus, Wedekind went on to become an actor and singer. In this capacity, he received wide acclaim as the principal star of the
satirical cabaret
Die elf Scharfrichter ("The Eleven Executioners"), launched in 1901. Wedekind became an important influence on the tradition of German satirical writing for the theatre, paving the way for the cabaret-song satirists
Kurt Tucholsky,
Walter Mehring,
Joachim Ringelnatz and
Erich Kästner among others, who after Wedekind's death would invigorate the culture of the
Weimar Republic; "all bitter social critics who used direct, stinging satire as the best means of attack and wrote a large part of their always intelligible light verse to be declaimed or sung". At the age of 34, after serving a nine-month prison sentence () for
lèse-majesté (thanks to the publication in
Simplicissimus of some of his satirical poems), Wedekind became a
dramaturg (a play-reader and adapter) at the
Munich Schauspielhaus. His sex life was promiscuous and he frequented prostitutes, contracting
syphilis. He also enjoyed the pleasure of platonic female company and kept his tendencies toward
homosexuality and
sadism in check. In 1906, he married the Austrian actress Tilly Newes, 22 years his junior and became strictly monogamous. His relationship with his wife was turbulent: Wedekind was prone to jealousy and felt pressure to maintain strenuous creative and sexual activity in order to please her. They had two daughters, Pamela and Kadidja, but his jealousy led his wife to attempt both separation and suicide. ==Works==