Alfred Döblin
Encyclopedia
Alfred Döblin was a German
expressionist
novelist, best known for the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz
(1929).
, Province of Pomerania, as the son of a Jewish merchant. His family moved to Berlin
in 1888, where Döblin studied medicine, first at the University of Berlin, then at Freiburg University. During his student years, he became interested in German philosophy, especially that of Immanuel Kant
, Arthur Schopenhauer
and Friedrich Nietzsche
. After graduating, he worked as a journalist in Regensburg
and Berlin, before actually beginning a psychiatric
practice in the working class neighborhood of Alexanderplatz
.
During this time, he wrote several novels, but none of them were published until 1915, when Die drei Sprünge des Wang-Lung first appeared, for which he won the Fontane Prize. It tells the story of political upheaval in 18th century China. The English translation The Three Leaps of Wang Lun, published by the Chinese University Press in Hong Kong
in 1991, describes this as "the most sustained and hallucinatory evocation of China as itself that we have in any European language."
He was garnering popularity through several expressionist short stories
in the magazine Der Sturm
. Eventually he dropped out of the Expressionist Movement, but many of his 'Sturm' stories were published in 1913 in a collection called Die Ermordung einer Butterblume.
During World War I
, Döblin served as a doctor with the German Army
, but continued his writing. His historical novel, Wallenstein, set during the Thirty Years' War
, was written during this period, but not published until 1920. During this time his son the mathematician Wolfgang Döblin
was born (he had two other sons as well).
. In 1924 he published Berge Meere und Giganten
, a dystopic
view of a future in which technology
confronts man and nature.
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) was partly written in colloquial German, written from the viewpoints of many characters and with a narrative style reminiscent of John Dos Passos
and James Joyce
, it tells the story of a criminal who is drawn deeper and deeper into an underworld he cannot rise out of. Döblin, though, denied being familiar with Joyce's Ulysses
at this time.
took power in Germany, Döblin fled to Paris
by way of Switzerland
, just one day ahead of a Nazi arrest warrant. He was granted French citizenship in 1936.
His "Amazonas-trilogie", three novels describing the onslaught of Europeans on the native cultures of South America
, was published in exile in 1937. The three parts are Das Land ohne Tod (The Land without Death), Der blaue Tiger (The Blue Tiger), and Der neue Urwald (The New Jungle).
In 1940, aged 62, he was again uprooted by the German invasion of France, and spent arduous months as a refugee in a camp at Le Puy
. Eventually reaching the United States
, he worked for MGM in Hollywood. An agnostic Jew, Döblin converted to Roman Catholicism in 1941, citing Søren Kierkegaard
and Baruch Spinoza
as influences.
Döblin returned to Europe in 1945, working for the French Ministry of Cultural Affairs. He returned to Germany, settling in Baden-Baden
, where he worked as an education officer and a magazine publisher, but, unhappy with the political environment in his native country, he settled in France.
His outstanding contributions from this period include November 1918, a trilogy of historical novels about the failed revolution in Germany following the First World War, (Vol. 1: Verratenes Volk (A People Betrayed), Vol 2 Heimkehr der Fronttruppen (Return of the Troops), Vol. 3 Karl und Rosa (Karl and Rosa). His last novel, Hamlet, is an expression of his hopes for the future of Europe.
In 1956 Döblin entered a sanitarium in Freiburg im Breisgau suffering from Parkinson's disease
. He remained mostly paralyzed for the remainder of his life, dying in Emmendingen
the following year.
's spellbinding 15 1/2 hour TV adaptation of 1980. Modern, well-edited volumes of almost the complete oeuvre have been available in German since the 1980s, indicating the existence of at least some readership; and the Internationale Alfred-Döblin Kolloquien have been held every two years since the early 1980s. But only a handful of other works of fiction have ever appeared in English translations: The Three Leaps of Wang Lun (trans. C. D. Godwin, Chinese University Press, Hong Kong, 1991), and the November 1918 trilogy: A People Betrayed (which also includes The Troops Return) and Karl and Rosa (trans. John E. Woods, Fromm International, 1983 and 1987); Tales of a Long Night (trans John E Woods, From International, 1987; and the lesser-known big-city novel Men without Mercy (trans. Trevor and Phyllis Blewitt, Howard Fertig, 1976). Two works of autobiography have also been translated: Destiny's Journey (trans. Edna McCown, Paragon House, 1992), the harrowing account of Döblin's flight and exile in the 1940s; and the account of his mid-1920s Journey to Poland (trans J. Neugroschel
, I. B. Tauris, 1991).
Another of Grass's observations may help to explain this neglect. Döblin, says Grass in the Akzente essay referenced above, "will discomfort you, give you bad dreams. He's hard to digest. The reader will be changed by him. If you're satisfied with yourself, beware of Döblin." But the reader who is prepared to take up the challenge can find many treasures.
The publisher's blurb for the Wang Lun epic in English, for example, calls this "the most sustained evocation, in any European language, of a China untouched by the West... Teeming cities and Tibetan wastes, political intrigue and religious yearning, life at Court and the fate of wandering outcasts are depicted in a language of enormous vigour." Döblin brought the same hallucinatory intensity of imagination and powers of depiction to another setting, South America, in the Amazonas-trilogie (1937). The continuing lack of an English translation of this epic is quite surprising, for the trilogy depicts with tremendous sweep, excitement and pathos the pre-conquest cultures of the Amazon and Andes, episodes of conquest and colonisation, and the doomed efforts of the Jesuits to save at least a fragment of the native population (a topic that may be familiar from the 1986 film The Mission).
Döblin's early association with the Futurists
ended with Wang Lun. "Neither (Herwarth) Walden nor anyone else from the circle of the orthodox said a word about the novel... They developed into pure word-artists. I took another path," wrote Döblin in the Epilogue to his Autobiographische Schriften (Autobiographical Writings) in 1948. His writings from the 1920s on encompassed a tremendous range, in which he seldom repeated himself: literary theory, film and book reviews, reflections on philosophy and religion, and several epic works of fiction in the most varied styles. These include Berge Meere und Giganten (Mountains Oceans Giants), a dystopic science-fiction view of the far future; and Babylonische Wanderung (Babylonian Exile), a comic account of the god Marduk's adventures in 20th century Europe.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
expressionist
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
novelist, best known for the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz
Berlin Alexanderplatz
Berlin Alexanderplatz is a novel by Alfred Döblin, published in 1929. The story concerns a small-time criminal, Franz Biberkopf, fresh from prison, who is drawn into the underworld. When his criminal mentor murders the prostitute whom Biberkopf has been relying on as an anchor, he realizes that...
(1929).
1878–1918
Döblin was born in Stettin (Szczecin)Szczecin
Szczecin , is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of June 2009 the population was 406,427....
, Province of Pomerania, as the son of a Jewish merchant. His family moved to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
in 1888, where Döblin studied medicine, first at the University of Berlin, then at Freiburg University. During his student years, he became interested in German philosophy, especially that of Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
, Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
and Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
. After graduating, he worked as a journalist in Regensburg
Regensburg
Regensburg is a city in Bavaria, Germany, located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. To the east lies the Bavarian Forest. Regensburg is the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate...
and Berlin, before actually beginning a psychiatric
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
practice in the working class neighborhood of Alexanderplatz
Alexanderplatz
Alexanderplatz is a large public square and transport hub in the central Mitte district of Berlin, near the Fernsehturm. Berliners often call it simply Alex, referring to a larger neighborhood stretching from Mollstraße in the northeast to Spandauer Straße and the City Hall in the southwest.-Early...
.
During this time, he wrote several novels, but none of them were published until 1915, when Die drei Sprünge des Wang-Lung first appeared, for which he won the Fontane Prize. It tells the story of political upheaval in 18th century China. The English translation The Three Leaps of Wang Lun, published by the Chinese University Press in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
in 1991, describes this as "the most sustained and hallucinatory evocation of China as itself that we have in any European language."
He was garnering popularity through several expressionist short stories
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
in the magazine Der Sturm
Der Sturm
Der Sturm was a magazine covering the expressionism movement founded in Berlin in 1910 by Herwarth Walden. It ran weekly until monthly in 1914, and became a quarterly in 1924 until it ceased publication in 1932....
. Eventually he dropped out of the Expressionist Movement, but many of his 'Sturm' stories were published in 1913 in a collection called Die Ermordung einer Butterblume.
During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Döblin served as a doctor with the German Army
German Army
The German Army is the land component of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. Following the disbanding of the Wehrmacht after World War II, it was re-established in 1955 as the Bundesheer, part of the newly formed West German Bundeswehr along with the Navy and the Air Force...
, but continued his writing. His historical novel, Wallenstein, set during the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
, was written during this period, but not published until 1920. During this time his son the mathematician Wolfgang Döblin
Wolfgang Doeblin
Wolfgang Döblin, known in France as Vincent Doblin, was a German-French mathematician.-Life:Wolfgang was the son of the Jewish-German novelist, Alfred Döblin. His family escaped from Nazi Germany to France where he became a citizen...
was born (he had two other sons as well).
1919–1933
In 1920 Döblin joined the Association of German Writers (Schutzverband Deutscher Schriftsteller), and in 1924 he became its president. He reviewed plays for the Prager Tageblatt for several years, and was a member of the Group 1925 with Bertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
. In 1924 he published Berge Meere und Giganten
Berge Meere und Giganten
Berge Meere und Giganten is a 1924 science fiction novel by German author Alfred Döblin. Stylistically characterized by its expressionist prose, the novel follows the development of human society into the 27th century, concentrating on global-scale conflicts between future polities, technologies,...
, a dystopic
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
view of a future in which technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
confronts man and nature.
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) was partly written in colloquial German, written from the viewpoints of many characters and with a narrative style reminiscent of John Dos Passos
John Dos Passos
John Roderigo Dos Passos was an American novelist and artist.-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Dos Passos was the illegitimate son of John Randolph Dos Passos , a distinguished lawyer of Madeiran Portuguese descent, and Lucy Addison Sprigg Madison of Petersburg, Virginia. The elder Dos Passos...
and James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
, it tells the story of a criminal who is drawn deeper and deeper into an underworld he cannot rise out of. Döblin, though, denied being familiar with Joyce's Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
at this time.
1933–1957
When the NazisNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
took power in Germany, Döblin fled to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
by way of Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, just one day ahead of a Nazi arrest warrant. He was granted French citizenship in 1936.
His "Amazonas-trilogie", three novels describing the onslaught of Europeans on the native cultures of South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, was published in exile in 1937. The three parts are Das Land ohne Tod (The Land without Death), Der blaue Tiger (The Blue Tiger), and Der neue Urwald (The New Jungle).
In 1940, aged 62, he was again uprooted by the German invasion of France, and spent arduous months as a refugee in a camp at Le Puy
Le Puy
Le Puy is the name, or part of the name, of several communes in France:* Le Puy, Doubs, in the département of Doubs* Le Puy, Gironde, in the département of Gironde* Le Puy-en-Velay, in the département of Haute-Loire...
. Eventually reaching the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, he worked for MGM in Hollywood. An agnostic Jew, Döblin converted to Roman Catholicism in 1941, citing Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...
and Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch de Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...
as influences.
Döblin returned to Europe in 1945, working for the French Ministry of Cultural Affairs. He returned to Germany, settling in Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden is a spa town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on the western foothills of the Black Forest, on the banks of the Oos River, in the region of Karlsruhe...
, where he worked as an education officer and a magazine publisher, but, unhappy with the political environment in his native country, he settled in France.
His outstanding contributions from this period include November 1918, a trilogy of historical novels about the failed revolution in Germany following the First World War, (Vol. 1: Verratenes Volk (A People Betrayed), Vol 2 Heimkehr der Fronttruppen (Return of the Troops), Vol. 3 Karl und Rosa (Karl and Rosa). His last novel, Hamlet, is an expression of his hopes for the future of Europe.
In 1956 Döblin entered a sanitarium in Freiburg im Breisgau suffering from Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
. He remained mostly paralyzed for the remainder of his life, dying in Emmendingen
Emmendingen
Emmendingen is a town in Baden-Württemberg, capital of the district Emmendingen of Germany. It is located at the Elz River, north of Freiburg im Breisgau...
the following year.
Döblin's place in 20th century literature
In a 1967 essay, Günter Grass declared: "Without the Futurist elements of Döblin's work from Wang Lun to Berlin Alexanderplatz, my prose is inconceivable." Yet to the extent Döblin is known today at all, it is for just one work: Berlin Alexanderplatz, the subject of countless graduate papers and scholarly analyses, and also of Rainer Werner FassbinderRainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema.He maintained a frenetic pace in film-making...
's spellbinding 15 1/2 hour TV adaptation of 1980. Modern, well-edited volumes of almost the complete oeuvre have been available in German since the 1980s, indicating the existence of at least some readership; and the Internationale Alfred-Döblin Kolloquien have been held every two years since the early 1980s. But only a handful of other works of fiction have ever appeared in English translations: The Three Leaps of Wang Lun (trans. C. D. Godwin, Chinese University Press, Hong Kong, 1991), and the November 1918 trilogy: A People Betrayed (which also includes The Troops Return) and Karl and Rosa (trans. John E. Woods, Fromm International, 1983 and 1987); Tales of a Long Night (trans John E Woods, From International, 1987; and the lesser-known big-city novel Men without Mercy (trans. Trevor and Phyllis Blewitt, Howard Fertig, 1976). Two works of autobiography have also been translated: Destiny's Journey (trans. Edna McCown, Paragon House, 1992), the harrowing account of Döblin's flight and exile in the 1940s; and the account of his mid-1920s Journey to Poland (trans J. Neugroschel
Joachim Neugroschel
Joachim Neugroschel was a well known literary translator from French, German, Italian, Russian, and Yiddish, and also to German. He also published poetry and was a poetry magazine founder.- Biography :...
, I. B. Tauris, 1991).
Another of Grass's observations may help to explain this neglect. Döblin, says Grass in the Akzente essay referenced above, "will discomfort you, give you bad dreams. He's hard to digest. The reader will be changed by him. If you're satisfied with yourself, beware of Döblin." But the reader who is prepared to take up the challenge can find many treasures.
The publisher's blurb for the Wang Lun epic in English, for example, calls this "the most sustained evocation, in any European language, of a China untouched by the West... Teeming cities and Tibetan wastes, political intrigue and religious yearning, life at Court and the fate of wandering outcasts are depicted in a language of enormous vigour." Döblin brought the same hallucinatory intensity of imagination and powers of depiction to another setting, South America, in the Amazonas-trilogie (1937). The continuing lack of an English translation of this epic is quite surprising, for the trilogy depicts with tremendous sweep, excitement and pathos the pre-conquest cultures of the Amazon and Andes, episodes of conquest and colonisation, and the doomed efforts of the Jesuits to save at least a fragment of the native population (a topic that may be familiar from the 1986 film The Mission).
Döblin's early association with the Futurists
Futurists
Futurists or futurologists are scientists and social scientists whose speciality is to attempt to systematically predict the future, whether that of human society in particular or of life on earth in general....
ended with Wang Lun. "Neither (Herwarth) Walden nor anyone else from the circle of the orthodox said a word about the novel... They developed into pure word-artists. I took another path," wrote Döblin in the Epilogue to his Autobiographische Schriften (Autobiographical Writings) in 1948. His writings from the 1920s on encompassed a tremendous range, in which he seldom repeated himself: literary theory, film and book reviews, reflections on philosophy and religion, and several epic works of fiction in the most varied styles. These include Berge Meere und Giganten (Mountains Oceans Giants), a dystopic science-fiction view of the far future; and Babylonische Wanderung (Babylonian Exile), a comic account of the god Marduk's adventures in 20th century Europe.
Selected bibliography
- Die Ermordung einer Butterblume (1913)
- Die drei Sprünge des Wang-Lun (The Three Leaps of Wang-Lun) (1915)
- Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfturbine (1918)
- Der schwarze Vorhang
- WallensteinWallenstein (novel)Wallenstein is a 1920 historical novel by German author Alfred Döblin. Set in Central Europe during the Thirty Years War, the novel's plot is organized around the polar figures of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, on the one hand, and Albrecht von Wallenstein, on the other...
(1920) - Berge Meere und GigantenBerge Meere und GigantenBerge Meere und Giganten is a 1924 science fiction novel by German author Alfred Döblin. Stylistically characterized by its expressionist prose, the novel follows the development of human society into the 27th century, concentrating on global-scale conflicts between future polities, technologies,...
(Mountains Seas and Giants) (1924) - Die beiden Freundinnen und ihr Giftmord (1924)
- Reise in Polen (Journey To Poland) (1925)
- Manas (1927)
- Berlin AlexanderplatzBerlin AlexanderplatzBerlin Alexanderplatz is a novel by Alfred Döblin, published in 1929. The story concerns a small-time criminal, Franz Biberkopf, fresh from prison, who is drawn into the underworld. When his criminal mentor murders the prostitute whom Biberkopf has been relying on as an anchor, he realizes that...
(1929) - Die Ehe
- Unser Dasein (1933)
- Babylonische Wandrung (Babylonian Wandering) (1934)
- Pardon wird nicht gegeben (Men Without Mercy) (1935)
- Amazonas-Trilogie (Vol. 1 Das Land ohne Tod, Vol. 2 Der blaue Tiger, Vol. 3 Der neue Urwald)
- November 1918 (Vol 1: Verratenes Volk, Vol. 2 Heimkehr der Fronttruppen, Vol. 3 Karl und Rosa) (1949-1950)
- Der unsterbliche Mensch (1946)
- Der Oberst und der Dichter
- Schicksalsreise (Destiny's Journey)
- Hamlet oder Die lange Nacht nimmt ein Ende (Tales of a Long Night) (1956)
- Die Zeitlupe
- Aufsätze zur Literatur
Further reading
- Oliver Bernhardt: Alfred Döblin. Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, München 2007, ISBN 978-3-423-31086-4.
- Oliver Bernhardt: Alfred Döblin und Thomas Mann. Eine wechselvolle literarische Beziehung. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2007. ISBN 978-3-8260-3669-9.
- Roland Dollinger, Wulf Koepke & Heidi Thomann Tewarson (eds.): A Companion to the Works of Alfred Döblin. Camden House, 2004, ISBN 1-57113-124-8
- Thomas Keil: Alfred Döblins „Unser Dasein“. Quellenphilologische Untersuchungen. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2005
- Paul Lüth (ed.): Alfred Döblin. Zum 70. Geburtstag. Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1948 (Festschrift)
- Burkhard Meyer-Sickendiek: Was ist literarischer Sarkasmus? Ein Beitrag zur deutsch-jüdischen Moderne. Fink Verlag, Paderborn/München 2009.ISBN 3-7705-4411-0
- Gabriele Sander: Alfred Döblin. Reclam, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-15-017632-8
- Wilfried F. Schoeller: Alfred Döblin: Eine Biographie. Carl Hanser Verlag, München 2011, ISBN 3-4462-3769-0
- text + kritik Bd. 13/14: Alfred Döblin. edition text + kritik, München 1972, ISBN 3-921402-81-6
- Roland Links: Alfred Dölbin: Leben und Werk. Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag, 1965.
External links
- Alfred Döblin Society (German)
- Collection of links from Berlin university (German)
- Döblin's Berlin novels
- novel Berlin Alexanderplatz
- Döblin in Southern California
- Döblin links at allLearn.com
- Döblin at kirijasto.sci.fi
- First editions of Döblin’s works (Documentation in German)
- Dr. A. W. Riley fonds (Alfred Döblin scholar) at Queen's University Archives