Chamisso

This stop in Berlin belongs to Adelbert von Chamisso, a poet and scientist who moved between literature and science. Born in France in 1781, he came to Berlin with his family as they fled the French Revolution. The city then shaped everything that came after him. He rose to prominence in the German Romantic movement and spent his later years as curator of the Berlin Botanical Gardens.

His literary fame rests on Peter Schlemihl's Remarkable Story, the tale of a man who sells his shadow to the devil. Its Faustian theme reflects his own sense of displacement between two cultures. Botany held the other half of his working life. Between 1815 and 1818 he sailed on the Russian ship Rurik, documenting plant and animal species along the way. On that voyage he named the California poppy Eschscholzia californica, and his expedition diary remains a classic of scientific literature.

His translations and original works pushed political themes into German poetry, influencing the political poets of the 1840s. The spot is wheelchair accessible, so you can follow his story without barriers. One detail outlasts the rest: the poet who wrote about a man selling his shadow also discovered the metagenesis of mollusks.