Hermann Hesse (1927) Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) became a committed and outspoken pacifist during World War I. As a result, he was harshly criticized in the conservative and right-wing press. His books, which focused on spirituality and self-fulfillment rather than politics, met with general critical acclaim and remain popular to this day. This photograph shows Hesse at age fifty, the year one of his most successful books, Steppenwolf [Der Steppenwolf], was published. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946.