1907-1975, was a Jewish German poet of the Weimar Republic, whose first book, A Secretary’s Helicon, offers a droll, poignant and unrivaled panorama of the time and place, known to most Americans only through the movie Cabaret. She is the supreme exponent in poetry of the “New Objectivity”—a realism that set in after Germany’s defeat in the First World War, followed by the Great Depression and the terrible inflation. Kaléko adopted the socialist realism of the time (exemplified by Brecht and George Grosz) with a lyrical winsomeness. Her Berlin is still a place of magic and hope.

There is no public domain photo of Mascha Kaléko available, accordingly we have reproduced her Berlin memorial plaque, photographed by Doris Anthony who placed it under GFDL and CC-BY-SA-2.5