Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen

Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1621/22–1676) was a German novelist of the Thirty Years' War. Born at Gelnhausen, he was about ten when Hessian soldiers seized him; he grew up amid its armies, enlisted in the Imperial forces in 1639 and later worked as a regimental clerk.

At the war's close he entered the service of the bishop of Strasbourg. In 1665 he became magistrate at Renchen, where he turned to writing. His picaresque novel Simplicius Simplicissimus, published in 1669, drew on his wartime experiences and became the age's most famous German novel. He died at Renchen in 1676.