Helmut von den Steinen was born in 1890 in Germany and died on Rhodes (Greece) in 1956. He was an essayist, literary translator and professor of German language and literature at the University of Athens. He also used the pen name Erich Weimar. He studied Sociology and Classics in Heidelberg (Germany) and later joined the circles of poets, philosophers, playwrights etc. He was very active in the public sphere during the Weimar Republic. He lived outside Germany during the Nazi period. He published, inter alia, German translations of Cavafy’s and Kazantzakis’s work.