Alfred Döblin Alfred Döblin, one of the great figures of German modernism, was born in 1878 to a Jewish family. He moved to Berlin at the age of ten, where he remained for the next 45 years. Döblin's 1929 masterpiece Berlin Alexanderplatz made him faous, but he was forced to flee to France and then Los Angeles during the years of the Nazi dictatorship. He died in 1957. Read More Read Less