Richard Fedor Leopold Dehmel (; 18 November 1863 – 8 February 1920) was a German poet and writer.
Life
A forester's son, Richard Dehmel was born in Hermsdorf near Wendisch Buchholz (now part of Münchehofe) in the Brandenburg Province, Kingdom of Prussia.
He got his first impressions of nature wandering the oak forests tended by his father, and first attended school in his hometown. He then attended the Sophiengymnasium (a Berlin gymnasium) yet was expelled after clashing with the headteacher. He finished his school days in Danzig (today Gdańsk, Poland) and subsequently studied the natural sciences, economics, literature, and philosophy, first at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin and then at Leipzig University, where he obtained a doctorate in economics with a thesis on the insurance industry. He then worked as a secretary at a fire insurance association, and remained in this position until, after the publication of his second volume of poetry, he turned full-time writer. Despite being acquitted on technical grounds, the court condemned the work as obscene and blasphemous and ordered that it be burned. Dehmel would again be prosecuted for obscenity and blasphemy, but again acquitted as earlier.
thumb|left|[[Minya Diez-Dührkoop (1916) Richard Dehmel as a soldier in World War 1]]Dehmel was a champion of the rights of workers.