This German writer was born in Gelnhausen and is known especially for his picaresque novel Simplicissimus. He led an adventurous life, fought in the Thirty Years War and was a judge in Renchen, Baden-Württemberg from 1667 to 1676. Towards the end of his life he converted from Protestantism to Catholicism.

He wrote several picaresque novels, among which the most famous would have to be The Adventurous Simplicissimus (1669), one of the most important German novels of the 17th Century. In the story readers get an insight into the adventures of a naive youth who is a soldier, jester, thief, slave and hermit. The work builds a true representation of the social and economic conditions created by the European war.