A German pedagogue and researcher, born in Kassel, Germany. Following the end of WWII, he relocated to Switzerland, where aid organizations looked after the refugees and gave them books. He and his family returned to France years later, at which point he obtained French citizenship. He established a drawing area while working at a Parisian war orphanage. He increased the scope of his work and opened a children's workshop in Paris in the 1950s. He appeared as himself in Être et devenir (2014).