Tomb of Heinrich Heine

The tomb of the German poet Heinrich Heine rests here in the Montmartre Cemetery, a place he chose as his final home after living in exile in Paris for over twenty-five years. Heine fled his native country to escape censorship, nationalism, and antisemitism, eventually becoming a celebrated voice for liberal and cosmopolitan values in his adopted city. Despite his fame as a leading figure of German Romanticism, he spent the final eight years of his life bedridden in a small apartment, a period of profound physical suffering he bitterly and famously referred to as his mattress grave.