The German philosopher Max Stirner (1806-1856) had considerable international influence as the outstanding German "theoretician of anarchism."

Max Stirner, whose real name was Johann Caspar Schmidt, was born on Oct. 25, 1806, in Bayreuth. After studying theology and philology in Berlin, Erlangen, and Königsberg, he returned to Berlin, where he spent practically the rest of his life. He taught at a private girls' school until he married a wealthy woman whose money he used partly to write his magnum opus, Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (1844; The Ego and His Own), and partly to speculate in the milk business. The latter activity resulted in his imprisonment for unpaid debts, and his wife became disillusioned with him and left him. He died from the bite of a poisonous fly on June 26, 1856.

Stirner's philosophy maintained that only the individual counted: He was the center of the world, and his thoughts and...