You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Wilhelm Schäfer (Schriftsteller)]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Wilhelm Schäfer (Schriftsteller)}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Wilhelm Schäfer (20 January 1868 – 19 January 1952) was a German writer.

Born in Ottrau (Hesse), until 1896 Schäfer was a school teacher. He gained a scholarship to study in Switzerland and France through the Cotta-Verlag publishing house, and in 1898 became a freelance writer in Berlin. He lived in Vallendar from 1900 to 1915, and from 1918 until his death in 1952, he lived in Bodman on the Bodensee.

His work (drama, novels, and short prose pieces) were naturalist in style and marked with "völkisch" and national elements. In 1930 he published a novel about the shoe-maker Wilhelm Voigt with the title Der Hauptmann von Köpenick.

From 1900 to 1920, he published the magazine Die Rheinlande. His early work was especially influenced by naturalism. Important novellas were "Die unterbrochene Rheinfahrt" (1913) und "Hölderlins Einkehr" (1925). Schäfer's folksy language and mystification of the "German soul" made his work popular with the Nazis.

• 1941 Goethepreis der Stadt Frankfurt
• 1948 Honorary citizen of Bodman

• Sabine Brenner: "Wir ungereimten Rheinländer wollen es wieder richtig machen". Wilhelm Schäfer und die Kulturzeitschrift "Die Rheinlande". In: "Ganges Europas, heiliger Strom!" Der literarische Rhein (1900-1933), hrsg. v. Sabine Brenner. Düsseldorf 2001. (= Veröffentlichungen des Heinrich-Heine-Instituts Düsseldorf). S. 47-74. ISBN 3-7700-1141-4
• Mechthild Curtius: Über die Möglichkeiten und Schwierigkeiten, sich einem Heimatdichter filmisch zu nähern. Essay über den rheinischen Schriftsteller Wilhelm Schäfer. In: Literatur in Westfalen. 7 (2004) S. 397-412.
• Conrad Höfer: Wilhelm Schäfer. Bibliographie. Berlin: Privatdr. bei Steinkopf 1937-1943.
• Hans Lorenzen: Typen deutscher Anekdotenerzählung (Kleist - Hebel - Schäfer). Hamburg: Univ. Diss. 1935.
• Maik Irmisch: Kapitel "Greither und Wilhelm Schäfer" in "Aloys Greither - Hautarzt zwischen Mozart, Hesse, Dix und Scharl" Norderstedt: Books on Demand, 2006 ISBN 3-8334-4909-8
• Wilhelm Schäfer. Zu seinem 50. Geburtstag, hrsg. v. Karl Röttger. München: Müller 1918.
• Bekenntnis zu Wilhelm Schäfer. Zum 60. Geburtstag des Dichters am 20. Januar 1928, hrsg. v. Otto Doderer. München: Müller 1928.
• Franz Stuckert: Wilhelm Schäfer. Ein Volksdichter unserer Zeit. München: Langen/Müller 1935.