Career
With Walter Benjamin, he produced a German translation of Marcel Proust"s À la recherche du temps perdu. Hessel was one of the first German exponents of the French idea of flânerie, and later published a collection of essays on the subject related to his native Berlin, "Spazieren in Berlin". He was the father of diplomat Stéphane Hessel.
Hessel was the inspiration for the character of Jules in Henri-Pierre Roche"s novel Jules et Jim.