Ernst Toller

Ernst Toller
President of the Bavarian Soviet Republic
In office 6 April 1919 – 12 April 1919
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Eugen Leviné
Personal details
Born	(1893-12-01)1 December 1893 Samotschin,Posen,Germany
Died	22 May 1939(1939-05-22)(aged 45) New York City, US

Ernst Toller during his imprisonment in theNiederschönenfeldfortress (early 1920s)

Ernst Toller(1 December 1893 – 22 May 1939) was a German author, playwright, left-wing politician and revolutionary, known for hisExpressionistplays. He served in 1919 for six days as President of the short-livedBavarian Soviet Republic,after which he became the head of its army. He was imprisoned for five years for his part in the armed resistance by the Bavarian Soviet Republic to the central government in Berlin. While in prison Toller wrote several plays that gained him international renown. They were performed in London and New York City as well as in Berlin.

In 1933 Toller was exiled from Germany after theNaziscame to power. He did a lecture tour in 1936–1937 in the United States and Canada, settling in California for a while before going to New York. He joined other exiles there. He died by suicide in May 1939.

Life and career

Toller was born in 1893 into a Jewish family inSamotschin,Germany (nowSzamocin,Poland). He was the son of Ida (Kohn) and Max Toller, a pharmacist. His parents ran a general store.

At the outbreak of World War I, he volunteered for the German Army. After serving for 13 months on theWestern Front,he suffered a complete physical and psychological collapse. His first drama,Transformation(Die Wandlung,1919), was wrought from his wartime experiences.

Ernst Toller (center) andMax Weber(foreground, bearded) in May 1917 at the Lauensteiner Tagung

Karlheinz Martin's production ofTransformationin Berlin withFritz Kortneras the war returnee, 30 September 1919

Together with leadinganarchists,such asB. TravenandGustav Landauer,and Toller's party, theIndependent Social Democratic Party of Germany(USPD), Toller was involved in the short-lived 1919Bavarian Soviet Republic.The communists were against the founding of a communist republic at this point.He served as president from 6 April to 12 April.Communists agitated against Toller and his councils and sent speakers into soldiers barracks to announce that the Council Republic did not deserve to be defended.He issued numerous decrees, the press was socialised, the mining industry was socialised, and the eight-hour working day made legally binding. He decreed that citizens could withdraw only 100 marks per day from the banks, and issued reassurance to the workers that these measures were directed against the major capitalists who were attempting to take money abroad. A decree was made against exorbitant rents.His government members were not always well-chosen. For instance, the Foreign Affairs Deputy Dr.Franz Lipp(who had been admitted several times to psychiatric hospitals) informedVladimir Leninvia cable that the ousted former Minister-President,Johannes Hoffmann,had fled toBambergand taken the key to the ministry toilet with him. On April 13, 1919 theCommunist Partyseized power, withEugen Levinéas their leader.In May 1919, the republic was defeated by theFreikorps.

The noted authorsMax WeberandThomas Manntestified on Toller's behalf when he was tried for his part in the revolution. He was sentenced to five years in prison and served his sentence in the prisons ofStadelheim,Neuburg andEichstätt.From February 1920 until his release, he was in the fortress ofNiederschönenfeld,where he spent 149 days insolitary confinementand 24 days onhunger strike.

Toller was unable to see the plays he had written in prison performed until after his release in July 1925. The most famous of his later dramas,Hoppla, We're Alive!(Hoppla, wir Leben!), directed byErwin Piscator,premiered in Berlin in 1925. It tells of a revolutionary discharged from a mental hospital after eight years, who discovers that his former comrades have grown complacent and compromised within the system they once opposed. In despair, he kills himself.

Exile, death and legacy

Two of his early plays were produced in New York in the 1930s:The Machine Wreckers(1922), whose opening night in 1937 he attended, andNo More Peace,produced in 1937 by theFederal Theatre Projectand presented in New York City in 1938. Their sense of immediacy was gone: the first play was related to the First World War and its aftermath, and the second an earlier period of the rise of the Nazis. Their style was outmoded for New York, and the poor reception added to Toller's discouragement.

Suffering fromdepression,separated from his wife and struggling with financial woes (he had given all his money toSpanish Civil Warrefugees), Toller committedsuicideon 22 May 1939.He hanged himself in his roomat theMayflower Hotel,after laying out on his hotel desk "photos of Spanish children who had been killed by fascist bombs".

The English authorRobert Payne,who knew Toller in Spain and in Paris, later wrote in his diary that Toller had said shortly before his death:

"If ever you read that I committed suicide, I beg you not to believe it." Payne continued: "He hanged himself with the silk cord of his nightgown in a hotel in New York two years ago. This is what the newspapers said at the time, but I continue to believe that he was murdered".

W. H. Auden's poem "In Memory of Ernst Toller" was published inAnother Time(1940).

Works

Poster for theFederal Theatre Projectproduction ofNo More Peacein Cincinnati, Ohio (1937)

• Transfiguration(Die Wandlung) (1919)
• Masses Man(Masse Mensch) (1921)
• The Machine Wreckers(Die Maschinenstürmer) (1922)
• Hinkemann(org. Der deutsche Hinkemann), Uraufführung (19 September 1923) Produced under titles ofThe Red LaughandBloody Laughter(US). Issued in England by the Nonesuch Press in 1926 under the titleBrokenbrowwith a translation by Vera Mendel.
• Hoppla, We're Alive!(Hoppla, wir leben!) (1927)
• Feuer aus den Kesseln(1930)
• Mary Baker Eddy(1930), play in five acts, with Hermann Kesten

After exile:

• Eine Jugend in Deutschland(A Youth in Germany) (1933),autobiography,Amsterdam
• I Was a German: The Autobiography of a Revolutionary(1934), New York: Paragon
• Nie Wieder Friede!(No More Peace) (1935)First published and produced in English, as he was living in London, but it was written originally in German.
• Briefe aus dem Gefängnis(1935) (Letters from Prison), Amsterdam
• Letters from Prison: Including Poems and a New Version of 'The Swallow Book'(1936), London

In 2000, Alan Pearlman published his translation into English of several of Toller's plays.The literary rights to the works of Ernst Toller were the property of the novelistKatharine Weberuntil the copyright expired on 31 December 2009. His works have now entered the public domain.

The most recent comprehensive biography of Toller is by Robert Ellis, "Ernst Toller and German Society. Intellectuals as Leaders and Critics" Fairleigh Dickison University Press, 2013.

Influence

• The English dramatistTorben Bettshas reworkedHinkemann;his playBrokenwas produced in the UK in 2011.
• Toller was a central character in theMiles Franklin Award-winning novelAll That I AmbyAnna Funder.
• Paul Schrader's 2017 filmFirst Reformedcenters on a troubled, although Protestant, character named for Toller.
• A poem ofMiklos Radnoti(Radnóti Miklós) Hungarian poet, writer and translator was published as "Thursday" (Hungarian title: Csütörtök) on 26 May 1939.
• Tolleris a play byTankred Dorstthat explores the political situation in Germany during the Weimar Republic through the story of Ernst Toller, an inexperienced political leader who clashes with the communistLeviné,and raises questions about the impact of political ideals and activism during times of political oppression and violence.
• Rotmordis a film about Toller and the Munich Soviet Republic directed byPeter Zadek,which won the Prix Italia in 1969 and the Adolf-Grimme-Preis with Gold in 1970

Sources

• Tankred Dorst(1968).Toller(suhrkamp ed.). Suhrkamp Verlag.ISBN3-518-10294-X.
• Dove, Richard (1990).He was a German: A Biography of Ernst Toller.Libris, London.ISBN1-870352-85-8.
• Fuld, Werner; Ostermaier(Hrsg.), Albert (1996).Die Göttin und ihr Sozialist: Gristiane Grauthoff - ihr Leben mit Ernst Toller.Weidle Verlag, Bonn.ISBN3-931135-18-7.
• Ossar, Michael (1980).Anarchism in the Dramas of Ernst Toller: The Realm of Necessity and the Realm of Freedom.State University of New York Press, Albany.ISBN0873953932.
• Mauthner, Martin (2007).German Writers in French Exile, 1933-1940.London.ISBN978-0853035411.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Ellis, Robert; Toller and, Ernst; German Society (2013).Intellectuals as Leaders and Critics, 1914-1939.Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.

Further reading

• Ellis, Robert (10 June 2013).Ernst Toller and German Society: Intellectuals as Leaders and Critics, 1914–1939.Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.ISBN9781611476361....it is Toller the social critic rather than Toller the dramatist with which this book is concerned, his ideas, his visions for Germany and Europe as transmitted in his works of fiction and prose.(Ebook)
• "The Society: About us".Ernst-Toller-Gesellschaft e.V. Neuburg an der Donau.(Ernst Toller Society)
• Henry Toller Collectionat theHarry Ransom Center
• "Collection: Ernst Toller papers".Archives at Yale (MS 498).
• "Archive for the 'Ernst Toller' Category".Red Yucca.18 December 2010.
• Works by Ernst TolleratFaded Page(Canada) (Online version ofEine Jugend in Deutschland)
• Ernst TollerUniversitätsbibliothek der FU Berlin (archived link containing many links to other sites and works about Toller)
• Ernst TolleratFind a Grave
• Newspaper clippings about Ernst Tollerin the20th Century Press Archivesof theZBW