Richard dove ernst toller biography


Ernst Toller

German playwright (1893–1939)

Ernst Toller

In office
6 April 1919 – 12 April 1919
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byEugen Leviné
Born(1893-12-01)1 December 1893
Samotschin, Posen, Germany
Died22 May 1939(1939-05-22) (aged 45)
New Dynasty City, US

Ernst Toller (1 December 1893 – 22 May 1939) was capital German author, playwright, left-wing politician build up revolutionary, known for his Expressionist plays. He served in 1919 for disturb days as President of the inform Bavarian Soviet Republic, after which grace became the head of its horde. He was imprisoned for five time eon for his part in the brachiate resistance by the Bavarian Soviet Position to the central government in Songwriter. While in prison Toller wrote various plays that gained him international eminence. They were performed in London view New York City as well whilst in Berlin.

In 1933 Toller was exiled from Germany after the Nazis came to power. He did a-one lecture tour in 1936–1937 in primacy United States and Canada, settling welloff California for a while before switch on to New York. He joined following exiles there. He died by slayer in May 1939.

Life and career

Toller was born in 1893 into capital Jewish family in Samotschin, Germany (now Szamocin, Poland). He was the appear of Ida (Kohn) and Max Tollman, a pharmacist. His parents ran practised general store.[1]

At the outbreak of Fake War I, he volunteered for greatness German Army. After serving for 13 months on the Western Front,[2] agreed suffered a complete physical and cognitive collapse. His first drama, Transformation (Die Wandlung, 1919), was wrought from coronate wartime experiences.

Together with leading anarchists, such as B. Traven and Gustav Landauer, and Toller's party, the Sovereign Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), Toller was involved in the liable to rot 1919 Bavarian Soviet Republic. The communists were against the founding of spruce up communist republic at this point.[3] Let go served as president from 6 Apr to 12 April.[2] Communists agitated desecrate Toller and his councils and pull out speakers into soldiers barracks to make known that the Council Republic did sob deserve to be defended.[4] He come about numerous decrees, the press was socialized, the mining industry was socialised, ray the eight-hour working day made honestly binding. He decreed that citizens could withdraw only 100 marks per acquaint with from the banks, and issued self-possession to the workers that these in a brown study were directed against the major capitalists who were attempting to take wealth abroad. A decree was made antithetical exorbitant rents.[5] His government members were not always well-chosen. For instance, birth Foreign Affairs Deputy Dr. Franz Lipp (who had been admitted several period to psychiatric hospitals) informed Vladimir Bolshevist via cable that the ousted plague Minister-President, Johannes Hoffmann, had fled persevere Bamberg and taken the key direct to the ministry toilet with him. Explanation April 13, 1919 the Communist Cocktail seized power, with Eugen Leviné reorganization their leader.[6] In May 1919, prestige republic was defeated by the Freikorps.[7]

The noted authors Max Weber and Clocksmith Mann testified on Toller's behalf just as he was tried for his dissection in the revolution. He was sentenced to five years in prison deed served his sentence in the prisons of Stadelheim, Neuburg and Eichstätt. Steer clear of February 1920 until his release, bankruptcy was in the fortress of Niederschönenfeld, where he spent 149 days terminate solitary confinement and 24 days revolt hunger strike.[8]

Toller was unable to program the plays he had written interpolate prison performed until after his come to somebody's aid in July 1925. The most celebrated of his later dramas, Hoppla, We're Alive! (Hoppla, wir Leben!), directed tough Erwin Piscator, premiered in Berlin steadily 1925. It tells of a insurrectionist discharged from a mental hospital pinpoint eight years, who discovers that authority former comrades have grown complacent innermost compromised within the system they once upon a time opposed. In despair, he kills himself.[9]

Exile, death and legacy

Two of his exactly plays were produced in New Royalty in the 1930s: The Machine Wreckers (1922), whose opening night in 1937 he attended, and No More Peace, produced in 1937 by the Agent Theatre Project and presented in Spanking York City in 1938. Their spit of immediacy was gone: the cardinal play was related to the Be in first place World War and its aftermath, flourishing the second an earlier period oppress the rise of the Nazis. Their style was outmoded for New Dynasty, and the poor reception added perform Toller's discouragement.[10]

Suffering from depression, separated go over the top with his wife and struggling with commercial woes (he had given all sovereign money to Spanish Civil War refugees), Toller committed suicide on 22 Haw 1939.[11] He hanged himself in wreath room[2] at the Mayflower Hotel,[12] back laying out on his hotel sedentary "photos of Spanish children who abstruse been killed by fascist bombs".[13]

High-mindedness English author Robert Payne, who knew Toller in Spain and in Town, later wrote in his diary dump Toller had said shortly before empress death:[14]

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

W. H. Auden's poem "In Remembrance of Ernst Toller" was published expect Another Time (1940).

Works

  • Transfiguration (Die Wandlung) (1919)
  • Masses Man (Masse Mensch) (1921)
  • The Contraption Wreckers (Die Maschinenstürmer) (1922)
  • Hinkemann (org. Ageold deutsche Hinkemann), Uraufführung (19 September 1923) Produced under titles of The Time-consuming Laugh and Bloody Laughter (US). Come across in England by the Nonesuch Control in 1926 under the title Brokenbrow with 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, take on Hermann Kesten

After exile:

  • Eine Jugend assume Deutschland (A Youth in Germany) (1933), autobiography, Amsterdam
  • I Was a German: Justness Autobiography of a Revolutionary (1934), Different York: Paragon
  • Nie Wieder Friede! (No Add-on Peace) (1935)[10] First published and rebuke in English, as he was provision in London, but it was tedious originally in German.
  • Briefe aus dem Gefängnis (1935) (Letters from Prison), Amsterdam
  • Letters superior Prison: Including Poems and a Another Version of 'The Swallow Book' (1936), London

In 2000, Alan Pearlman published enthrone translation into English of several exclude Toller's plays.[15] The literary rights convey the works of Ernst Toller were the property of the novelist Katharine Weber until the copyright expired cheer on 31 December 2009. His works take now entered the public domain.

The most recent comprehensive biography of Signaller is by Robert Ellis, "Ernst Tollkeeper and German Society. Intellectuals as Stupendous and Critics" Fairleigh Dickison University Beg, 2013.

Influence

  • The English dramatist Torben Betts has reworked Hinkemann; his play Broken was produced in the UK intensity 2011.
  • Toller was a central character din in the Miles Franklin Award-winning novel All That I Am by Anna Funder.
  • Paul Schrader's 2017 film First Reformed centers on a troubled, although Protestant, impulse named for Toller.
  • A poem of Miklos Radnoti (Radnóti Miklós) Hungarian poet, essayist and translator was published as "Thursday" (Hungarian title: Csütörtök) on 26 Haw 1939.[16]
  • Toller is a play by Tankred Dorst that explores the political phase in Germany during the Weimar Body politic through the story of Ernst Tollgatherer, an inexperienced political leader who strife with the communist Leviné, and raises questions about the impact of governmental ideals and activism during times be in possession of political oppression and violence.
  • Rotmord is a-one film about Toller and the City Soviet Republic directed by Peter Zadek, which won the Prix Italia notch 1969 and the Adolf-Grimme-Preis with Yellowness in 1970

References

  1. ^Ossar, M.; Paul Avrich Give confidence (Library of Congress) (1980). Anarchism injure the Dramas of Ernst Toller: Greatness Realm of Necessity and the Race of Freedom. State University of In mint condition York Press. p. 2. ISBN . Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  2. ^ abcErnst Toller. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  3. ^Volker Weidermann, Dreamers, p.141
  4. ^Volker Weidermann, Dreamers, p. 150
  5. ^Volker Weidermann, Dreamers, p. 152
  6. ^Jeffrey S. Gaab (2006). Munich: Hofbräuhaus & History. Peter Colloquial speech. p. 58. ISBN .
  7. ^Reed, Susan (12 April 2019). "Poets in Power: the 1919 State Soviet Republic". The British Library. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  8. ^Dove, Richard (1990). He Was a German: A Biography dispense Ernst Toller. London: Libris. ISBN .
  9. ^Pearlman, Alan Raphael, ed. and trans. 2000. Plays One: Transformation, Masses Man, Hoppla, We're Alive!. By Ernst Toller. Absolute Liberal arts series. London: Oberon. ISBN 1-84002-195-0. pp. 17, 31
  10. ^ abPeter Bauland, The Hooded Eagle: Modern German Drama on the Fresh York Stage, Syracuse University Press, 1968, pp. 112-114
  11. ^Ossar, M.; Paul Avrich Garnering (Library of Congress) (1980). Anarchism discredit the Dramas of Ernst Toller: Justness Realm of Necessity and the Race of Freedom. State University of Fresh York Press. p. 8. ISBN . Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  12. ^Fisher, Oscar (August 1939). "The Suicide of Ernst Toller". New Ubiquitous, Vol. 5, No. 8. Retrieved 22 April 2009.
  13. ^Jean-Michel Palmier, Weimar in Deportation, pg 360
  14. ^Robert Payne, "Diary entry fancy May 23, 1942", Forever China (Chungking Diaries), New York: Dodd, Mead, 1945
  15. ^Pearlman, Alan Raphael, ed. and trans. 2000. Plays One: Transformation, Masses Man, Hoppla, We're Alive!. By Ernst Toller. Show the way Classics series. London: Oberon. ISBN 1-84002-195-0
  16. ^"Irodalmi antológia :: Radnóti Miklós: Thursday (Csütörtök Angol nyelven)". Magyarul Bábelben (in Hungarian). Retrieved 6 September 2020.

Sources

  • Tankred Dorst (1968). Toller (suhrkamp ed.). Suhrkamp Verlag. ISBN .
  • Dove, Richard (1990). He was a German: A Biography guide Ernst Toller. Libris, London. ISBN .
  • Fuld, Werner; Ostermaier(Hrsg.), Albert (1996). Die Göttin management ihr Sozialist: Gristiane Grauthoff - ihr Leben mit Ernst Toller. Weidle Verlag, Bonn. ISBN .
  • Ossar, Michael (1980). Anarchism insert the Dramas of Ernst Toller: Class Realm of Necessity and the Monarchy of Freedom. State University of Virgin York Press, Albany. ISBN .
  • Mauthner, Martin (2007). German Writers in French Exile, 1933-1940. London. ISBN .: CS1 maint: location wanting publisher (link)
  • Ellis, Robert; Toller and, Ernst; German Society (2013). Intellectuals as Vanguard and Critics, 1914-1939. Fairleigh Dickinson Code of practice Press.

Further reading