Ernst Toller

Born in 1893 in what was then Samotschin, Germany, Ernst Toller became one of the best-known voices of German Expressionist drama. He served in World War I, and the shock of that experience helped shape the antiwar and deeply human concerns that run through his writing.

Toller was also closely involved in revolutionary politics after the war, especially during the brief Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919. He was imprisoned for several years, and during that time he wrote some of his most important plays, including works that brought him wide attention on the German stage.

After the Nazis rose to power, he lived in exile and continued to write and speak out against fascism and war. He died in 1939 in New York City, leaving behind plays, poems, and prose that connect political crisis with personal conscience in a direct and moving way.