ERNST TOLLER

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 25, 29 July 1939, Page 7

ERNST TOLLER

PLACE IN THE DRAMA

EXPRESSIONIST WRITER

Ernst Toller, whose death is reported was part of Republican Germany, says the ".Manchester Guardian." Without that Germany he had no real existence. Its finer as well as its weaker aspects were reflected in his personality. He belonged at first to the extreme Left. He played a considerable but amateurish part in the grotesquely amateurish j revolution that established the shorti lived Munich Soviet Government. The venture ended in bloodshed and total defeat. The leaders Eisner and Lanj dauer were murdered. (Landauer | was perhaps the greatest, though his greatness was above all literary. He was a fine Shakespearean scholar and critic). Levine was executed. Toller was arrested and sentenced to five years' imprisonment in a forti'ess. His account of his life in prison was by far the best thing he ever wrote. After his release he devoted himself mainly to letters, especially to the drama, though continuing to take an academic interest in politics. He was in no sense a serious politician but rather a "Schongeist" with humanitarian and romantic ideas about revolution and a weakness for everything Russian. AN EARLY EXPRESSIONIST His importance lies almost exclusively in his plays. He was one of the early Expressionists, of whom the ablest were Kayser, Sorge, and Goering (not to be confused with the Field Marshal). Expressionism—which extended to. painting—was largely a re- | bellion against Impressionism. Like ,so many rebellions, it was based on a i mistaken theory, the theory that the Impressionists, including the great French painters who are classified under that name, conveyed nothing more than their impressions, that is tc say, their sense of outward things, while the Expressionists expressed the soul or the inner nature of things—of trees, animals, landscape, of revolution and social struggle, and of themselves. German Expressionist art was, on the whole, crude and violent, though some of the painting was noteworthy. By far the greatest Expressionist was Toller's fellow playwright, Barlach, who was also a fine draughtsman and a very fine sculptor. He was the profoundest spirit of Republican Germany, a man of transcendent genius, who died only the other day, persecuted and heartbroken, though he never belonged to the Left, but was politically a Conservative. Toller's typically "expressionist" play "Die Wandlung" has some powerful and vivid flashes and a certain macabre quality. It appeared in 1920.. "Masse-Mensch," "Die Maschinenstuermer" (a drama of Luddite England), and "Hinkelmann" had considerable success and were produced by Max Reinhardt. "Masse-Mensch" even had an influence on the Russian stage. VERY MUCH OF THEIR TIME All these plays have begun to "date." They are very much of their time and deserve study by those who wish to understand that time. Republican Germany must always remain incomprehensible without a close appreciation of its tortured and would-be soulful, would-be violent literature. Toller published two volumes of lyrics, "Gedichte der Gefangenen" and "Das Schwalbenbuch." There are one or two rather powerful poems of a realistic nature in the former. In the latter Toller attempts a lyricism of which he is quite incapable. I The National Socialist revolution— j the first genuine revolution he ever i experienced—drove Toller into exile. He devoted himself to humanitarian work, chiefly on behalf of refugees. He became passionately absorbed in the Spanish civil war and worked himself into a state of utter fatigue and nervous exhaustion in the cause of Spanish relief. Those who knew him during the last few years realised that he was a broken man, roving from country to country, in a vain effort to escape from his own life by living for others.