Ernst Toller
Ernst Toller Ernst Toller (back) and Max Weber (front, bearded) in May 1917 at the Lauensteiner Tagung Born (1893-12-01)December 1, 1893 Samotschin, Posen, Germany Died May 22, 1939(1939-05-22) (aged 45) New York City, United States Nationality Germany Ernst Toller (1 December 1893 – 22 May 1939) was a German left-wing playwright, best known for his Expressionist plays. He served in 1919 for six days as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, and was imprisoned for five years for his actions. He wrote several plays and poetry during that period, which gained him international renown. They were performed in London and New York as well as Berlin. In 2000, several of his plays were published in an English translation. The most recent biography about Toller is the well written study by Robert Ellis: Ernst Toller and German Society: Intellectuals as Leaders and Critics (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). In 1933 Toller was exiled from Germany after the Nazis came 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. Struggling financially and depressed at learning his brother and sister had been sent to a concentration camp in Germany, he committed suicide in May 1939.