Toller, Ernst

Toller, Ernst (1893-1939), German playwright, born in Samotschin (now Szamocin, Poland), and educated at the universities of Heidelberg and Munich. After World War I he became a political activist. From 1919 to 1924 he was imprisoned for participating in the 1919 Communist uprising in Bavaria. After being forced by the Nazi regime to leave Germany in 1933, Toller lived mostly in the United States, where he committed suicide in 1939. He wrote plays of social protest in the style of German Expressionism; his most successful, Masse-Mensch (1920; Man and the Masses, 1924), was produced throughout Europe and the United States. Other plays include Brokenbow (1924; trans. 1926), Hoppla! Wir leben! (1927; trans. 1928), and Pastor Hall (1939).