Hinkemann
The expressionist drama Hinkemann is a tragedy in three acts by the writer Ernst Toller . Hinkemann was created in 1921/22 in the fortress prison Niederschönenfeld , where Ernst Toller was imprisoned from 1920 to 1924.
The tragedy was published in 1923 under the title Der deutsche Hinkemann . The first performance of the homecoming piece took place on September 19, 1923 at the Old Theater in Leipzig under the direction of Alwin Kronacher . The performances in Berlin and Vienna in the following year took place under police protection, since those in Dresden had been disrupted by the National Socialists in January 1924 .
In the Residenz Theater in Berlin, the actor Heinrich George played the role of the title hero Eugen Hinkemann.
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"[...] we have recognized that two kinds of need are pressing: the need that is given by human life and the need that is given by the injustice of the social system." (Ernst Toller)
Hinkemann is about the '[...] need that is given by human life [...].'
The tragedy that plays in Germany of 1921, tells the story of the maimed war returnees Eugen Hinkemann. During the First World War his genitals were shot away.
Hinkemann is married . Grete, Hinkemann's wife, cheats on him with his friend, Paul Großhahn. She is expecting a child from Großhahn.
Hinkemann earns his living on the fairground . In a show booth he appears as a homunculus . In front of the audience, Hinkemann bites the throats of rats and mice .
Grete and Paul Großhahn happened to witness the performance, whereupon Großhahn mocked Hinkemann. Grete, on the other hand, has pity and decides to leave Großhahn.
"How did I act on the man! What could he do for the shot [...]" , she says.
Grete wants to return to Hinkemann, but is rejected by Hinkemann. In desperation, she throws herself to death.
The tragedy ends with Hinkemann's words:
“She was healthy and tore the net. And I'm still here ... I'm standing here, colossal and ridiculous ... People will always be in their time like me. But why does it hit me, especially me? ... It hits randomly. It hits him and it hits him. It doesn't hit them and it doesn't hit them ... What do we know? ... How from? ... Where to? ... Every day can bring paradise, every night the flood. "
literature
- Ernst Toller. Prose, letters, dramas, poems , with a foreword by Kurt Hiller , Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH , Reinbek near Hamburg 1979.
- Ernst Toller. Quer durch, travel pictures and speeches , reprint with a foreword by Stephan Reinhardt , Das Wunderhorn , Heidelberg 1978.
- Ernst Toller. Collected works , Volumes 1 to 6, edited by John M. Spalek and Wolfgang Frühwald , Gutenberg Book Guild , Berlin (West) 1978.
Web links
- Hellmuth Karasek : Vom Hinkemann zum Nusser , Der Spiegel , accessed on February 23, 2017.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ernst Toller. Quer durch, travel pictures and speeches, reprint with a foreword by Stephan Reinhardt, Verlag Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 1978, p. 284 .
- ↑ Ernst Toller. Prose, letters, dramas, poems, with a foreword by Kurt Hiller, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1979, p. 246 .
- ↑ Ernst Toller. Prose, letters, dramas, poems, with a foreword by Kurt Hiller, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1979, p. 273 .