Toller (Tankred Dorst)

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Toller is a staged revue by Tankred Dorst , which premiered on November 9, 1968 under the direction of Peter Palitzsch in the Small House of the Württemberg State Theater in Stuttgart . Peter Roggisch took on the title role .

The German Empire no longer exists after the lost war . In 1919, Reich President Ebert had the Munich Soviet Republic put down by Reich Defense Minister Noske .

Overview

With his 1964–1968 play “Toller. Scenes from a German Revolution ”, Tankred Dorst went from the parable of his“ Early Pieces ”to an“ open form ”with a“ fragmented variety of scenes ”. Tankred Dorst confesses that he initially wrote “scenes without a dramaturgical connection” and that he deliberately separated the connections that emerged afterwards. The revue-like form - Knapp speaks of a revolutionary panopticon - enables the respective director to stage the scenes at hand with a certain degree of freedom.

In the first half of the play, the title character, the politically inexperienced "naive idealist" Ernst Toller , chairman of the Bavarian USPD , deals with the professional revolutionary and communist Leviné . It turns out that Toller - “Chairman of the Central Council of the Soviet Republic of Bavaria” - did not finish anything: neither “ disarmed the bourgeoisie ” nor “ expropriated the big landowners ”, nationalized the press, lifted banking secrecy, and raised workers' wages. Noske's Colonel Epp has an easy job.

The members of the Soviet republic from the Munich workforce are shot. Leviné and Toller are put to trial. The Russian communist is executed; Toller gets away with five years of imprisonment - perhaps thanks to a pardon signed by Thomas Mann , Max Halbe , Carl Hauptmann and Björnson . Toller was still reading from his memoirs to American women in 1939 - before his suicide in New York.

Parties

In the play socialists, communists , anarchists , the Reichswehr , a Munich nobleman and Munich citizen are presented to the audience . Among the socialists who are titled the Independents in the play (USPD see above), in addition to Toller, there are also Dr. Lipp , Maenner and Sontheimer . The outstanding communist in the play is the alien Leviné. Apart from Reichert, only three nameless communist workers appear briefly who consider the “proclamation of a Soviet republic in Bavaria” to be premature. Erich Mühsam and Gustav Landauer emerge as anarchists . The Reichswehr Generals Möhl and Oven send Colonel Epp into the field.

content

At the beginning of the play, a number of declarations of principle are read out at a constituent meeting of the “provisional Central Council” on April 6, 1919 in the Wittelsbach Palace. Landauer, for example, breaks with the SPD- led Berlin government because it is "reactionary". Landauer also rejects the communists. Marx did not discover the “mechanism of history”, but invented it. He calls Marxism a "systematic stupidity". The world revolution can be celebrated with difficulty . Toller doesn't want to know anything about the SPD either. In the battle for posts, the anarchist Mühsam proposes himself as foreign minister. Toller makes his first mistake in the piece. He brings his opponent, Dr. Lipp through. After the new foreign minister made a fool of himself with a telegram to the Pope, Toller had to admit that Lipp belonged "in the trap". That’s what happens.

Toller makes Landauer Minister of Education. In return, Toller von Landauer is proposed as chairman of the Soviet republic. Toller reacts sensibly. On the one hand, he says, he lacks experience. It is important to act quickly. On the other hand, he doesn't want to be seen as a fool either and turns against the realpoliticians who killed Eisner . "Now it's our turn," he encourages himself.

Leviné talks to Toller about an idea that he learned from the mouth of Mühsams. It would be best if the communists liquidated the Soviet republic and arrested Toller. Toller is not a bit surprised at Mühsam's view. Toller must have worried a little. In the next conversation he dominates the mocking Labor: “I'm done with you! You're a pig!"

Laboriously mocks him when men tear him out of his sleep early in the morning and drag him away under the leadership of a lieutenant. It is getting serious. Noske's military is already in front of Dachau . In the hour of probation, Leviné wants to take the lead. He calls Chairman Toller a sensitive student and fresh-baked pacifist ; wants to have it - in Soviet fashion - put on the wall. The workers do not participate. At least Toller is arrested and interrogated by Leviné in the Mathäser basement . The Russian revolutionary demands communist thinking from Toller, because it is not enough to propagate socialism.

Leviné closes the university . For the next fall semester he has chosen dialectical materialism as a subject .

On the opposing side, the Reichswehr comes to the point. Colonel Epp presented his campaign plan to the generals in a matter-of-fact, dry manner and concluded: "Gentlemen, have you ever been defeated by a poet?"

Now follows in quick succession. Leviné fails to flee to Switzerland decided by the party. Landauer is mistreated, humiliated and shot by the Reichswehr. The frightened Toller finds refuge as a failed revolutionary on the run with a jovial member of the Munich aristocracy. The masquerade of the very nervous young poet - he has disguised himself - is smiled at in a good-natured and pitying manner. The nobleman, on the other hand, has respect for the steadfast Leviné, who preached to his judges about the world revolution in his last speech before the execution. Toller unmasked, leaves the safe house confused and is arrested.

Even the lesser-known members of the Soviet Republic have absolutely no support from the population. When captured workers are being taken away, the attitude of the citizens of Munich is clearly shown without exception. A woman from above calls out: “Yes, that was a riot!” And a man: “I saw it! How he shot! "And another man:" That was it! "

shape

The more sensitive viewer sometimes looks away. Dr. Lipp eats feces in the insane asylum.

Dorst's stage directions sometimes sound funny. When the end of the abstruse Soviet republic draws near on original German soil, it is said: “Shots. Great, hands over your head, runs across the stage. "

It fits, the whole deadly serious, deadly sad piece gives the viewer a strange cheerfulness that can only be suppressed with difficulty. Because the protagonists of the Soviet republic are sometimes portrayed as mad by Dorst. Reports on the locked up Toller also go in this direction. For example , the university professor Max Weber , who is so much admired by Toller, sums it up: "God made him [Toller] a politician in anger."

Productions

With the play, the author became internationally known; see for example

radio play

reception

  • In Barner's literary history, the work is included in the numerous revolutionary dramas of the 1960s. The unbridgeable distance between Toller and the revolutionary Munich workers is clearly emphasized. Tankred Dorst wanted to portray the complex relationship between politics and literature - Barner speaks of Toller as the "smear actor of the revolution". Hein's “ Lassalle asks Mr. Herbert about Sonja ” could be understood as the counterpart to the work.
  • Further investigations can be found in Rainer Taëni (1974 and 1977), William H. Rey (1975), Klaus Harro Hilzinger (Diss. 1976 Tübingen), Frank Trommler (1981), Monika Schattenhofer (Diss. Hamburg 1982), Gerhard P. Knapp (1986) and Paul Hoser (1999).

filming

On April 21, 1969, the ARD broadcast the WDR television film - titled "Rotmord" - by Tankred Dorst, Peter Zadek and Wilfried Minks with Gerd Baltus as Ernst Toller, Siegfried Wischnewski as Eugen Leviné, Werner Dahms as Gustav Landauer, Walter Riss as Dr . Lipp, Wolfgang Neuss as Erich Mühsam, Gernot Duda as Paulukum, Willy Schultes as Gandorfer, Harry Wüstenhagen as Reichert, Rudolf Forster as the noble gentleman, Helmuth Hinzelmann as Friedrich Ebert, Hans Ulrich as Gustav Noske and Rolf Badenhausen as Prof. Max Weber.

literature

  • Great. Frankfurt am Main 1968, edition suhrkamp, ​​volume 294

Used edition

Secondary literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Reichert (Dorst presumably means Wilhelm Reichart from the KPD (see also Munich Councilor Republic )) from the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council , Gandorfer from the Bauernbund and comrades Schmidt and Schiefer as trade unionists (edition used, p. 9). The line worker Paulukum (French: Gustav Paulukum ) takes over the transport department in the council government (edition used, p. 15 above).
  2. ^ The Soviet republic had been proclaimed against the SPD government by Hoffmann .

Individual evidence

Partly in French and Dutch

  1. ^ Günther Erken at Arnold, p. 86, left column, 2nd entry
  2. ↑ Tankred Dorst: Early Pieces. Edition 1986
  3. ↑ Wend Kässens in Arnold, p. 41 middle and p. 42, 1. Zvo
  4. ↑ Tankred Dorst in the edition used, p. 111 middle
  5. ^ Gerhard P. Knapp quoted by Erken in Arnold, p. 94, right column, last entry
  6. ↑ Tankred Dorst in the edition used, p. 111 below
  7. ↑ Wend Kässens in Arnold, p. 41, 18. Zvu
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 20, 4. Zvo
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 42, 5th Zvu
  10. ↑ Edition used, p. 62, 5th Zvu
  11. ↑ Edition used, p. 84
  12. ↑ Edition used, p. 54, 8. Zvo
  13. ↑ Edition used, p. 68, 15. Zvu
  14. ↑ Edition used, p. 81, 18. Zvo
  15. ↑ nl: Walter Tillemans
  16. ↑ Edition used, p. 69. Photo: Jutka Rona
  17. ↑ Edition used, p. 45. Photo: Luigi Ciminaghi
  18. ↑ Edition used, p. 55. Photo: Rajak Ohanian
  19. ↑ Barner, p. 464, 7. Zvo
  20. ↑ Barner, p. 485, 22nd Zvu
  21. ↑ Barner, p. 677, 11. Zvu
  22. ↑ Barner, p. 775, 10th Zvu
  23. ↑ Erken in Arnold, p. 94, right column
  24. ↑ Rotmord in the IMDb (see also Erken bei Arnold, p. 88, right column above)