Abstract
<jats:p>Ernst Toller (1893–1939) belonged to the romantic generation of German intellectuals who looked hopefully for the emergence of a new society and were bitterly disappointed by what finally appeared in the 1920’s and 1930’s. As a young man he studied in Grenoble and wandered through southern France and Italy. When World War I broke out he enlisted in the German army and was wounded. While convalescing he resumed his studies at Munich and Heidelberg, but became interested in socialism and participated actively in organizing the workers of Munich. He was prominent in the abortive Communist revolution in Germany and, in 1919, was imprisoned. Thereafter his activities were primarily literary. He became well known for dramas which attempted to assess the effect upon human beings of mass civilization. He was not completely satisfied with what he saw in either Russia or America, societies which he compared in the travel notes of his volume, Quer Durch Reisebilder und Reden (1930). Hitler’s coming seemed to destroy all hope. On the eve of a new war, Toller committed suicide.</jats:p>