Toller was born in 1893 into a
Jewish family in
Samotschin, Germany (now
Szamocin, Poland). He was the son of Ida (Kohn) and Max Toller, a pharmacist. His parents ran a general store. At the outbreak of
World War I, he volunteered for the German Army. After serving for 13 months on the
Western Front, he suffered a complete physical and psychological collapse. His first drama,
Transformation (
Die Wandlung, 1919), was wrought from his wartime experiences. (foreground, bearded) in May 1917 at the Lauensteiner Tagung Together with leading
anarchists, such as
B. Traven and
Gustav Landauer, and Toller's party, the
Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), Toller was involved in the short-lived 1919
Bavarian Soviet Republic. The communists were against the founding of a communist republic at this point. He served as president from 6 April to 12 April. the press was to be socialised, the mining industry was to be socialised, and the eight-hour working day made legally binding. He decreed that citizens could withdraw only 100 marks per day from the banks, and issued reassurance to the workers that these measures were directed against the major capitalists who were attempting to take money abroad. A decree was made against exorbitant rents. His government members were not always well-chosen. The Foreign Affairs Deputy, Dr.
Franz Lipp, became known for his eccentricity: in particular, he informed
Vladimir Lenin via cable that the ousted former Minister-President,
Johannes Hoffmann, had taken the key to the ministry toilet with him while fleeing to
Bamberg. On 13 April 1919 the
Communist Party seized power, with
Eugen Leviné as their leader. In May 1919, the republic was defeated by the
Freikorps. fortress (early 1920s) The noted authors
Max Weber and
Thomas Mann testified on Toller's behalf when he was tried for his part in the revolution. He was sentenced to five years in prison and served his sentence in the prisons of
Stadelheim, Neuburg and
Eichstätt. From February 1920 until his release, he did most of his time in the fortress of
Niederschönenfeld, where he spent 149 days in
solitary confinement and 24 days on
hunger strike. as the war returnee, 30 September 1919 Toller was unable to see the plays he had written in prison performed until after his release in July 1925. The most famous of his later dramas, ''
Hoppla, We're Alive! (Hoppla, wir Leben!''), directed by
Erwin Piscator, premiered in Berlin in 1925. It tells of a revolutionary discharged from a mental hospital after eight years, who discovers that his former comrades have grown complacent and compromised within the system they once opposed. In despair, he kills himself. ==Exile, death and legacy ==