About the work
A drama in seven scenes by Ernst Toller, drafted within a few days in October 1919 during his provisional imprisonment at Eichstätt fortress and published in 1921 by Gustav Kiepenheuer. It premiered as a closed performance in November 1920 at the Stadttheater Nürnberg, directed by Friedrich Neubauer.
Plot
The intellectual Sonja Irene L. calls on workers to strike against the war, but clashes with "the Nameless One," who champions armed revolution and terror. After the uprising is crushed, she is arrested and executed despite being offered a chance to escape.
Cultural significance
Drawing on Toller's experience of the Munich Soviet Republic, the play became his most internationally successful work, with seventeen productions within three years, from Berlin to New York and Tokyo.