Ernst Toller (1 December 1893-22 May 1939) was President of the Bavarian Soviet Republic from 6 to 12 April 1919 during the November Revolution in Germany.
Biography[]
Ernst Toller was born on 1 December 1893 in Samotschin, Province of Posen, German Empire (present-day Szamocin, Poland) to a Jewish family. He volunteered in the Imperial German Army during World War I, but he suffered a physical and psychological collapse after fighting on the Western Front for thirteen weeks. Toller turned to writing expressionist plays to express his views, and he found himself drawn into anarchist and communist political circles. For six days in April 1919, he served as President of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, but infighting in the new government allowed for fascist forces to take power. Toller fled to the United States, where he went on a lecture tour, and he killed himself in May 1939 when he discovered that his siblings had been sent to a German concentration camp.