As opposed to many other left-wing intellectuals, Toller engaged himself not only from the desk through the word: he volunteered in WWI, became a radical pacifist in 1916, and participated in the revolt and the following civil war as an active revolutionary (who in all his uncompromising ways wanted to remain humane in his acting, and also succeeded in this).

He was involved in the 1919 Munich uprising, when Workers' Councils declared a Bavarian Republic, in spite of the opposition of the Communists, where the anarchists were the principal actors: Erich Muhsam, Gustav Landauer, Ret Marut (B. Traven), Ernst Toller, etc. But the troops sent in by the socialists crushed the revolutionaries between April 30 & May 2, 1919, killing over 700 victims. Arrested for high treason, his friends began an international campaign to save his life. At his trial, Max Weber and Thomas Mann gave appeared on his behalf in court and the judge sentenced him to only five years in prison.

In the 1930s, when Hitler rose to power, he moved to England and later to the United States, supporting himself with journalism. In 1936 he was also active raising funds for the Republican side during the Spanish Revolution.

Scene from Transformation by Ernst Toller
Written in 1918, Transformation represents the station drama at its most extreme. This scene is one of the play's most grotesque, the "Dance of the Skeletons." The play is divided into a prologue and six stations. Realistic scenes alternate with the visionary or hallucinatory scenes which transpire on a back stage.

His will for changing of the society and help for the suffering people, which had caught flame after the disappointment of the patriotic enthusiasm of 1914, was paralyzed by the insight that you certainly could change the world, but not necessarily make it any better. The rising to power of the National Socialists through democratic elections in his home country was highly disillusioning, and he became convinced his plays were passé. Suffering from deep depression (his sister and brother had been arrested and sent to concentration camps) and financial woes (he had given all his money to Spanish refugees), Toller ended his life on May 22, 1939.

As Walter Mehring wrote about him in 1952: “Der Riss der Zeit ging mitten durch sein Herz” — the rip of time went straight through his heart.

Lyric poetry was perhaps the way of expression that best matched Toller’s nature. Here, he could display his power of unstylised dramatising of experienced horrors to artworks of words — something he only poorly managed to do in his plays.

Here is an example from the poem Leichen im Priesterwald, “Corpses in the Bois-des-Prêtres”, from the collection Vormorgen.

Ein Düngerhaufen faulender Menschenleiber;
Verglaste Augen, blutgeronnen,
Zerspellte Hirne, ausgespeiene Eingeweide,
Die Luft verpestet vom Kadavergestank,
Ein einzig grauenvoller Wahnsinnsschrei!

(A dunghill of decaying human corpses;
Eyes of glass, bloodshot
Cleaved brains, vomited bowels,
The air infected by cadaver stench,
A single horrifying bellow of insanity!)

Among Toller's best remembered works are "I Was A German," "Transformation," "The Machine Wreckers," "Masses and Man," "Once a Bourgeois Always a Bourgeois," "Miracle in America," "Blind Goddess" and "Pastor Hall."

See also:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWtoller.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Toller

Ernst Toller during the stay in the prison at
Niederschönenfeld.
Long before the book burnings of 1933,
Toller’s works suffered political repression.
The play “Die Wandlung” was forbidden in
German school libraries, as the Deutsche
Volkspartei thought its revolutionary message undermined morals, religious faith and social traditions.