Hinkemann

Eugen Hinkemann returns home from a war.

In Toller's work, it is the First World War, but it could also be another. Eugen is traumatised, mentally and physically damaged. And he returns from hell to nowhere: he no longer has a livelihood and the completely destroyed labour market doesn't give him another chance.

Hinkemann has to survive.

He is the weakest of the weak, becomes a freak, shows himself at a fair as an abnormal being, as a brutalised, destroyed human being who bites the throats of rats and mice alive. Hinkemann shows himself to the audience - and to his wife, who, even at the end, turns away from him and towards his best friend.

This takes away Hinkemann's last hold. He cannot see his wife's deep despair, can no longer accept her plea for forgiveness. And sends her away. To her death.

»You fools! What do you know of the torment of a miserable creature? How different you must become to build a new society! Fight the bourgois and be puffed up by his arrogance, his self-righteousness, his sluggishness of heart! One hates the other because he is in a different party sect, because he swears by a different programme! No one has confidence in the other. No one has confidence in themselves. No deed that does not suffocate in strife and betrayal. [...] You do not know your limits ... there are people for whom no state and no society, no family and no community can bring happiness. Where your remedies end, that is where our misery begins.«