Hermann Krehan after Robert Neppach
Stage/set design for “Die Wandlung” (The Transformation)
undated
(Production by Karlheinz Martin at Die Tribüne Berlin, 1919)
Gouache
Theater Studies Collection of the University of Cologne
On October 12, 1919, Käthe Kollwitz recalled in her diary that she had seen her son Peter for the last time on that day five years earlier, shortly before he was killed in World War I on the Western Front in Flanders. Against this backdrop, she was reluctant to attend the evening performance of Ernst Toller’s (1893–1939) play Die Wandlung (The Transformation) with her husband and son Hans.
The production of the play was a resounding success, also for the leading actor, the young Fritz Kortner (1892–1970), who would later marry Kollwitz’s niece Hanna—stage name Johanna Hofer. Another novelty was the innovative stage design, which dispensed with any spatial illusion.