Wolfgang Borchert (1921–1947)

Wolfgang Borchert was a dramatist who grew up under the Nazi regime. During World War II he was imprisoned and sentenced to death for what was considered his defeatist attitude. He died at the age of 26, the night before the Hamburg premiere of his play The Outsider (The Man Outside). Surrealistic toon meer in technique, the play concerns the return of a maimed German prisoner of war who finds everything destroyed and all hope shattered. The efforts of the hero of the play to make a place for himself end in failure. The Outsider remains important because it is an excellent drama. It is the most complete expression of the disillusionment of the youth of postwar Germany with the system that had ruined their country and their own best years. It is the only really successful recreation of the World War II art form known as Expressionsim. Borchert died in 1947. (Bowker Author Biography) toon minder