At that moment of realization I knew that I had been blind because I had wished not to see; it was only then that I realised, at last, that all these dead men, French and Germans, were brothers, and I was the brother of them all.

Toller served as President from April 6 to April 12. The literary rights to the works of Ernst Toller were the property of the novelist Katharine Weber until the copyright expired on the last day of 2009 and the works of Ernst Toller entered the public domain. His first drama Transformation (Die Wandlung) was to be inspired by his wartime experiences.

Ernst Toller (1 December 1893 – 22 May 1939) was a German left-wing playwright best known for his Expressionist plays and serving as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic for six days.