Ernst Toller's play Hinkemann provides an interesting bridgebetween the late medieval Everyman and the modern Draußen vor der Tür ofWolfgang Borchert. Toller (1893–1939) wrote the playin the early 1920s when he was a prisoner inNiederschönenfeld in Bavaria for five yearsfollowing his involvement in the abortiveestablishment of a postwar Bavarian Soviet-stylestate, of which he was president for just under aweek. Toller had served in the First World War andhad portrayed its horrors in his first play, Die Wandlung, Transformation, 1919, whichcontains a powerful scene with skeletons on the wirein a parody dansemacabre. He escaped from Germany intoexile in 1933 and committed suicide in New York in1939.

Written in 1921/22, Hinkemann was published in 1923 asDer deutscheHinkemann, The German Hinkemann, thenagain with a slightly closer titular relationship toJedermann/Everyman,in 1924 simply as Hinkemann, and it was performed inBerlin in that year. It also carries the designation“eine Tragödie,” a tragedy. It has been translatedinto English more than once. Although the -mann name is ageneralization of sorts, the main character is thistime individualized in one respect at least,although his distinguishing feature, which isassociated with the idea of limping (hinken) is also symbolic, amore specific version of the speaking name,something that will be seen again with Frisch'svariation as Biedermann. It most other respects,however, Hinkemann is very unlike Everyman in theearly play. Far from being a rich man marked out fordeath, Hinkemann is the opposite: a poor man who hassurvived the First World War, although damaged, andwho is struggling to make a living. There is nosummoning by Death this time. Hinkemann has beenthrough the war and has discovered that there areworse things than death. The play is in oneinterpretative respect specific to Germany and thelost war in allegorical and social terms; but itdoes owe something to the form and theme of Everyman beyond the echo inthe name.

Ernst Toller is a central figure in the literarymovement known as expressionism, which R. S. Furnesshas described as a mentality as well as a movement,and which traces many of its elements back toNietzsche, these augmented by the effects of theFirst World War.