Inversion of Revolutionary Ideals: A Study of the Tragic Essence of Georg Buechner’s Dantons Tod, Ernst Toller’s Masse Mensch, and Bertolt Brecht’s Die Massnahme

The dialectical principle of Hegel’s theory of tragedy exposes the tragic essence of revolution: the totalized claims of revolutionary ideas contradict their particularized results. Dr. Chen’s analysis of Georg Buechner’s Dantons Tod, Ernst Toller’s Masse Mensch, and Bertolt Brecht’s Die Massnahme demonstrates that revolutionary theories employ structures of Hegel’s interpretations of history. The revolutionary theories of history assume the role of the Weltgeist itself, whose implementation entails antihumanist actions. In the hybris of the equation of revolutionary theory and Weltgeist, the Hegelian philosophy of history unveils its own tragic structure, which, in turn, is described by Hegel’s theory of tragedy.