Reinhard Sorge

Reinhard Johannes Sorge was a German dramatist and poet. He is best known for writing the Expressionist and radically iconoclastic stage play The Beggar, which won the Kleist Prize in 1912. Even though the invention of both is often associated with East German playwright Berthold Brecht, Sorge almost singlehandedly created surrealist theatre and modern theatrical stagecraft. After subsequently getting married and then received with his wife into the Catholic Church in Germany, Sorge began a widespread and influential effort to introduce the Catholic literary revival into the literature of the Germanosphere. In 1915, Sorge was conscripted into the Imperial German Army, promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal, and sent into combat duty in the trench warfare of World War I. He was killed in action during the Battle of the Somme on 20th July 1916. His wife, Susanne Sorge, learned of his death only after a telegram announcing her pregnancy with their second son was returned as undeliverable. At the time of his death, Reinhard Sorge was only 24 years-old.