Carl Zuckmayer

In 1800, between the Moselle and the Rhine rivers, the robber baron Johannes Bückler used cunning more than violence to take from the rich and give to the poor. Schinderhannes is his ballad. Legends and songs about Schinderhannes, who was betrayed by the French occupying power and executed in 1803, are still sung by people today. Zuckmayer grew up with them, and has written a colourful play about a tragi-comic life of thievery, with gangs and brides, that is full of power and tenderness, rowdiness and poetry.