Die Weber

First published in 1892, this drama in five acts is based on the real weavers' revolt of 1844 in the province of Silesia and is considered an important work of naturalism. Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946) focuses on the fate of a group of impoverished weavers who, after humiliating treatment by the factory owner Dreißiger and incited by the young, self-confident weaver Bäcker, rehearse the uprising against exploitation and wage cuts. The conflict between the workers, whose lives are marked by poverty, hunger and illness, and the entrepreneurs, who cruelly oppress the lower social strata out of greed for profit, reflects both the consequences of industrialisation and the beginning of European capitalism in this work, which is not without reason entitled a "social drama".