Ibsen's early romantic plays had been known in Germany since 1875. In 1878 _Pillars of Society_ and in 1880 _A Doll's House_ achieved wide popularity, and held the German stage side by side with _A Bankruptcy_, by Björnstjerne Björnson. But these plays had little influence on the German drama. Their methods were, indeed, not essentially different from those of the French school of the Second Empire, which were then dominant in Germany as well as everywhere else. It was _Ghosts_ (acted in Augsburg and Meiningen 1886, in Berlin 1887) that gave the impulse which, coalescing with the kindred impulse from the French Théâtre Libre, was destined in the course of a few years to create a new dramatic literature in Germany. During the middle decades of the century Germany had produced some dramatists of solid and even remarkable talent, such as Friedrich Hebbel, Heinrich Laube, Karl Gutzkow and Gustav Freytag. Even the generation which held the stage after 1870, and included Paul Heyse, Paul Lindau and Adolf Wilbrandt, with numerous writers of light comedy and farce, such as E. Wichert, O. Blumenthal, G. von Moser, A. L'Arronge and F. von Schönthan, had produced a good many works of some merit. But, in the main, French artificiality and frivolity predominated on the German stage. In point of native talent and originality, the Austrian popular playwright Ludwig Anzengruber was well ahead of his North German contemporaries. It was in 1889, with the establishment of the Berlin Freie Bühne, that the reaction definitely set in. In Berlin, as afterwards in London, _Ghosts_ was the first play produced on the outpost stage, but it was followed in Berlin by a very rapid development of native talent. Less than a month after the performance of Ibsen's play, Gerhart Hauptmann came to the front with _Vor Sonnenaufgang_, an immature piece of almost unrelieved Zolaism, which he soon followed up, however, with much more important works. In _Das Friedensfest_ (1890) and _Einsame Menschen_ (1891) he transferred his allegiance from Zola to Ibsen. His true originality first manifested itself in _Die Weber_ (1892); and subsequently he produced plays in several different styles, all bearing the stamp of a potent individuality. His most popular productions have been the dramatic poems _Hannele_ and _Die versunkene Glocke_, the low-life comedy _Der Biberpelz_, and the low-life tragedy _Fuhrmann Henschel_. Other remarkable playwrights belonging to the Freie Bühne group are Max Halbe (b. 1865), author of _Jugend_ and _Mutter Erde_, and Otto Erich Hartleben (b. 1864), author of _Hanna Jagert_ and _Rosenmontag_. These young men, however, so quickly gained the ear of the general public, that the need for a special "free stage" was no longer felt, and the Freie Bühne, having done its work, ceased to exist. Unlike the French Théâtre Libre and the English Independent theatre, it had been supported from the outset by the most influential critics, and had won the day