Meister Oelze

Meister Oelze, a play in three acts by J. Schlaf, published in 1892. It is written in Berlin dialect. It shows the murderer Oelze (his crime has not been discovered) beset by his half-sister Pauline, who is convinced of his guilt. Pauline, reduced to poverty by Oelze's crime, besieges the consumptive murderer with insinuations, and plays upon his fears of the supernatural, but Oelze dies undefeated and unconfessing. The play was widely abused when performed, though Nietzschean critics of the day applauded Oelze's self-reliance and resistance to religious pressures.