Malepartus, plate eight from Die Hölle

Max Beckmann named this print after a nightclub in Frankfurt am Main, where he was staying with friends after his discharge from the army for mental exhaustion. He aptly said of this period and the chaotic but stiff postwar world depicted here: “Just now, even more than before the war, I feel the need to be in the cities among my fellow men. This is where our place is. We must take part in the whole misery that is to come. We must surrender our heart and our nerves to the dreadful screams of pain of the poor disillusioned people.”