ABSTRACT
Young Schiller believed firmly in man's moral responsibility in this sense, he believed in God as the supreme judge and therefore in immortality. It was probably the Jena students at Weimar in the later 'eighties (Bellomo's performances) and 'nineties who received it with the greatest enthusiasm and started the tradition which made it such a favourite with German youth. The volte-face in Fiesko which makes him see something sublime in stealing a crown is insufficiently prepared, though authors have indeed seen that he believes the end to justify the means when he takes into his own service a grotesque black-skinned cutthroat sent to murder him, the best humorous creation of the young Schiller. The Elector of Mainz followed with a National Theatre, at first shared with Frankfort-on-Main, in 1787, and the Prince-Bishops of Salzburg and Passau set up permanent German theatres in 1793.
