Professor Unrat (Small Town Tyrant), published in 1905 by Heinrich Mann, is a savage satirical novel about a petty tyrannical schoolmaster whose obsession with a cabaret singer named Lola causes his complete social and moral ruin. Written in German, the novel dissects authoritarian psychology and bourgeois hypocrisy with Mann’s characteristic sharpness and disdain.
The 1930 film adaptation — The Blue Angel, with Marlene Dietrich — made the story internationally famous, but Mann’s novel is darker and more politically pointed than the film. Download this free public-domain EPUB to read the original German text of one of German literature’s great satirical demolitions.