In his film version, Curt Goetz shifts the focus away from the poetic output towards the young Friedrich Schiller himself: on the misery of his soul whilst a pupil of the ducal military academy, his opposition to the strict physical drill and the narrow intellectual confines of the "Karlsschule", his juvenile passion for the works of Shakespeare, Klopstock and Lessing, his anger at unjust authorities, his devotion to women, and finally his inability to cope with financial matters
Theodor Loos
Hermann Vallentin
Isabel Heermann
Max Pategg
Ilka Grüning
Robert Leffler
Berta Monnard
Rudolf Klein-Rhoden
Hans Carl Mueller
Erich Walter
Kitty Aschenbach
Paul Bildt
Carl Jönsson
Max Kaufmann
Philipp Manning
Ernst Legal
Gottfried Kraus
Wilhelm Diegelmann
Josefine Dora