”The Fire Raisers” parable – entitled in subtitle as “a didactic play without a moral” – speaks of the failure of the common man to take action against an imminent threat: strangers show up one by one in the cosmetics producer Biedermann house. Although scandalized by the information in the press that the arsonists in disguise would get into people’s houses on various pretences, only to set their houses on fire afterwards, Biedermann does not take a stand against the intruders in his own home. The grotesque comic and the critical accents accompany the action’s development towards an outcome, which with each step becomes inevitable. Frisch started work on the text in 1948, and the absolute premiere was in 1958 in Zürich, followed shortly after by instalments in over 50 theatres in various countries. The lack of reaction on behalf of the lead character was sometimes interpreted as a reflection on the conduit the allowed the ascension of a dictator such as Adolf Hitler.