Even though the invention of both is often associated with East German playwright Berthold Brecht, Sorge almost singlehandedly created surrealist theatre and modern theatrical stagecraft.

[2] In 1915, Sorge was conscripted into the Imperial German Army, promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal, and sent into combat duty in the trench warfare of World War I.

Sorge's Der Bettler, however, received a posthumous premiere in a groundbreaking production by legendary Austrian Jewish stage director and filmmaker Max Reinhardt in 1917.

[4] One Catholic New Zealander, who was living in the Weimar Republic, was to comment on the enormity of the fallen poet's influence over all recent Christian poetry composed in the German language and even compared the literary legacy of Reinhard Sorge to that of Francis Thompson.

Sorge began to write at the age of sixteen, but lost his faith in Christianity after reading Also Sprach Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche.

He caused common prayers and grace at table to be given up in his pious Lutheran home, and destroyed his young brother's belief in God and Heaven.

The second was a complete play called, 'The Beggar: A Theatrical Mission,' which was again a drama about himself, a describes in a series of violent scenes how he tests and rejects various classes of men as unfit for the highest ideals.

[10] According to Michael Paterson, "The play opens with an ingenious inversion: the Poet and Friend converse in front of a closed curtain, behind which voices can be heard.

"[12][13] While he awaited its publication, Sorge first visited Denmark and then stayed at the North Sea resort of Norderney, where he had a mystical experience that changed both his beliefs and the course of his entire life.

[15] In 1912, "The Beggar" was published to rapt reviews and subsequently awarded that year's Kleist Prize due to the influence of Richard Dehmel.

In a letter to his mother, Sorge wrote, "In the Revelation of St. John the heavenly visions are so depicted -- golden censers are swung; people kneel and worship in solemn vesture, with crowns on their heads, a woman clothed with the sun appears (Mary).

[23] A short time before, he had written to Susanne, "I suppose it is the imperfection of it all that I feel, and then the longing for our life together breaks through; but soon my soul is soothed and consoled by the conviction that this period has to be, that without it there can be no perfection.

After the 1918 Armistice, newspapers in the German language in the United States also published articles highly praising Reinhardt's production of the play, which singlehandedly gave birth to Expressionism in the theatre.

The centenary of Lance Corporal Reinhard Sorge's death was commemorated, alongside those of Allied war poets Alan Seeger and Camil Campanyà, who fell serving with the French Foreign Legion during the same battle, during a multinational ceremony at Belloy-en-Santerre on 04 July 2016.