The legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin has inspired literary works around the globe, including Robert Browning's famous poem (1842), Wilhelm Raabe's Die Hämelschen Kinder (The Children of Hamelin, 1868), Günter Grass's Die Rättin (The Rat, 1986), and the poetry of Walter Helmut Fritz from the 1980s, to name but a few. While Browning's poem is a children's story Raabe's historical novella places the legend in the context of the altercations between the North German towns of Hamelin and Minden, Grass discusses the Pied Piper in connection with Nazi Germany, and Fritz's poetry uses the Pied Piper figure as a warning against the rise of neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism. What is common to all versions is that the piper is a highly duplicitous figure. He is benign as long as he helps the community, rids it of the mouse problem or, as in the case of Raabe, helps the townsfolk in times of anguish — “sie konnten den Pfeifer wohl gebrauchen in dieser ängstlichen Zeit” (they were able to put the piper to good use in these fearful times). But the piper also has the potential to turn evil and seek revenge after being slighted. Not only is he maltreated by the community, in return for being slighted he also maltreats the community of Hamelin. In the legend he is slighted by not being paid, because he is an itinerant outside of bourgeois society, a vagrant without possessions and thus, in the eyes of the community, a man without honor or social rights.