Carl Sternheim (1878 – 1942) was a German playwright and short story writer. Sternheim found success in the 1910s poking fun at the burgeoning German middle class in a series of plays he called “Scenes from the Heroic Life of the Middle Class,” of which DIE HOSE (THE UNDERPANTS) (1911) was one. His other plays include THE BOX (1912), BURGHER SCHIPPEL (1913), THE SNOB (1914), 1913 (1915), and TABULA RASA (1916).