Der Rächer has become an instantly recognizable symbol of the German Expressionists and was regarded by Ernst Barlach as one of his best works. In 1930 art dealers Alfred Flechteim and Paul Cassirer employed Hermann Noack in Berlin-Friedenau to cast a numbered edition of ten bronzes of Barlach's Der Rächer, though the full edition was never realized. The Noack Foundry produced another unnumbered edition after Barlach's death. In 1937, considered degenerate art by the National Socialist regime, the wooden version of the sculpture was confiscated from the Nationalgaleriem Berlin, and sold at auction to an American collector, to whom it belonged from 1939 to 1975 when the Ernst Barlach Haus, Hamburg, acquired it.
