Frank Wedekind’s play Pandora’s Box, adapted into the 1929 film, is also known by what German title?

Frank Wedekind’s play Pandora’s Box is known in German as Die Büchse der Pandora. The title supplied the name and much of the dramatic source material for G. W. Pabst’s 1929 film.

Wedekind wrote Pandora’s Box as the second part of a theatrical cycle centered on Lulu. It follows Earth Spirit, whose German title is Erdgeist. Together, the plays trace Lulu’s relationships, social influence, and eventual destruction through a deliberately provocative mixture of melodrama, satire, and theatrical symbolism.

The German word Büchse means a box, case, or container, which differs from the ancient Greek pithos traditionally associated with the myth. Wedekind’s title therefore belongs to the modern literary and cultural tradition of “Pandora’s box,” not to the original Greek vocabulary alone. English translations may vary in wording, but the German title is stable and widely cited.