The anonymous comedy Das Reich der Todten (The Empire of the Dead) dates back to the 1720s. It was written for actors' theatre but was also performed by puppeteers, a long time after actors stopped performing it. The only manuscript of the puppet version that could be found comes from a theatre in Augsburg. Johann Scheible (1809-1866), an editor from Stuttgart, acquired this manuscript in the 1840s and sold it in 1864 to Carl Engel (1818-1882), a puppet play collector. The latter then published a rewriting of it (Carl Engel, Deutsche Puppenkomödien, vol. 6. Oldenburg: Schulze; 1877). Engel gifted the original manuscript to a collector in Leipzig, Arthur Kollman. The manuscript is currently kept in Dresden’s Puppentheatersammlung.

Leander is in love with Leontine, the daughter of the rich Gebhard. Leander’s footman, Hanswurst, is in love with the maid, Katharinchen. Old Gebhard spends his time reading two books from the "Das Reich der Todten" (The Empire of the Dead) series, which collects imaginary conversations between dead people. He is against his daughter’s wedding. Leander only has a chance at marrying her if he learns the books by heart. The lovers decide to give a sleeping pill to Gebhard, to take him to the garden, and to make him believe that he died. They dress up to stage the chaos happening in The Empire of the Dead. Leontine, Leander, Katharinchen, and Hanswurst go to meet the old man one by one. They explain to him that they too died and that it was his fault. Gebhard thus ends up giving his consent for the wedding. Ernst, a cereal merchant from whom Leander sought advice, enters the stage to expose the trickery to Gebhard, who learns that none of them is dead.