Hitlers Theater Art as Propaganda

152 Pages·2014·1.46 MB·English

by  Zortman

Hitler’s Theater
Art as Propaganda
Bruce Zortman
Hitler’s Theater: Art as Propaganda, second edition
Copyright © 2012
All rights reserved – Bruce Zortman
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission, in
writing, from the publisher.

Cover photo: The Theater for Ten Thousand−−Joseph Goebbels at the
consecration of the Brandberge Thingplatz at Halle a. S.

ISBN: 978-0-9859820-0-3
Emet Publications
225 C Avenida Majorca
Laguna Woods, CA 92637-4136

Produced in the United States of America
This edition, similar to the first in content but dissimilar in political emphasis, is
dedicated to my sons, Jacob Benjamin and William Alexander, with the sincere
hope that they will never experience the agony of a Nazi Germany.
Preface to the Second Edition

While studying the modern German theater at the Free University in
Berlin, my attention was continually drawn to the period of the Third Reich. In
addition to the blackened hulks of concrete and brick that dominated the greater
part of the downtown area there were the plays by Bertolt Brecht being produced
at the Berliner Ensemble’s Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. The Private Life of the
Master Race and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui both presented a vivid account
of what occurred during the Nazi regime and in particular what happened to the
German arts.

By implication, Brecht stood as a symbol of what the Third Reich had
done to art when it forced into exile such gifted artists as he was. On the other
hand, the city of Berlin itself was separate, divided, but especially in
consideration of the arts, it was sterile, unable to revive that grand spirit of the
Weimar Republic. It was then that I first envisioned a study of the theater during
the Third Reich. Not that I wanted to follow a negative, unproductive period of
the arts or add to the spate of material condemning the Nazis, but rather to
investigate how art can exist in such a political climate.

My original idea was to study all theater in this chaotic period. In so
doing, I stumbled across vague and incomplete references to the nurturing and
development of a cult theater that occurred soon after Hitler’s seizure of power.
Further investigation revealed that a hypertrophied amphitheater construction
program was immediately instituted during which forty massive structures with
seating capacities upward of 20,000 were built across Germany. Photographs of
the performances disclosed maximum attendance including thousands of
performers. By quick calculation, I reckoned that at least 14 million spectators
per year witnessed these ideological performances known as the Thingspiel. I
was hooked on the subject matter and doubly gratified, for it appeared that the
research would be fresh, especially fascinating and unique, dramatically
reflecting the aberrant and eccentric political structure of National Socialism.

It was both surprising and fortuitous that I was able to carry out my basic
research in the United States. Many documents had been lost, the object of errant
missiles or a willful destruction to avoid association with a failed enterprise and
regime, so the shelter of our large public and university libraries provided a boon
to my research. In the case of missing plays, I was able to locate their
controversial criticism from the writings of either the playwrights or the critics,
which proved an adequate substitute. Other omissions were not serious and when
the research was complete and comparisons made, I found that the coverage was
repetitious. Moreover, it was evident that several articles were republished in
different periodicals after they had undergone a title or identification change.
I have updated sources to include references that have been published
since the printing of the first edition. By their scarcity it is apparent that fresh
investigations have not been vigorously pursued. Additionally, after being
convinced that the original subtitle, “The Theater of Ideology in Nazi Germany,”
was not only pedantic but also in tenor misleading, for it projected a certain
dignity to that short, degenerative and self-serving period of theater history.

I am grateful to the staff at the Theater Institute, University of Cologne,
for directing me to many new references. I extend my thanks to the Reference
Department, Hoover Memorial Library, Stanford University, for allowing me to
use the special collections located there. The Photographic Service, New York
Public Library, was an invaluable source of material, especially for periodical
literature as was the Library of Congress, where I spent many a day in the
Thomas Jefferson Reading Room. My gratitude extends to Dagmar Becker for
her suggestions regarding the German idiom, Anne Clark, instructor at the
Laguna Woods Village Macintosh Club, for her expertise in preparing a digital
manuscript and the Reference Staff, Graduate Research Library, UCLA, for
procuring vast amounts of documentation used in my project through their
excellently managed interlibrary loan service.

Nevertheless, this study and the first edition would not have appeared
without the generous encouragement from my mentor, Professor William
Melnitz, Dean of the College of Fine Arts, UCLA, who recommended that I
receive a Taussig Fellowship that allowed me to study modern German theater at
the Free University of Berlin for one year and an NDEA Fellowship to pursue
my PhD.

Then several years later, three singular events pushed me over the edge
to prepare a second edition: the publication of Clemson University’s Professor
Susan Duffy’s most authoritative book review of the first edition, a recent visit
to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the acuity of my wife Sabra— All
indelibly punctuate that “we are the remembering people.”
BZ
Table of Contents
Introduction: Seizure of the Arts
Nazi Kunstpolitik
Notes

Chapter One: Origins of a Cult Theater
Heroic Spectacles in the Open Air
Unity of Player and Audience
Ideology for the Arts
Völkisch Theater in the Open Air
Notes

Chapter Two: A Reactionary Theater
The Beginning
Enter the Chorus
Goebbels Regulates the Art of the Theater
Atavistic Search for a New Religion
Cry for Ideological Creativity
The New Dramaturgy
Job at Armageddon
Notes

Chapter Three: Hypertrophied Expansion
The 1934 Season
German Passion of 1933
Search for a New Theater Architecture
Goebbels Refurbishes the Volksbühne
Prohibitions Overwhelm the Sanctions
Notes

Chapter Four: Peak and Finish
The 1935 and 1936 Seasons
20,000-seat Theater on the Neckar
Reversion to an Old Tradition
Search for a New Thrust
National Socialism Celebrates its Third “Successful” Year
Hitler’s Game of Justice
Another Change of Policy
Notes

Chapter Five: In Retrospect
Purity Versus the Arts
Headlong Rush to War

Sources: Plays, Books, Journals, Newspapers

Photographs:
The Pantheon of Work and rear view of the playing areas of the Brandberge
Thingplatz at Halle a. S.
The playing areas and auditorium of the Brandberge Thingplatz at Halle a. S.
Consecration of the Thingplatz at Nuβberg near Braunschweig followed by a
performance of Wolfram Brockmeier’s Ewiges Volk (Eternal People).
The playing areas and the 20,000-seat auditorium of the Thingplatz on the
Heilige Berg near Heidelberg.
The playing areas and the 20,000-seat auditorium of the Dietrich-Eckart-Bühne
in Berlin.
Performance of Vom Tauwind und der neuen Freude (Political Relief and the
New Joy) at the Dietrich-Eckart-Bühne in Berlin.
Directors Matthias Wieman, Werner Pleister, Alexander Golling and Rudolf
Schulz-Dornburg at a rehearsal of Das Frankenburger Würfelspiel (Frankenburg
Game of Dice).
Flag Bearer Hitler by Hubert Lanzinger. “Temporal Savior, Eternal Spirit and
Almighty God.”