THE THIRD REICH OII BROADWAY: THE PORTRAYAL OF THE NAZI CHARACTER ON BROADWAY BY AMERICAN PIAYWRIGHTS FROM 1933 TO 1970 Dissertation for the Degree of Ph. D. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY WILLIAM BOLESLAUS SAKALAUSKAS 1975 " MFG Q JUN (I Z 2905. ABSTRACT THE THIRD REICH 0N BROADWAY: THE PORTRAYAL OF THE NAZI CHARACTER 0N BROADWAY BY AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS FROM T933 T0 T970 By William Boleslaus Sakalauskas The purpose of this study is to determine (1) how the Nazi was characterized within given periods which reflected the changing relationship of society and theatre to Nazism, (2) how the beliefs and actions of the stage Nazis compare with the views of notable scholars regarding the Nazis era, and (3) whether there are patterns or developments in the portrayals. Chapter II (Historical Back- ground: Nazi Ideology) provides a basis for evaluating the Nazi traits in the portrayals. Nazi characters appeared in thirty plays, which are divided into four historical periods. The portrayals in the first period, l933-September, 1939, were intended as a warning against Nazism. The six plays of the period included Judgment Day and Till the Day I Die. The characterizations were more knowledgeable and varied than critical reaction would indicate. They were mostly villains, but included members of the Nazi leadership, students, teachers, judges, a part-Jewish officer, as well as stereotyped storm troopers. William Boleslaus Sakalauskas All of the Nazis were on their own territory and all the plays contained Nazi violence directed against Jewish and Conmunist victims. The second period, September, l939-December, l94l, was marked by an intense division between isolationists and inter- ventionists. The Nazis were less menacing. Nearly all were officials and diplomats who tended to be quite intellectual and prone to express their ideology; they were villains by thought rather than by deed. Most of the Nazis were portrayed in vulnerable situations, and the violence in those plays was directed against them. In this period, the Nazis expressed little anti-Communism, a lessened anti-Semitism, and their opponents now included heroic Americans, American Jews, and converted Nazis. The five plays in the period included Margin for Error, Flight to the Nest, and There Shall Be No Night. There were nine plays in the third period, December, 194l- May, l945. Most of the portrayals were Nazi occupation troops opposed by heroic Allies, as in The Moon 15 Down. However, there were also heroic American opponents. Nearly all of the portrayals were generalized villains and were the least defined Nazis of any period; they were simply a war-time enemy. Few of the plays contained on-stage violence. The period did contain the most commercially successful of all Nazi portrayals, the twelve-year- old Nazi in Tomorrow the World. The postwar period covers twenty—five years, is the least cohesive, and contains no patterns. Attitudes toward Nazis ranged William Boleslaus Sakalauskas from hatred to indifference, and the portrayals ranged from comical (Happy Birthday, Wanda June) to the most brutal of villains (Ibe_ Hall). There are ten plays in the period, including Stalag l7 and Incident at Vichy. Substantially all of the traits of Nazism were used in the various portrayals from 1933 to l970. However, there were few attempts to create high levels of characterization. Nazis were principal characters in five plays, supporting characters in four- teen, and subsidiary in the remaining eight. With few exceptions, the portrayals were unsuccessful. Audiences of the l930's were preoccupied with the depression, and the businessman served as the villain for the problems of the country. The second period (1939- 1941) contained "safer" Nazis and the plays were more successful. In the next period, Americans viewed the war as a grim business matter to be finished with little fanfare. And the postwar period did not appreciably alter the lack of receptivity to Nazis in drama. A major obstacle to successful characterizations of Nazis was the belief that Nazism was monolithic. In reality, Nazis behaved differently in Nordic countries (Norway) compared to Slavic countries (Poland and Russia). Critics and audiences wanted an unattainable stereotype who would capture the essence of Nazism. The portrayals were rejected as untruthful, too brutal, too nice, too serious, and too funny. There was some outright opposition to any portrayal of Nazis, and a number of critics praised some anti- Nazi plays for excluding Nazi characters. william Boleslaus Sakalauskas There has been an increase in the intellectual and emotional knowledge about Nazism through scholarly research and such events as the war crimes trials. Recent writing tends to eschew gener- alized moral and cultural philosophizing and the view that Nazism was an aberration caused by a few misguided men. Instead, it stresses the ideological basis of the mass crimes and the normalcy of the participants. European dramatists have used such knowledge to delve into various aspects of Nazism and will probably continue doing so. American audiences are conditioned to accept Nazis as villains, serious or comical, and American playwrights are more likely to create multi-faceted villains who are the cause of current problems and not philosophical abstractions about the past. THE THIRD REICH 0N BROADWAY: THE PORTRAYAL OF THE NAZI CHARACTER ON BROADWAY BY AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS FROM T933 TO 1970 By William Boleslaus Sakalauskas A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Theatre l975 (:) Copyright by WILLIAM BOLESLAUS SAKALAUSKAS 1975 AKCNOWLEDGMENTS My sincere thanks to Dr. John Baldwin who served as Major Advisor for this study and contributed not only guidance and criticism but also very necessary personal assistance and encouragement. My special thanks also to Mr. Frank Rutledge, Chairman of the Department of Theatre, for his trenchant reactions to the work in progress. And I wish to thank Dr. Donald Treat and Dr. Lowell Fiet for serving on the committee. The staff of the New York Public Library Theatre Collection provided indispensable aid in the research. In this regard, I would also like to acknowledge Mr. William Spangler, Head Librarian of Atlantic Community College, for his constant suggestions and assistance in locating materials. The encouragement and steadfast support of family and friends is deeply appreciated, especially that of my Mother who never had the benefit of formal education. Finally, this Dissertation would not have been possible with- out the fortitude, patience, and assistance of my wife, Marian. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii LIST OF APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Chapter I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . l Statement of Purpose . 1 Justification 1 Definition of Terms 7 Limitations . 8 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Sources 17 II. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: NAZI IDEOLOGY . . . . . . 20 III. THE PORTRAYAL OF NAZIS NOVEMBER, 1933 - SEPTEMBER. 1939 . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Birthright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Judgment Day . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Tillzthe Day I Die . . . . . . . . . . . 81 1935- 1939 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Pins and Needles . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Waltz in Goose Step . . . . . . . . . . . 99 The Brown Danube . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 IV. THE PORTRAYAL 0F NAZIS SEPTEMBER, 1939 - NOVEMBER. 1941 . . . . . . . 115 Margin for Error . . . . . . . . . . 125 There Shall Be No Night. . . . . . . . . . 133 Flight to the West . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Candle in the Wind . . . . . . . . . . . 146 The Man with Blond Hair . . . . . . . . . . 154 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Chapter Page V. THE PORTRAYAL 0F NAZIS DECEMBER, 1941 - MAY, 1945 . . 163 The Moon Is Down . . . . . . . . . . . 172 The Barber Had Two Sons . . . . . . . . . . 187 Tomorrow the World . . . . . . . . . . . 190 %and of Fame . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 torm Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 Thank You, Svoboda . . . . . . . . . . . 203 The Searching Wind . . . . . . . . . . . 206 The Day Will Come . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Common Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 VI. THE PORTRAYAL 0F NAZIS MAY. 1945 - DECEMBER. 1970 . . 220 The Assassin . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 The French Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 Temper the Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Stalag l7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 range ng . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Ihe_fliggen_Riyen . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 [he Wa11.. . . . . . . . . . . 249 Incident at Viehy. . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Postmark Zero . . . . . . . . . . 268 Happy Birthday, Wanda June . . . . . . . . . 273 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 VIII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . 280 Watch on the Rhine . . . . . . . . 286 Implications for Further Study . . . . . . . 296 APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314 iv LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix A. Plays With Nazi Characters by American Playwrights B. The Official Program of the National Socialist Workers Party Proclaimed in 1920 . C. Plays Dealing With American Fascism Page 298 302 308 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Statement of Purpose The purpose of this study is to relate the history of the Nazi character as portrayed by American dramatists on Broadway from 1933 to 1970. The study will deal with the following: 1. How is the Nazi characterized within given time periods which reflected the changing relationship of society and theatre to Nazism. 2. How do the beliefs and actions of the Nazi characters compare with the views of notable scholars regarding the Nazi era? 3. Are there patterns or developments within the periods in the characterization and function of the Nazi character? Justification The involvement of the United States in World War II and the effect of that war has been one of the major historical interests of this century. The pre-war political and domestic reactions to the developing war, the eventual involvement in the war, the war years and post-war effects are the subject of a con- siderable body of literature and are still being evaluated. It is generally accepted that "World War II radically altered the 1 character of American society and challenged its most durable values" and that "Pearl Harbor marked more than the passing of a decade; it 1 The signified the end of an old era and the beginning of a new." history of that war includes a time span preceding the actual hostilities. A. J. P. Taylor in The Origins of the Second World We: says that it was "a war which had been implicit since the moment when the first war ended."2 That "implicit" war became increasingly important in the United States during the thirties, more often than not expressed as an aversion to war through pacifism and isolationism. If there was one thing Americans seemed to agree about, it was that if Europe was to start another war, America would definitely stay out. This attitude was expressed by political groups as diverse 3 Robert Sherwood said as the communists and the Liberty League. that World War II was "the first war in American history in which disillusionment preceded the firing of the first shot."4 Para- doxically, when the war was finally fought, it was fought with I O O 5 more unan1m1ty than any prev1ous one. 1Richard Polenberg, War and Society: The United States, 1941-1945 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1972), p. 4. 2A. J. P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War (New York: Atheneum, 1964), p. 278. 3Samuel Eliot Morrison, The Oxford History of the American People (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 988. 4Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hkains: An Intimate History. rev. ed. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950):’p. 438. 5Merle Curti, The Growth of American Thought, 3rd ed. (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers), p. 732. The significance of the war to the United States is re- garded as more philosophical than physical. There were over 6 While these deaths were 400,000 American servicemen killed. not minimal to the families involved, the number is minimal com- pared to the losses of the other major powers. Civilians suffered only minor hardships and, in fact, improved their standard of living because of war production. The cost of the war was about 350 billion dollars (ten times the amount of World War One) which 7 In The American Mind, Henry Steele was taken in economic stride. Commager said it was clear even during the war years how the war affected the economy and society, but "how they affected the American character has yet to be determined."8 The post-war effects covered all aspects of American life and America had become a part of a very different world. "Man has perfected his weaponry until its indiscriminate use can destrey his world. This is the first inescapable legacy of the Second World War."9 The relationship of the war to the New York professional theatre has generally been confined to the war years, if not entirely eliminated in historical surveys by reference to the theatre between 6Martha Byrd Hoyle, A World in Flames: A History of World War II (New York: Atheneum, 1970), p. 324. 7Morrison, The Oxford History of the American People, p. 1010. 8Henry Steele Commager, The Americen Mind: An Interpretation of American Thogght and Character Since the 1880's (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1950, pp. 430-431. 9Hoyle, The World in Falmes, p. 320. the wars and then to the post-war theatre. Glen Hughes' statement about the effect of the war succinctly states the usual observations: The effect of the war on Broadway was to raise fantastically the cost of production, and, correlatively, prices of admission; to create box-office pressure in the case of hit-plays which resulted in a shocking wave of ticket speculation; and to further the recent tendency toward excessively long runs.10 Hughes' interpretation of the effects of the war is in keeping with usual division of Broadway history into the decades of the twenties, thirties, forties, etc., and the stress on a dominant aspect of each period. Trends and influences other than the dominant ones do exist and they interact and overlap. ‘As John Gassner noted, the serious theatre of the thirties had been labelled "leftist" when it included "such strongly anti-communist authors as the late Maxwell Anderson."]] He also noted the label "leftism" was not used pejoratively as in the 1950's but in a "vaguely complimentary sense." Dealing with the same period, Emory Lewis felt that historians divided the twenties and thirties too sharply: Both were decades of revolt. . . . Though the two decades differed in tone and texture, they were intimately related in their profound sense of dissatisfaction with yesterday's rules and conventions. They were more akin to each other than to the succeeding decades of gloom and retreat, of atomic threats and counterthreats, of witch-hunts and cold- war hot lines.12 10Glenn Hughes, A History of the American Theatre, 1700- 1950 (New York: Samuel French, 1950), p. 448. HJohn Gassner, Dramatic Soundings: Evaluations and Retrac- tions Culled from 30 Years of Dramatic Criticism(New York: Crown Publishers, 1968), p. 449. 12Emory Lewis, Stages: The Fifty-Year Childhood of the American Theatre (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 19691. p. 45. His statement reflects the general historian's view of World War II as a major point of change in America. Similarly, the relationship of the Broadway theatre to the war, both preceding and following the hostilities, has been alluded to directly and indirectly in various studies. Dissertations on the era include studies on the anti-war plays between the two wars.13 the relationship of public opinion to war plays from 1931 14 and the attitudes of American soldiers toward war as 15 to 1941 revealed in American drama from 1940 to 1960. Brockett notes a legacy of the war to theatre; he attributes the post-war influence of existentialism on theatre specifically to the horror of World War II and the Nuremberg war crimes trials.16 This study deals with one aspect of the relationship of the Broadway theatre to the war--the portrayal of the Nazi character. The study was limited to Nazis rather than all the enemies of World War II for practical reasons. There are very few portrayals of the Japanese or Italians as World War II enemies in American drama. The United States entered the war as a result of conflict with 13Martha Weisman, "Study of Anti-War Plays Produced in the New York Professional Theatre from World War I to World War II" (Ed.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1967). 14Robert Carter Hailey, "Broadway on War" (Ph.D. dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 1968). 15Alvin Samuel Kaufman, "Attitudes and Adjustments of the Soldier towards War and the Military as Revealed in the American Drama, 1940-1960" (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1965). 16Oscar o. Brockett and Robert R. Findlay, Century of Innovation: A History of European anthmerican Theatre and Drama Since 1970 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1973), pp. 584-590. Japan. However, the nation (except for the West Coast) was pre- occupied with European politics before the war. William Manchester in The Glory and the Dream noted that the names from the European theatre of war were "a familiar echo from school days," but few Americans had heard of Ioribaiwa or knew the difference between New Britain, New Caledonia, New Guinea, New Ireland and the New Hebrides. What they knew came from "B" movies.17 Later, the lack of Japanese actors may also have been a contributing factor, since it caused problems for Hollywood when such movies became popular.18 The focus on Nazism in the New York area (discussed in Chapter II) would explain the lack of interest in the Italians as an Axis power. In contrast, American playwrights were portraying the Nazi character long before the actual war with Germany." The plays on Nazism and fascism performed a function of the utmost significance to the American of the nineteen thirties. They made a reluctant nation aware there was a demonic force loose in the world and impressed upon audiences that this 'satanic power was not content to remain overseas but would eventually extend its tentacles to all lands.19 Some of these plays introduced the Nazi character to the American theatre. The portrayal of the Nazi was to continue, paralleling the societal relationship to the war: the recognition and response to 17William Manchester, The Glory and the Dream, 2 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1974), 1:325-326. l8Manny Farber, "Movies in Wartime," New Republic, 3 January 1944, pp. 16-20. 19Caspar H. Nannes, Politics in the American Drama (Washing- ton, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1960), p. 150. the impending war, the fighting of the war, and post-war reflections. The Nazi character appeared in nearly thirty plays written by American playwrights and produced on Broadway between 1933 and 1970. This study is the first history of that character in American plays. Definition of Terms The term history is intended in its general meaning as a branch of knowledge which records and explains past events and specifically as “a systematic written account of events, particu- larly those affecting a nation, institution, science, or art, usually connected with a philosophical explanation of their causes."20 Characters will be considered Nazi characters if they are called Nazi by the playwright or if they are used by the play- wright to express Nazism. The latter can include such characters as the Gestapo, SS and German soldiers. Characters will also be considered Nazis if they call themselves Nazis, express a belief in Nazism (not merely fascism) or, in the case of metaphorical characters, are generally assumed to be Nazis by the critics. The concept of Nazi ideology is central to this study and is the subject of Chapter II. American playwrights are those who are listed as American in encyclopedias and by theatre historians and critics. 20Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1956), s.v.'Wfistory." The criteria for Broadway pleys are those listed as such in the Burns Mantle Best Plays series and include productions by non-commercial groups. 1. Only portrayals of Nazis by American playwrights are included. There may be instances of adaptations of novels and foreign works. However, no production presented as a work by a foreign playwright is included. 2. The criterion for the selection of the plays is a stage character that can be defined as Nazi. The artistic merit of the plays will vary greatly and may be noted, but a critical evaluation of the plays is not a consideration of this study. 3. The attention and emphasis given to the Nazi characters will vary with the importance of the character in the play, the importance of the playwright, critical responses and commercial successes. 4. In evaluating contemporary reactions to the Nazi characters and the plays, reviews are stressed rather than criti- cism in magazines and journals. new The Nazi characters covered in this study are discussed in the context of four periods: 1933 to August, 1939; September, 1939, to November, 1941; December, 1941, to May, 1945; and the post— war period. These divisions are based on distinct periods in the relationship of the war to society and to the theatre. The first period covers the time from the first play with a Nazi character to the generally accepted date of the start of World War II, September, 1939. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, and Britain and France declared war against Germany on September 3. On September 5, President Roosevelt, proclaiming the neutrality of his country, said, "This nation will remain a neutral nation, but I cannot ask that every American will remain neutral as well."21 On September 17, Brooks Atkinson wrote a column in the New York Iimee titled "Stage in Wartime," in which he discussed the possible effects of the war on the theatre. This was the period of the short-of—war policies of aid and lend-lease to the allies. The United States was involved but not fighting. This period is distinct enough to require a separate chapter. The other two periods are self-evident--wartime and the post-war period. The discussion of the characterization of the Nazis will include the values of the character and the function of the character. There are problems in isolating characters and character traits. J. L. Styan in Elements of the Drama views character as being the author's product which emerges from the play rather than raw material put into the play. He says character "has an infinity of subtle uses, but they all serve in orchestration of the play as a whole. . . ." He warns against taking "a misplaced interest in a 215am Friedlander, Prelude to Downfall: Hitler and the United Stateseel939-l94l, trans. Aline B. and Alexander Werth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), p. 35. 10 22 Dis- fictional character for its own sake and out of context." cussion of characters in this study assumes such observations reflect the play rather than define the substance of the play. There are four ways of gaining information about a character: by what other characters say about him; by what he says about himself; by what he does, and by his appearance.23 These observations will be used to determine the character's values and function with the methods suggested by Frank McMullan in Ifle_ Directorial Image and Hubert Heffner in Modern Theatre Practice. McMullan views character as the center circle of a series of concentric circles creating a circle of dialogue, plot, theme, and the mood of the play. He notes that the force of character is powerful, complex and extensive and requires simplification of approach. He divides the approach to character into the "group character values" which influence the "overall structure, kind of play, and style of play" and "the individual character values and "24 Both are of concern here. their relationship to the actor. The group character values include who the character is, character categories (principal, supporting and subsidiary), protagonist and antagonist, and dimensionality. McMullan says the character categories (degree of importance) can be determined 22J. L. Styan, The Elements of Drama (Cambridge, England: University Press, 1963), p. 163. 23H. D. Albright, William P. Halstead, and Lee Mitchell, Principles of Art. 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1968), p. 33. 24Frank McMullan, The Directorial Image: The Play and the Director (Hamden, Connecticut: Shoe String Press, 1962). 11 by the amount of dialogue, his contribution to plot and theme, and the amount of time on stage. The distinctions are as follows: The principal characters consist of those whose conflicts directly force an outcome and resolution of the central problem of the play. They create the main line of action; the sup- porting characters, the contributing but minor lines of action. The subsidiary characters are usually a part of the environ- ment and atmosphere.25 This procedure also determines the central character, or protagonist, and the antagonist. The individual character values include, first, identifi- cation and recognition traits--who the character is. For this study, he must be a Nazi and that also implies values. Second, the character's objectives and units of objectives. Third, the character's sources of opposition. Fourth, the tonality of the character--his emotional effect on the audience. Fifth, the dimensionality and growth of the character. Last, the character's contribution to the theme.26 The dimensionality of the characters will also rely on criteria of differentiation given by Heffner. Character traits may be arranged in a hierarchical order as follows: l. BiologiCal traits 2. Physical traits 3. Bent, disposition, attitude 4. Traits of feeling, emotion, desire 5. Traits of characteristics of thinking 6. Decisions. 25 Ibid., p. 92. 251am. 12 Heffner says a character can be made believable with an essential trait from one level only, such as a policeman's uniform (second level). He illustrates the third level with Iago and with such type characters as pedagogues and misers. The fourth level is basic to chief roles in dramatic action. The fifth level, deliber- ation, represents a high level of characterization and is of two kinds--expedient deliberation to attain a desire or objective (ordinarily found in comedy) and ethical deliberation which causes the character to become serious. Deliberation leads to choice. "Choosing or not choosing for a reason is the highest level of characterization."27 The values of the characters and their functions in the plays will be analyzed with appropriate elements from McMullan and Heffner. It is expected that few or none of the Nazi charac- ters will be protagonists. Most will be antagonists and many may fall into the type category of villain. The label villain requires some discussion. In The Villain as Hero in Elizabethan Tragedy, Dr. Clarence Boyer opposes the Aristotelian view that a villain could not be a protagonist because he would arouse neither fear nor pity. He says the ordinary conception of a villain is a "bad man who, from hatred or for personal advantage, uses unjust means to block the hero's 27Hubert C. Heffner, Samuel Selden, and Hunton D. Sellman, Modern Theatre Practice: A Handbook of Play Production, 4th ed. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1959), pp. 86-88. 13 purpose,"28 and that that definition usually applies only to comedy. He defines a villain as "a man who, for a selfish end, wilfully and deliberately violates standards or morality sanctioned by the "29 This definition allows the villain audience or ordinary reader. to have any degree of importance in a play, including the role of protagonist. In a study of American villain types, Orrin E. Klapp noted that there are two broad classes of villainous roles. The first are those who are overt, flagrant and highly visible, and the second type are underhanded, treacherous, subtle and usually need to be detected or time must pass before they are revealed. In order of importance to Americans, the overt villain types were desperadoes or outlaws, oppressors or bullies, authoritarians, rebels, flouters, trouble makers, claimants of undue privilege, intruders, suspicious isolates, monsters, rogues and renegades. The low visibility villain types were listed as underhanded traitors, deceivers. sneak-attackers, chiselers or parasites, shirkers and corrupters.30 In a later book, Klapp added other dimensions to his dis- cussion of villains: the kind of threat posed; social position; 31 and the seriousness of the attitude toward the villain. He lists 28Clarence Valentine Boyer, The Villain as Hero in Elizabethan Tragedy (New York: Russell and Russell, 1964). 291hid., p. 8. 3OOrin E. Klapp, "American Villain Types," American Socio- logical Review, 21 (June, 1956), 337-340. 3IOrin E. Klapp. Heroes, Villains,yand Fools (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1962), pp. 50-67. 14 five main kinds of villains and some of the examples include Nazis. First are those who violate order and status and include desperadoes and rebels. Second are usurpers and abusers of power or authority. These include oppressors such as Hitler. Third are villainous strangers and they include intruders, suspicious isolates and monsters. Examples of monsters include Himmler, Goebbels and Ilse Koch. Fourth are traitors and sneaks and these include collaborators such as Quisling. The fifth kind of villains are social undesira- bles. Klapp says that villains generally lack the redeeming traits of heroes, have opposite traits, and are a threat to the groups served by the heroes.32 In contrast, the hero types include winners (champions), splendid performers. heroes of social acceptability, independent spirits, and servants of admirable groups.33 A similar view of the hero is given by Dixon Wecter in The_ American Hero, and his historical view of the hero is of particular interest to this study. Wecter divides heroes in history into three groups: first, the kings and would-be kings; second, the cult of the middle class and self-made man; and, third, the idealization of the little man. He places American heroes into the second group and applies the third description to the Fascist and Communist heroes.34 Discussing the Fascist hero, he says, 321bid. 33 34Dixon Wecter, The Hero in America: A Chronicle of Hero- Ep§§h1p_(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1941), p. 482. Ibid.. 90- 27-28. 15 Although he is only a Little Man, the lamps of publicity project him upon the map of the world as a great shadowy giant. The poorest citizen of . . . the Reich rejoices to think that this magnified image of himself is awesome and terrifying to other nations.35 In this study, it is possible that a character identified as a villain may have a heroic self-perception or see himself as an extension of genuine heroism. The preceding concepts of characterization, villainy and heroism will be used to evaluate the character's values and function in the play. Procedure Chapter II will contain an in-depth analysis of Nazi ideology to provide a background and basis for a discussion of the Nazi characters. Each chapter dealing with a period will be introduced with an overview of the period to provide the response of society and the theatre to the war and to Nazism at that time. The plays will be handled chronologically. Comments about the seasons, whether or not they contain plays, will be made when necessary to clarify historical context. Each of these chapters will be reviewed for indications of a pattern or development in the portrayal of the Nazi character. Each play will be handled in a similar manner whenever possible and appropriate. 351bid., p. 7. 16 1. Title, playwright, and date of production. Background information if helpful. Synopsis. #9)“) Discussion of Nazi characters from most important to least important. If a character's philosophy is sufficiently delineated, it will be compared with the various interpretations of Nazism discussed in Chapter II. 5. Critics' reactions to the plays will be surveyed with particular attention given to observations about the Nazi characters. 6. Success of production, later productions, and influences, if any. Plays for which scripts were not available are discussed on the basis of information in the Best Plays series, reviews and criticism. In each case a footnote indicates the lack of a script and the sources used. The final chapter will review and discuss the development and patterns of the Nazi character, draw conclustions based on the findings, and provide implications for further study. Appendix A includes a list of all the plays with Nazis and the number of performances each ran on Broadway. Appendix B contains the 1920 program of the Nazi Party to provide the self-proclaimed basis of the Nazi Party. Appendix C contains a brief discussion of three plays which dealt with American fascism and are peripheral to the main study. 17 Sources A compilation of all plays produced on Broadway and con- taining Nazi characters was made from an examination of the Beet Elay§_series. All plays which could conceivably have Nazi charac- ters were investigated. The Theatre Collection of the New York Public Library, New York City, was the primary source of scripts and other information. Other facilities used were the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., and various libraries through the Inter-Library Loan system. Scripts were also obtained through the Drama Book Shop of New York City. The background preparation for the study included an investigation into various sources to determine the general relation- ship and effect of World War II to the New York theatre. An in- depth background of the pre-war period was necessary to provide the reaction of the New York theatre and the public to the development of Nazism. The Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature and the Ney_ York Times Index were checked from 1930 to 1970 for all articles connecting the New York theatre to World War II, and those articles were surveyed. The front page and "Legitimate" section of Variety Magazine from 1930 to 1945 were examined to gain a perspective on the reaction of the commercial theatre to the developing war and the war itself. The New York Times was examined from 1930 to 1941 to observe the pre-war public response to the coming war and Nazism and to check the Drama section for such reactions. The New York Times was stressed as a source because of its location and its 18 36 The index of the reputation as a record of the New York Theatre. Theatre Collection of the New York Public Library was also checked for all references to World War II in American theatre history books and periodicals. A general knowledge of World War II was obtained from several general histories such as The World at War by Mark Arnold- Forster and The Origins of World War II by A. J. P. Taylor. The tenor of American society in these periods was gained from general books such as The Growth of American Thogght by Merle Curti and The Power and the Glory by William Manchester. Specific periods were filled in by such studies as The Age of the Great Depression by Dixon Wecter and War and Society, The United Stateslel94l-l945 by Richard Polenberg. In order to evaluate the Nazi character, it was necessary to study the rise of Nazism and Nazi ideology. Robert G. L. Waite's Hitler and Nazi Germany provided the first overview and the seven-page bibliography provided a guide to important studies and various views of Nazism. The annotated bibliographies in Dietrich Orlow's two-volume The History of the Nazi Party, 1933- 124§_were also of great help. Whenever possible, Nazi writings, documents, and speeches in secondary sources were used to illustrate points. One book of particular significance is Anatomy of the SS 36Jack Alton Hensley, "The New York Times Drama Section as Record of the American Theatre, 1920-1950" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1966). 19 State by Helmut Krausnick, Hans Buchheim, Martin Broszat, and Hans- Adolph Jacobsen.37 The publisher's note states: On 20 December 1963, after five years of preliminary investi- gation, the trial of twenty-two former members of the staff of Auschwitz concentration camp opened in Frankfurt. It was the first large—scale case of its kind tried by the Germans before a German judge and jury. Anatomy of the SS State brings together four depositions by members of the Institut fUr Zeitgeschichte which were made to the court before the first witness was called. They were intended as expert historical statements on the organization and functions of the $5.38 In the analysis of Nazi characters, all specific characterizations such as the portrayal of a juvenile Nazi (Tomorrow the World) or the Nazis in Norway (The Moon Is Down) were investigated in studies pertaining to the subject--studies pertaining to Nazi youth and education and studies about the Nazi occupation of Norway. 37Helmut Krausnick, Hans Buchheim, Martin Broszat, and Hans-Adolph Jacobsen, Anatomy of the SS State, trans. Richard Barry, Marian Jackson, Dorothy Long (New York: Walker and Company, 1968). 38Ibid., publisher's note. CHAPTER II HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: NAZI IDEOLOGY The concept of "Nazism" is a difficult one to define due to the fact that while scholars are in some agreement on the develop- ment and political structure of the Nazi Party, there is little 1 Most studies of Nazism begin by raising agreement as to its roots. the question of how the moment could arise and then explain the elusive nature of the subject. Dietrich Orlow in The History_of the Nazi Party: 1933-1945 begins by saying: There is no agreement . . . on one of the fundamental charac- teristics of a totalitarian party: the ingredients and indeed the very existence of a Nazi ideology are a matter of con- siderable dispute. Some authors have taken the position that the Nazi ideology consisted of an all-encompassing political pseudo-religion. The problem of definition is also raised directly by Martin Broszat: One could rightfully speak of Nazi ideology as a catchall, a conglomeration, a hodgepodge of ideas. To approach Nazi ideology with the usual measuring devices of intellectual history3is therefore possible only with the greatest reser- vation. 1Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship: The Origins, Structureeeand Effects of National Socialism, trans. Jean Steinberg (New York: Praeger Publisher, 1971), p. 3. 2Dietrich Orlow, The History of the Nazi Party: 1933-1945 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburg Press, 1973), p. 5. 3Martin Broszat, German National Socialism, 1919-1945, trans. Kurt Rosenbaum and Inge Pauli Boehm (Santa Barbara, CalifOrnia: Clio Press, 1960), p. 32. 20 21 Another major problem of definition is that the expressed beliefs of the Nazi Party were altered to fit political requirements as needed. Ideology was used as an organizational tool and was never meant to mean the same thing to everyone. The investigator resembles Peer Gynt peeling his onion; as each layer comes off, the inner face represents another ideological aspect and the outer face, which is the propaganda, also acquires another look.4 This section is intended to provide the necessary background for the discussion of the Nazi characters in the following chapters. For that purpose, it will focus, as much as possible, only on those factors of Nazism which can illuminate the portrayal of Nazi characters. The foreword to Anatomyyof the SS State provides a helpful guideline to investigating Nazism. It says that there are two predominant views of the Third Reich. The first view sums it up with the word Auschwitz and does not go beyond the stark fact that it happened. The question of how and why it occurred is answered with "generalized moral and cultural philosophising" and leaves out the intellectual and political background. The second view sees the events as the crimes of "a misguided body of men who had no place in the main stream of German history of the period." Both views lack insight and "fail to see the connection between the form of political tyranny adopted and the mass crime called for by its ideology."5 This study attempts to relate that connection. 4Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1972), p. 64. 5Krausnick, et al., Anatomy of the SS State, p. xiii. 22 The terms "National Socialism" and "NSDAP" will be used interchangeably with the Nazi Party. The Nazi Party was called Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (The National Socialist German Workers' Party) which was abbreviated NSDAP. The term "Nazi" was a German contraction for the name of the party. Nazism is generally viewed as a form of twentieth-century fascism. H. R. Trevor-Roper says fascism began in 1922-23 with the March on Rome by Mussolini and was followed next year with the abortive Munich putsch by Hitler in Germany and it ended as an international movement in 1945 with the deaths of Mussolini and Hitler. Fascism, like Nazism, is also an elusive concept. In contrast, although Communism has heresies and deviations, unlike fascism, it does have a single intellectual source with a proclaimed dogma. Fascism has no agreed-upon prophets. "Its origins are plural, divergent, imprecise."6 In Three Faces of Fascism, Ernst Nolte stresses that while fascism cannot be viewed simply as anti-communisn, it would be inaccurate to define it without that basic criterion. He defines it as follows: Fascism is anti-Marxism which seeks to destroy the enemy by the evolvement of a radically opposed and yet related ideology and by the use of almost identical and yet typically modified methods, always, however, within the unyielding framework of national self-assertion and autonomy. 6H. R. Trevor-Roper, "The Phenomenon of Fascism" in European Fascism, ed. S. J. Woolf (New York: Vintage Books, 1969), pp. 18-38. 7Ernst Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism, trans. Leila Vennewitz (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966), pp. 20-21. 23 This implies that there is no fascism without Marxism. Later, Nolte ways that fascism can be viewed as a "conservative revolution" or n8 "a counter-revolution on the soil of revolution. When Nolte applies his definition of fascism to National Socialism, he starts with "The Background: The Race Doctrine." He is referring to a branch of European thought which had developed about 1890 and was an anthropological view of history.9 The importance of racialism in Nazi ideology is stressed in nearly all of the studies on Nazism encountered. Racialism is best understood in context of another concept in the intellectual background of Germany preceding Nazism. That concept is Volkisch. A clear definition of Volkisch and its extension into Nazism is given by Peter Merkl: Volkisch is derived from Volk, meaning people. The word has the same origins as the English 'folk' and shares its overtones of an egalitarian populism and a highly integrated, homogeneous, ethnic community. 'Volkisch' is used to describe the German extreme rightist movements and radical splinter groups whose most significant characteristic was their opposition to the Western tradition--often to capitalism--, to the democratic and republican ideas of the Weimar Republic, and especially to any foreign policy which meant German adjustment to the consequences of defeat in World War I or to international conciliation in general. They emphasized anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism. They say the differences of man are more significant than their common ties. They promoted the concepts of 'race' and 'blood,' the superiority of the Germanic people over the Slavs and other neighboring ethnic elements. They represented an opposition to the Enlightenment and the West European heritage of the French Revolution. 81bid., p. 466. 91bid., p. 277. 10Peter Merkl, Introduction to German National Socialism, 1919-1945 by Martin Broszat, trans. Kurt Rosenbaum and Inge Pauli Boehm (Santa Barbara, California: Clio Press, 1960), pp. 2-3. 24 This definition also indicates the intertwined nature of the con- cepts of Volkisch, race, nationalism and anti-Semitism. An extended history of Volkisch thought is given by George L. Moose in The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the 11 Third Reich. He notes that Volkisch thought was opposed to pro- gress and modernization and offered romanticism as an alternative to the modern world. "It also made belonging to something larger than oneself a positive virtue indispensable to personal salvation."12 He traces its philosophic roots to Kant but notes that two sciences which developed in the nineteenth century led to its objectification. Those sciences were anthropology and philology. Cranial measurements developed by anthropologists provided a criterion for Aryanism. Philology provided a belief that the Germans and the English had common forbearers in India and had developed self-reliance and independence as a result of migration. Elements of Indian philosophy such as karma (rebirth) entered into 13 Volkisch thought. These beliefs are not without significance. Heinrich Himmler was convinced he was the reincarnation of Henry the Fowler and Hitler was passionately occupied with the writings of nature mystics.14 11George L. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology: Intel- lectual Origins of the Third Reich (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1964 . 12 13 Ibid., p. 17. Ibid., pp. 88-90. 1416111., p. 306. 25 Mosse says that two factors characterized the thrust of Volkisch thought into the twentieth century. First, Volkisch thought rapidly assimilated racial ideas which were systematized into pseudo-science, and, second, there was a heightened urgency to put Volkisch thought into practice.15 The word 1915 has another important aspect. The Nazi Party was a hybrid of popular will and authoritative fiat. It consisted of mutually exclusive attributes. The Third Reich belonged to Prusso-German history and also to the century of the common man. The paradox was resolved by the word ygly_which “denoted both 'the people' in the radical democratic sense and 'the folk' in the "16 The Nazi Party professed a belief in the German racial sense. folk soul or Volkisch and was fond of using the term. The term is as elusive as “folkish” or "folk soul" are in English. The term did have "strongly socialist and vaguely authoritarian learnings."17 The Nazi Party proclaimed a twenty-five point program in 1920 (see Appendix B) which contained many elements of Volkisch thought, including racialism, anti-Semitism, socialistic ideas and authoritarian ideas.18 Volkisch and Nazi ideology were identical 151618., p. 52; 16 Richard Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany, 1933-1945 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971 , p. 18. 17Joachim Remak, ed., The Nazi Years: A Documentary History (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969), p. 27. 18“Program of the National Socialist German Workers' Party" in The Nazi Years, ed.: Joachim Remak. 26 if one understands by ideology a composite of intellectual attitudes. Hitler expressed this when he wrote in Mein Kampf: "The basic ideas of the National Socialism movement are volkisch, and the volkisch ideas are National Socialist."19 Two writers who are mentioned in most studies of Nazism are Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau and Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Gobineau was a French diplomat and man of letters. He wrote a four- volume work published in Paris in 1853 and 1855 called an Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races. He wrote them as a result of his contact with the Germans from whom he derived his theories. To Gobineau, the key to all history and civilization was race. The best race was the Aryan race and the purest example of Aryanism were the Germans.20 Chamberlain was a member of the Gobineau Society in Germany. He was the son of an English admiral and the son-in-law of Richard Wagner. At the turn of the century, he wrote Foundations of the Nineteenth Century in which he set forth his racial ideas. Chamberlain argued that there were two pure races, the Germans and the Jews. He condemned anti-Semitism, but slipped into it as he discussed Jews. His chapter on Jews formed a good deal of the philosophical basis for Nazi anti-Semitism. Chamberlain argued that Christ was an Aryan and felt the way of salvation was with the Teutons. By World War I, 19Adolph Hitler, quoted by Martin Broszat, German National Socialism, 1919-1945, p. 43. 20wiiiiam Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, 2 vols. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960). 1:104-105. 27 his book had sold 100,000 copies and by 1938, in its 24th edition, had sold over a quarter million copies. He was an ardent supporter of Hitler and a member of the Nazi Party. He died in 1927, before 21 his dreams for Hitler were realized. Chamberlain also had a pro- found influence on the chief theoretician of the Nazi Party, Alfred Rosenberg.22 Bracher calls the ideas of Gobineau and Chamberlain a "quasi-religious cultural philosophy with markedly conservative Christian overtones.“ In referring to their writings and the writings of Lagarde and Langbehn, he says: Even as theories, these books and brochures were weapons in the hands of demagogues, and, after World War 1, their effect in Germany and Austria was quite different from that of the rest of Europe. Bracher believes the reason these ideas, which were present in all of Europe, spread to all aspects of German intellectual, social, and political life and took such a detrimental form was due to: "the special political and social history of the German states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which left Germany with "24 These ideologies weaker powers of resistance than other countries. were pushed into a vacuum following the catastrophe of World War I and they became the motivating force of a militant political move- ment. 2'Ibid., 1 104-109. 22Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race, pp. 12-14. 23Bracher, The German Dictatorship, p. 16. 24Ibid., p. 17. 28 Anti-Semitism received some setbacks before World War I but it did not wane or decline. A Volkisch anti-Semitism was fostered by militant sects. One of them was the Germanic Order founded in 1913 in Munich. It was reorganized in 1918 as the Thule Society and "became the godfather of the Hitler party and put a permanent stamp on the early phase of the movement."25 The impact of World War I on the lives of millions of Germans was one of the essential conditions for the rise of the 26 In the wake of military defeat and a Nazi Party and Hitler. revolutionary climate, there arose a number of sectarian "anti" movements. These groups were rooted in Volkisch nationalism and were anti-Semitic, anti-Western, and anti-Slav. One of these groups was the Deutsch Arbeiter Partei (German Workers' Party) which 27 By 1920, Hitler had become one of Hitler encountered in 1919. the party's best propaganda speakers. At a February 24, 1920, meeting in Munich, Hitler announced a twenty-five point program (referred to earlier) and a change of the party's name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP).28 The Nazi Party, like others, was generally anti-capitalist, nationalist and anti-Semitic. The twenty-five points contained unquestionably socialistic demands. The Germans were searching 25Ibid., p. 45. .26Alan Bullock, Hitler, A Study in Tyranny, rev. ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 54. 27 28 Bracher, The German Dictatorship, p. 50. Ibid., p. 84. 29 for a "third way," "a specifically German socialism somewhere between the communism exemplified by Russian Bolshevism and the capitalism of the victorious Western powers. . . .“29 The desire for a "third way" made the economic depression a fortuitous factor in Hitler's rise to power. Since his release from prison in 1924, Hitler had continually predicted disaster for Germany at the same time that the country was consolidating it- self. "It was the depression which tipped the scales against the Republic and . . . shifted the weight of advantage to Hitler's side."30 Ultimately, the economic views and other views of the party were reshaped into the beliefs and aims of Hitler. ”What Hitler did with [the economic] program was to de-emphasize its socialist party--not to the point of driving away the dispossessed, but to that of not antagonizing the potential middle-class sympathizer."3] There is a wide variety of opinion about the reasons for the success of Nazism. While the degree of German culpability is not an issue here, those opinions are of general importance to this study. One of the popularized views is that given by William Shirer who saw Nazism as "a logical continuation of German History."32 Shirer's viewpoint has been criticized both as superficial33 and 29Broszat, German National Socialism, p. 71. 30Bullock, Hitler, A Study in Tyranny, p. 151. 31Remak, ed., The Nazi Years, p. 31. 32Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 90. 33Bracher, The German Dictatorship, p. 3. 30 34 Taken to its extreme, the position can lead to unbalanced. attributing characteristics to Germans and succumbing to Hitler's ideas of race. There is also a degree of irony in viewing Nazism as a one-way road from Luther to Hitler, since the Hazis themselves emphasized real and imaginary national characteristics. Friends and foes alike express similar attitudes: Both wish to demonstrate that Germany's national history contained the seeds of Hitlerism and that great names in German philosophy5 religion and culture were forerunners of the Na21 era. Gerhard Ritter takes a view completely opposite that of Shirer. Ritter stresses the European nature of fascism and views Nazism as a European phenomenon.36 Ritter's position has also been criticized. A. J. Nicholls says it can imply that "Nazism is the product of urbanization and democracy . . ." and Hitler's suc- cess a result of “a proletarian mass eager for social revolution."37 Alan Bullock in Hitler, A Study in Tyranny states the problem of these two opposing views and offers a middle position: The view has often been expressed that Hitler could only have come to power in Germany, and it is true--without falling into the same error of racialism as the Nazis--that there were 34Klaus Epstein, "Shirer's Argument Challenged" in Hitler and Nazi Germany, ed. Robert G. L. Waite (Hinsdale, Illinois: The Dryden Press, 1965), p. 40. 35A. J. Nicholls, "Germany" in European Fascism, ed. S. J. Woolf (New York: Random House, 1968), p. 61. 36Gerhard Ritter, "The European Context" in The Nazi Revolution: Hitler's Dictatorship and the German Nation, ed. John L. Snell, revised by Allan Mitchell (Lexington, Mass: 0. C. Heath and Company, 1973), pp. 22-34. 37Nicholls, "Germany," p. 62. 31 certain features of German historical development, quite apart from the effects of the Defeat and the Depression, which favoured the rise of such a movement. This is not to accuse the Germans of Original Sin, or to ignore the other sides of German life which were only grossly caricatured by the Nazis. But Nazism was not some terrible accident which fell upon the German people out of a blue sky. It was rooted in their history, and while it is true that a majority of the German people never voted for Hitler, it is also true that thirteen millions did. Both facts need to be remembered.38 There are other views and explanations for the success of Nazism which stress sociological and psychological causes. Those which are pertinent will be referred to later. Hitler is central to any study of Nazi Germany. "Never in modern history has one man's personality so completely dominated 39 It is true that the history of National and controlled a society." Socialism cannot be divorced from the life of Hitler. However, in discussing Hitler, it should also be understood that National Socialism was "more than the gigantic mistake of misguided fellows, the product solely of the demonic powers of one individual."40 Hitler's political rise required necessary political and intellectual currents. This study is not concerned with the details of his political rise, but rather with his ideas and beliefs. By the end of World War I, Hitler's ideas and prejudices were fixed and were to change little during his life. In Mein Kampf, Hitler said of his days in Vienna: 38Bullock, Hitler, A Study in Tyranny, p. 807. 39Robert G. L. Waite, ed., Introduction to Hitler and Nazi Germany, p. 2. 40Bracher, The German Dictatorship, p. 57. 32 In this period, there took shape within me a world picture and a philosophy which became the granite foundation of all my acts. In addition to what I then created I have had to learn little; and I have had to alter nothing.4I Flitler put his ideas into his famous book Mein Kampf (My Struggle) following the unsuccessful putsch in 1923. The purpose of the book vwas to establish himself as the founder and builder of the Nazi F’arty. The two volumes did that and also made him rich even before 42 the came to power. The book is unsystematized, seldom logical, (disconnected, and has no movement or development. Nonetheless, 'it contained what Hitler believed.43 Mein Kampf had in it all the elements of National Socialist ideology. The book expressed Hitler's ideas from his youth to his tdeath. "Nationalism, anti-Bolshevism, and anti-Semitism, linked lay a Darwinistic theory of struggle, formed the pillars of his inorld view and shaped his utterances from the very first to the last."44 Alan Bullock and others also place the basis of Hitler's 45 pcalitical beliefs in a crude Darwinism. Bullock says this belief g 4IAdolph Hitler, Mein Kam f, trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston: lic>ughton Mifflin Company, 1943), p. 22. 42Konrad Heiden, Introduction to Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Ma nheim, pp. xv-xxi . 43Ralph Manheim, Translator's Note to Mein Kampf, pp. xi- )(1 i. 44Joachim Fest, Hitler, trans. Richard and Clara Wilson (New York:. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1973), p. 206. 45Alan Bullock, "The Theory of Nazism: Hitler's Basic Ideas" in Hitler and Nazi Germany, pp. 59-64. 33 underlies three fundamental principles Hitler expressed in Mein Kampf: the concept of struggle, purity of blood, and the ingenuity of the individual. The concept of struggle creates achievements and raised man above the animal world. The corollary is that such values as pacifism, Christian virtues create weakness and cowardice. The concept of purity of blood is the racial one discussed earlier. This concept provided the justification for the right of the Germans (Aryans) to ride rough-shod over inferior people and for an elite to rule over the Germans. The last concept (ingenuity of the indi- vidual) asserted the idea of inequality and the leadership principle (Fuhrerprinzip). The Fuhrer was a mystical conception understood as “an incarnation of the unity of the Volk." These concepts were interrelated and they were encompassed in one larger idea--the Jew. "Hitler's anti-Semitism is the main idea which embraces the whole span of his thought."46 All the major studies encountered express the thought that anti-Semitism was the core of Hitler's ideology. Although the National Socialist Party had embraced socialist ideology. Hitler 47 was not a socialist. He was not interested in social and economic reform. He had spent fifteen years attaining power and he was determined "not to endanger it with far reaching social experi- 48 ments." Hitler considered a general concern for the people to 46 47 Ibid., p. 64. Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism, p. 364. 48Orlow, The History of the Nazi Party, p. 17. 34 be a socialist concept. The revolution was not for the masses but only for the racially superior leaders: Their rule and victory over the Jews and other 'inferiors'-- the true volkisch-racist revolution--remained the only genuine kernel of Hitler's ideology, regardless of the proclamations of National Socialist doctrine and propoganda; almost everything else was utilitarian, Machiavellian power politics.49 Several points need to be made about the central role of anti-Semitism in Nazism. In the final stage of the Weimar Republic, the Jews became the embodiment of every ill besetting state and society, including capitalism, anarchism, communism, and such social problems as lesbian and homosexual magazines, smoking among women and the incidence of abortion.50 The Jew was central to Volkisch ideology and no other minority in Germany would have served the role of scapegoat for all the ills of society.51 Hitler was clear about the specific role of the Jews in the racialism he espoused in Mein Kampf: "Without the clearest knowledge of the racial problem and hence of the Jewish problem "52 there will never be a resurrection of the German nation. As early as May, 1923, Hitler had publicly said that the Jews were not human; they were "the image of the devil" and the "racial tuberculosis of the nation."53 49Bracher, The German Dictatorship, p. 50Grunberger, The l2-Year Reich, p. 15. 5IMosse, The Crisis in German Ideology, p. 243. 52Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 339. 53Fest, Hitler, p. 212. 35 The fanatic and irrational nature of Nazi anti-Semitism can be observed by the fact that the death camps were operating up to the end of the war during a time when there were pressing military needs for such things as precious freight space and armament workers.54 The extermination of the Jews has been referred to as an outgrowth of the "biologistic insanity of Nazi ideology. . ."55 The importance of this factor in presenting Nazi ideology cannot be overemphasized: Racial thought and its consequences are fundamental to the whole cultural drive of the Third Reich. Once this has been understood, everything else will follow.5 .“Concentration camp crimes and mass murder of Jews were essential 57 Understanding the nature features of National Socialist tyranny." of that racialism is not simple. Franz Neumann in Behomoth: The Structure and Practice ofTNational Socialism 1933-1944 says that since the Jew was not considered human in totalitarianism, the anti-Semitism is "magic beyond discussion." He contrasts that sort of anti-Semitism with several types of non-totalitarian anti- Semitism which he says present remnants of rationality and can be analyzed.58 54No1te, Three Faces of Fascism, pp. 399-400. 55Bracher, The German Dictatorship, p. 430. 56George L. Mosse, Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich, trans. Salvator Attanasio (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1966), p. 60. 57 58Franz Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism: 1933-1944 (NewTYork: Harper and Row, 1944): pp. 121-123. Krausnick, et al., Anatomy of the SS State, p. xiii. 36 Some sort of clarification of Nazi anti-Semitism is necessary and a helpful explanation is given by Dietrich Orlow. Orlow views the nature of political myths such as racism as being different in a totalitarian state. He says these myths are totalizing and re- flexive. All past, present and future events are divided into two parts, each with a moral value. "We" are morally good, “they" are morally evil. In Nazism, Aryan-Germans become totally good and the Jews totally evil. This belief controls all actions of the indi- vidual who accepts it. If the myth is internalized, it provides an answer to all questions and substitutes a mythical reality for an objective reality. "Adolph Hitler both believed the myth and identified himself with it."59 While anti-Semitism served as the core of racialism, it should be noted that fear and hatred of the Slavs was also strong in Nazism, as attested by the fact that the Nazi regime exterminated as many civilian Slavs as Jews.60 Joachim Fest quotes Hitler as having said, "Gods and Beasts, that is what our world is made of" and says this statement is "probably the most succinct possible summary of the essence of National Socialism, behind all ideological and tactical masks."6] 59Orlow, The History_of the Nazi Party, pp. 3-4. 60Peter Phillips, The Tragedy of Nazi Germany (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969), p. 109. 6IJoachim Fest, The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of Nazi Leadership, trans. Michael Bullock (New York: Random House, 1970), pp. 291-292. 37 The discussion of Hitler's ideology is not meant to imply that every Nazi would have an identical ideology. However, as the quintessential Nazi, his ideology provides the basic model. His attitudes and ideas included opposition to tolerance, cosmopoli- 62 tanism, democracy, Marxism, equality and peace; a belief in authoritarian forms of government, an intolerant nationalism, 53 All of these inequality of the races and the virtues of war. concepts, however, are subordinate to anti-Semitism. "Whatever psychological interpretations of his life experiences may indicate, Hitler's hatred of the Jews made up the most constant factor in "64 Nonetheless, the psychological all his willful political life. explanations can be useful in comparing Nazi portrayals to the model. Erich Fromm finds the key to Hitler in Mein Kampf.65 Fromm sees Hitler as having an authoritarian character structure and uses this as the main source for analyzing the psychology of Nazism. He says the authoritative character has the "simultaneous presence of sadistic and masochistic drives." Hitler saw the German people as always innocent and the enemies as "sadistic brutes." At the same time, he saw Germany as lacking necessary "brutal power. The typical sado-masochistic love for the powerful and hatred for 62Bracher, The German Dictatorship, p. 63. 63Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, p. 56. 64 65Erich Fromm, "Hitler's Personality: The Basis of His Appeal" in Hitler and Nazi Germany, ed. Robert G. L. Waite, pp. 25- 28. Broszat, German National Socialism, p. 51. 38 the powerless explains much of the political actions of Hitler and ti‘i s followers. The masochistic side of the character stresses the we rthlessness of the individual and the need to submit to the power ()‘f=' a leader or an elite. Fromm sees Hitler's ideology as more or ‘I ess identical with the ideology of the Nazi Party: This ideology results from his personality which, with its inferiority feeling, hatred against life, asceticism, and envy of those who enjoy life, is the soil of sado-masochistic strivings; it was addressed to people who, on account of their similar character structure, felt attracted and excited by these teachings and became ardent followers of the man who expressed what they felt.66 I: r‘tomm concludes that Nazi ideology enabled the authoritarian charac- ter to be able to submit completely to someone above and have total power over someone beneath him. Douglas Kelley, the prison psychiatrist during the Nazi War trails, views Hitler as a compulsive fanatic.67 He calls isl1:1:ention to Hitler's marked fear of death, disease, dirt, and horses; his dislike for meat and tobacco; a compulsion for extreme (3:71 garanliness; and very strict and rigid daily routines. Kelley '31 assifies him as a "psycho-neurotic of the obsessive and hysterical type." He had symptoms of hysteria and paranoid or persecution '3’i51‘tzterns, including outbursts of anger, hysterical paralysis of the left side and marked suspicions. In simple terms, Hitler was an abnormal and a mentally ill individual, though his deviations were not of a nature which in the average individual would arouse the serious concern of others.68 5516id., p. 27. El 67Douglas Kelley. "Hitler: A Compulsive Fanatic" in Hitler “~!1£!L,Nazi Germany, ed. Robert G. L. Waite, pp. 21-24. 68Ibid., p. 24. 39 Walter C. Langer, who did the wartime report on Hitler, attributed sexual perversion to Hitler and said this caused the defense mechanism commonly called projection to become paramount Hitler's own personal problems, conflicts, every- ‘i n his life. 69 Robert G. L. th ing he hated in himself was projected to the Jew. Na ‘ite also emphasizes Hitler's projection and says it was a direct consequence of his personal feelings of guilt and self-hatred caused incestuous feelings, masochistic sexual perversion and a fear 70 by of having Jewish blood. Zevedei Barbu sees the rise of Nazism as a product of a social psychological malaise.“ Barbu concerns himself with the psychological condition of the German people. The Nazis were r‘vaczruited from a cross section of Germans and he believes they 1 ‘i ved in a unique condition of stress and insecurity. The stress "65 caused by a strong communist movement, the international scene i n relationship to Germany, and separatist movements in Bavaria. S"11"ess can cause a lost frame of reference in the individual and the group, and the Nazis offered quick relief from the stressful S 1' tuation. The core of the part consisted of "socially non-descript DEOple.“ They included demobilized soldiers and the unemployed. A] 1 of them had one common trait; they could all be called declassés, \ 69wa1ter c. Langer, The Mind of Adolph Hitler: The Secret Mme Report (New York: Basic Books, 1972), p. 183. a - 70Robert G. L. Waite, "Guilt Feelings and Perverted Sexu- ] 1 ty" in The Nazi Revolution, pp. 78-92. 51 7IZevedei Barbu, "The Product of Social-Psychological a1 aise" in Hitler and Nazi Germany, pp. 52-58. 40 " people who had failed completely or partly to integrate themselves with one of the institutionalized forms of society." (This obser- vation is similar to one of the villain types discussed in Chapter I -) These people can be described as sociopathic personalities who a re liable to political delinquency. They solved their problems by excessive integration--a desire for a movement which would give them everything they lacked as individuals. These explanations and observations for Hitler's behavior and the appearance of Nazism will be referred to when applicable to particular portrayals of Nazis. Hitler's real interest was not with theoretical ideology, but with the success of the party, its organization and activity. H ‘i s fanaticism and total concentration were applied to questions a bout "effectiveness, timeliness, psychological calculations, tactics, organization and propaganda."72 .The organizational structure 0 ‘F the Nazi Party can provide further understanding of Nazi charac- tErs, especially when they are described as Storm troopers, SS or Ge$tapo. The SA (Sturmabteilong) or Storm Troopers were the oldest pa ramilitary unit of the Nazi Party. They were founded August 3, 1 921, as the "Sports Division" after Hitler took control of the pair‘ty.73 The SA was a private army and its function was to protect Nazi meetings, to break up the meetings of opponents and to terrorize \ 728roszat, German National Socialism, p. 53. 73Fest, Hitler, p. 147. 41 c>r3ponents. These brown-shirted storm troopers formed the core of Hitler's support. The SA formed one-half of the party; the other half was the P.0., the Political Organization.74 The SA was led by Captain Ernst Roehm, and from the start Hitler and Roehm were at odds. Hitler wanted the SA subordinate to the Party and Roehm wanted it independent.75 Roehm resigned in 1925 and went to Bolivia. The SA consisted of 70,000 men by 1930. Hitler recalled Roehm and the SA grew to two and a half million. The SA was used by Hitler to further his belief in the p ropaganda value of brutality and terror. It had consisted of many Former soldiers, thugs and riff-raff. At the start of the depres- s “i on, the SA attracted a great many of the unemployed and the S ocially declassés. From January 30, 1933, when Hitler was ap- pointed Chancellor, the SA was freed from all previous restrictions to "hunt, torture and murder."76 The conflict between Roehm and H ‘3 tler grew. Hitler wanted the SA to remain a purely terrorist 0 I"sganization. Roehm wanted a revolutionary conquest of the state. H ‘3 tler sought the support of bankers and industrialists to gain Control of the regular German army. Roehm had only contempt for bankers and industrialists and wanted to swallow up the German army a"d do away with the "stiff-necked general staff."77 The conflict \ 74Fest, The Face of the Third Reich. pp. 137-144. Fi,‘ 75Hans Buchheim, “The SS--Instrument of Domination," trans. 1 (:hard Barry, in Anatomy of the 55 State, p. 140. 76Fest, The Face of the Third Reich, pp. 137-144. 77Edward Crankshaw, Gestapo: Instrument of Tyranny(New Yolr‘k: Viking Press, 1956), p. 19. 42 was resolved by Hitler in the summer of 1934 with the famous "Night of the Long Knives." Hitler, with the aid of the SS and Gestapo, used the pretext of conspiracies in the SA to purge the leader- sh ip.78 The account of the number murdered, including Roehm, varies from 71 to over a thousand.79 The SA was finished and never played 21 rt1ajor role again. Hitler also had an Assault Squad (Stosstrupps Hitler) which was later replaced by the SS (Schutzstaffel) or Protection Echelon replaced the former Hitler Assault Squad (Stosstrgpps Hitler). The uniform was black, the cap had a death's-head badge, and the swastika arm band had a black border.80 The ss remained relatively “i ns ignificant until 1929 when, numbering about 200 men, Hitler appointed its third leader, a mild-mannered chicken farmer named He i nrich Himn1er.8' Himmler expanded the ss to 50,000 men by 1933. rhe SS was part of the SA, but after it carried out the executions 9": Roehm and the SA leadership in 1934, it was made independent 0 'F 'the SA.82 In 1929, Himmler had inspected SS recruits for racial 83 In tra its and accepted only those over five feet seven inches. \ 78Ibid., pp. 76-87. M 79Jacques Delarue, The Gestapo: A History of Horror, trans. e"Wyn Savill (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1964), p. 117. 80Buchheim, "The SS," p. 141. 8IShirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 1:121. 82Fest, The Face of the Third Reich. pp- 116-117- 83Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism, p. 390. 43 January, 1932, Himmler instituted the "Marriage Certificate" for prospective brides of the SS to be awarded solely on the basis of racial health and heredity.84 The SS was to be more than a mere as sociation of men: it was to be a community of genealogically hi gh-grade families." Hitler used the SS to take over and control the entire German police system and Germany became the SS state." Hi mmler named five "pillars" of the SS: the general SS who were the top leaders; the special duty unit involved in the activities of the police; the death's head units who formed the guards for the concentration camps; the security service for intelligence Du rposes; and the department of race and settlement. All these .. p 'i llars" served one single objective, the "restoring to health" C Gesundung) and safeguarding of "blood." "The SS was therefore 3 ‘3 mply the most complete organization concretization of Hitler's ci<>cz trine.85 The SS had no strict ideological training. The SS man 3 U bscribed to the "Fuhrer Principle" and "racial purity," but the FEa 1 force and solidifying factor in the SS was a certain mentality. The SS man learned that: His basic attitude must be that of a fighter fighting for fighting's sake; he must be 'hard'--not only insured to but impervious to all human emotions; he should be contemptuous \ 84In fact few applicants were turned down but few also 8a":‘isfied every requirement. Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds -, Documents on Nazism, 1919-1945 (New York: Viking Press, 1 974), pp. 181-212. 85Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism, pp. 391—392. 44 of 'inferior beings' and arrogant towards all who did not belong to the Order; he must show comradeship and 'comeraderie'; the word 'impossible' does not exist. Much of this was common to other Nazis, but the peculiarity of the SS was the intensity with which this mentality was cultivated and how consistently the mentality was translated into action.86 Loyalty was considered the specific virtue of the SS. The SS motto was : "' Loyalty is mine honour."87 The early SS military division known as the SS-Verfugungstruppe was known after January, 1940, as the Waffen-SS. There were fully mi 1 itarized combat formations. "The Waffen-SS men, selected for their toughness and fanaticism, were undismayed by defeat."88 The difference between the SA and the SS is significant. The SA under Roehm had practiced "emotional terrorism" with spon- ta neous acts of violence and the use of political and criminal techniques. This was changed to a "central bureaucracy systemati- Ca 1 1y employing terrorism as an institution." Himmler created a New man of violence "concerned with the dispassionate extermination of: real or possible opponents, not with the release of sadistic i mp U156$."89 There had been violence against those the Nazis opposed long before Hitler became Chancellor. However, these were hot official government actions. The first legal move against the \ B 86Hans Buchheim. "Comnand and Compliance," trans. Richard arry. Anatonomy of the 55 State, pp. 320-321. 87Ibid., p. 366. 5; 88Elizabeth Wiskemann. Introduction to Anatomy of the SS M, p0 Xi. 89Fest, The Face of the Third Reich, p. 118. 45 Jews was taken December 23, 1932, five weeks before Hitler came to power. It was a guideline preventing Jews from changing their narnes.90 The Reichstage fire occurred February 27, 1933. Hitler wa 5 given emergency powers and a reign of terror was started against opponents. The SA established concentration camps, mostly around Be rlin.91 These were not desolate, barbed wire fortresses, but 'i mprovised prisons such as warehouses and cellars where the SA took tens of thousands of political prisoners and interrogated them, often under torture.92 One of the more famous ones in the m1” ddle of Berlin was called the Columbia House.93 Every arrest began with a severe beating. Torture and murder were common; the Do‘lice reported with regularity that a victim had been shot while trying to escape and victims were thrown from windows and reported a s suicides.94 Mass arrest began February 28, 1933, and the first pro- V ‘3 sional concentration camps were opened to relieve overcrowded pY‘ ‘isons. A camp was opened by the SS on March 20, 1933, in an old \ 90Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1967), pp. 14-15. 9lBroszat, German National Socialism, pp. 141-142. 1- 92Otto Freidrich, Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin whe 1920's (New. York: Harper and Row, 1972), p. 388. E3 93A. J. Ryder. Twentieth Centurnyermany: From Bismark to --IZ§1pgt_(New York: Columbia UniVersity Press, 1973), p. 304. R 94Konrad Heiden, Der Fuhrer: Hitler's Rise to Power, trans. a1 ph Manheim (New York: Howard Fertig, 1944). 46 ;)c>\wder factory in Dachau. Maltreatment and killings in the prisons £1r1ncerning constructive ideas, Kurt says the Nazis have no program. Pics: replies to the charge that the Nazis promise everything: "We're r1<:>t restricting ourselves. We are men of action, not theorists. We shall meet the problems as they arise." Kurt expresses a belief in Fuhrepprinzip and volkisch 't:r10ught when he points out a window toward a parade: "You see that nnann out there? That's Germany--the Germany you've never been part of--the Germany that was dead!" He also states that the German army vveas not defeated in the war but was "knifed in the back by pacifists and socialists and professors--by Jews!" Kurt expresses anti- Semitism but it is not carried to the extreme of a totalizing and reflexive myth. When Kurt leaves immediately after his statement about IJews, Hugo Eisner, the army captain, says he agrees completely with Kurt. And Jakob, the head of the family, blames Willi as much as Kurt, saying "it is natural to be suspicious of people who are different from ourselves." He adds that Kurt loves his country very much. Before Kurt appears again, Friedrich makes a comment about him, suggesting elements of an authoritarian character structure. 65 He tells Clara, "You wouldn't recognize him, Clara--he's insane. There's nothing he stops at. They give him all the dirty jobs and he glories in it--!" When six storm troopers come to the Eisner home to arrest Willi, they are followed in a few moments by four more including Kurt. Kurt is menacing. He orders everyone to be silent, orders the books in the home destroyed, and pushes Joseph, the protesting aged great-uncle. A melee ensues in which the household servant is struck with a revolver. Kurt yells "Stop!" and tries to intervene when Willi attempts to shoot a trooper. Kurt steps in the line of fire and is killed. His final action keeps him from seeming as unrestrained and insane as Friedrich had described him. Maibaum uses several methods to keep Kurt from appearing as a villain. The violence in the play is depicted openly only by the storm troopers accompanying Kurt. It is also attributed to other Nazis by the Eisners. Willi tells of seeing an acquaintance have his scalp ripped off and his face stomped until it was unrecog- nizable. The other Eisners tell about their five days in prison and the abuses they underwent. In addition, Hugo is extremely hostile to Leopold, who runs the family business. He accuses him :of running "a blood and sweat factory" and of having become "rich and fat while others starved." These mitigating factors tend to keep Kurt from appearing as a villain. The effort to keep the Nazis in the play, Kurt and Friedrich, from appearing as villains was noted by the critics. 66 John Mason Brown felt that Maibaum was a propagandist but was fairer than most: He lets us understand the desperate hope that the Brown Shirts have invested in their leader at the same time that he exposes the barbarous cruelties to which his Jewish family is sub- jected.43 Another critic noted that not all the Jews in the play are "noble 44 martyrs" and not all the Germans are "ravening huns." And a third noted that the play did not stoop to being an attack on Hitler 45 but was “straight forward enough to speak on both sides." Nor did the drama follow "the Communist line that Hitler was an agent of the capitalists and that he persecuted only the working class."46 Maibaum appears to have tried to be historically accurate about events in the play. It is carefully structured around the significant date of Hitler's appointment as chancellor. The Brown Shirts are quoted in the play as singing a song with the lyrics "When Jewish blood drips from the knife, then we'll be all right." It is comparable to an SA song quoted in another source: "First "47 must Jewish blood be shed, only then will we be free. There was an ironic aspect to the portrayal of the Jews in the play. Several of the critics observed that the cast appeared Gentile, 43John Mason Brown, New York Evening Post, 22 November 1933. 44Richard Lockridge, New York Sun, 22 November 1933. 45John Anderson, New York Evening Journal, 22 November, 1933. 46 47 Himelstein, Drama Was a Weapon, p. 190. Calvocoressi and Wint, Total War, p. 21. 67 and John Mason Brown commented "It almost seemed as If Hitler had a hand in the casting."48 One critic expressed open hostility to the production of Brithright. Robert Garland of the New York World-Telegram said the producers of the play were not going "to drag me into a Nazi argument, either pro or con." He said of Maibaum, "And, if you ask me, he's looking for trouble crying 'Hitler! Hitler!‘ and then running away." He condemned the play for its propaganda and then, repeating that he would not be dragged into an argument, he wrote: Wouldn't it be deplorable if I should forget myself and insist that the Eisners brought it on themselves. The Eisners and the rest of them. It certainly would be deplorable and I'm glad I caught myself in time.49 Birthright was even less successful than Kultur and ran only 7 performances. Another foreign play with Nazi characters appeared in the 1933-34 season. It was The Shatter'd Lamp by Leslie Reade, an English dramatist. It opened March 21, 1934, and ran thirty-seven performances. Like Kglpgr, it also concerned the misfortunes of a professor's family under the Nazis. The professor's wife is dis- covered to have Jewish blood. There are tragic consequences for the family--the wife commits suicide, the professor is shot, and the son's fiancee deserts him. 48Brown, New York Evenipg Post, 22 November 1933. 49Robert Garland, New York World-Telegram, 22 November 1933. 68 The critics referred to 5215![ and Birthright in discussing The Shatter'd Lamp and they noted the general similarity of the stories. Aside from the dramatic merit, the content of the plays disturbed the critics. Burns Mantle suggested dramas about the Nazis should use ridicule: "I would not laugh at Nazism, but laughter in the theatre is a much more effective weapon than the 50 Robert Garland, who was hostile to Birth- forces of melodrama." right, felt that the situation in Germany was probably no different from the United States before and after the Civil War. He said that turmoil had developed a nation which is "the least race-conscious civilization has so far known" and added that The Shatter'd Lamp would lead to race consciousness and intolerance.5] Arthur Pollock was sympathetic to the play but wished the next such play "would avoid all mention of the plight of the German Jews." He said the playwrights would probably be unwilling to make the victims Socialists or Communists but he did wish they would depict the 52 Variety con- demned all three of the plays for their unfairness to the German 53 victims as "simple, honest, intelligent Germans." side. 50Burns Mantle, New York Daily News, 22 March 1934. 5IRobert Garland, New York World-Telegram, 22 March 1934. 52Arthur Pollock, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 22 March 1934. 53variety, 22 March 1934. 69 Judgement Day Judgement Day54 by Elmer Rice, was produced September 12, 1934. The play was a dramatization of the Reichstag Fire trial 55 that had been held in Leipzig in March, 1934. Rice set the play in "a capitol city of a country in Southeastern Europe." Rice stated later in his autobiography, Minoritnyeport, that he did not want to "present a mere documentary transcription" and had "changed the trial's locale to an unspecified Balkan country and made the plot turn on the attempted assassination of a fascist leader."56 However, the play was clearly understood to be a dramatization of the Nazi trial. Several of the characters in the play were patterned after real people. Rice described them as . . . Goering, [the trial's] prime mover; Hitler, who appeared briefly in a crucial scene, Marinus van der Lubbe, the psychotic young Dutchman employed by Goering to set the fire; and Georgi Dimitrov, the Bulgarian Communist whose bold resourcefulness had done much to discredit the proceedings. All the other characters were fictitious.57 The portrayal of these personages requires some clarification. The character Rakovski represents Goering. His title, The Minister of Culture and Enlightenment, would suggest Goebbels. Also, Rice wrote that in 1932 he had heard Goebbels speak on two 54Elmer Rice, Seven Plays by Elmer Rice (New York: Viking Press, 1950). 55Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 269. 56Elmer Rice, Minority Report: An Autobiography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963), p. 334. 57Ibid., p. 334. 70 58 occasions and Hitler on one. Whatever influence this may have had, the character Rakovski is generally accepted as a portrayal of Goering.59 Marinus van der Lubbe's guilt or innocence remains a question to this day, but Rice did take the view that Goering had employed him and that view is explicit in the play. The fortuitous timing of the fire seemed nearly proof at the time that the Nazis 60 had set it up. That view is still held by Shirer and others. However, Fritz Tobias argued in The Reichstag Fire that that was a myth and Lubbe had in fact set the fire without help from anyone.61 Dimitrov had been portrayed in an earlier agitprop playlet called Dimitrov by Elia Kazan and Art Smith. That play also contained Goering and Hitler as characters and it used the device of audience response.62 58Ibid., pp. 288, 323. 59Joseph Mersand, "Two Decades of Biographical Plays," American Drama Since 1930 (Port Washington, New York: Kennikot Press, Inc., 1949), p. 93. 60Arthur Garfield Hayes, "The Burning of the German Reichstag," Nation, 22 November 1933, pp. 586-589. 6IFritz Tobias, The Reichstag Fire, trans. Arnold J. Pomerans (New York: Putnam, 1964). 62According to Jay Williams in Stage Left (p. 141) a dis- cussion of the possibility of another play like Dimitrov in Harold Clurman's playwriting class in Boston led to the acceptance of an idea of Clifford Odets which evolved into Waiting for Lefty. (Clurman does not refer to this event or to Dimitrov in The Fervent Years.) Lefty was a critical success off-Broadway and when it was moved to Broadway, Odets wrote a companion piece for it, an anti- Nazi play called Till the Day I Die, which is the next play dis- cussed in this study. Williams, Stage Left, pp. 139-149; Rabkin, Drama and Commitment. pp. 172-177; Himelstein, Drama Was a Weapon, pp. 26-27. 71 Judgment Day concerns George Khitov, Lydia, Kuman, and Kurt Schneider, who are on trial for seeking the overthrow of the "National government." George and Lydia are leaders of the "People's party." Kurt Schneider is a drug addict who is used by the government to frame a case against George and Lydia. The play covers three days of the trial in three acts. There is a large cast in the play and all loyal members of the "National government" can be construed as Nazis. However, only a few of these characters are delineated to any extent. The clearest portrayals are two of the five judges who constitute members of the High Court of Justice: General Michael Rakovski (Goering), The Minister of Culture and Enlightenment; and Grigori Visnic (Hitler), The Minister-President. In Rice's play, the three judges who are the antagonists to the defendants are Dr. Panayot Tsankov, Colonel Jon Sturdza, and Professor Paul Lurusi. Both Tsankov and Sturdza are portrayed as authoritarian and oppressive villains. Although they are judges, they threaten law and order as it would be perceived by the audience as well as violate the audience's standards of morality and justice. Reviewers referred to these characters as villains and one noted that the audience "hissed the villains" and "cheered the hero and heroine."63 Tsankov also reveals the clearest expression of Nazi thoughts. Conrad Noli is an American lawyer and brother of the 63Arthur Pollock, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 13 September 1934. 72 defendant Lydia. Tsankov says to him, "See that you do not forget that we have the good fortune to be living in a totalitarian state, under the inspired guidance of our glorious leader, Grigori Vesnic." He later derides the "sentimentalities of democracy." Although the play takes place in a courtroom, both physical violence and brutality occur. Lydia's husband, Alexander, has been arrested earlier. During the trial their fourteen-year-old daughter, Sonia, is called as a witness. The girl pleads for her father and Tsankov falsely tells her, "Silence! Your father is already dead." During the trial a guard surreptitiously passes a paper to a witness and refuses to explain his action. Tsankov yells, "Make him talk! Beat him! Twist his arms!" and the guards obey him. Judge Sturdza has few lines, but he also abuses the defend- ants and is consistently in agreement with Tsankov. Judge Mursui considers the blatantly faulty evidence against the defendants as leaving much to be desired, but he rationalizes his verdict of guilty by accepting Tsankov's arguments about the necessity of a "Moral point of view." Murusi says that a political and moral point of view are similar: Well, after all, . . . it is very much the same thing. When all is said and done, we must admit that the highest morality is the welfare of the state. If we consider all the circum- stances, we must come to the conclusion that the moral guilt of the defendants has been established. On their own admission, they desire the overthrow of the National Governmegi. They are self-confessed members of the People 5 party-- Judge Vlora points out that membership is not punishable by death and Tsankov responds, "It will be." 64Rice, Seven Plays, p. 354. 73 While Judge Vlora is portrayed as quite fair throughout the trial, he is the presiding judge and does not oppose the regime. At the end of the trial, he accepts the idea that testimony by Vesnic (Hitler) would override the evidence: "It would scarcely be possible to question the word of the Leader himself." Only one of the judges the aged Count Leonid Slatarski, remains opposed to the procedures throughout the trial, and it is he who assassinates Visnic at the end and then commits suicide. Rakovski (Goering) appears in the second act as a witness. He is totally dictatorial and there is not even a modicum of court- room procedure during his presence. When the attorney for Schneider (van der Lubbe) offers an opinion, Rakovski says, "Have I asked for your opinion? Speak when you are spoken to." He is openly threat- ening to Schneider--"Hold up your head or we'll find a way to make you hold it up." He tells the American attorney, "Keep your mouth closed or we'll close it for you." And he orders Khitov (Dimitrov) to be taken to his cell telling him, "Your hour is near. And remem- ber that if the court does not know how to deal with you, I shall know how!" Near the end of the play, Rakovski intimidates the judges. He says that even if the evidence is not adequate, the judges must reach a verdict of guilty. Murusi and Sturdza are obsequious to Rakovski. Slatarski says he will vote for acquittal and Rakovski tells him his action will be regarded as treason. Slatarski questions the new national honor and Rakovski replies: 74 We are not living among the romantic sentimentalities of the nineteenth century, Count Slatarski. We have put aside all these decadent philosophies of liberalism and Christian ethics. We have swept away the weak-kneed and womanish doctrines of65 democracy and have rediscovered our strength and our unity. In this one speech, Rakovski expresses several concepts of Nazi ideology. Rakovski's villainy as well as the other villainous portrayals in the play are emphasized by the heroic portrayals of Judge Slatarski and Khitov. Vesnic (Hitler) appears only briefly near the end of the play. His character is not delineated, but he does have time to express some beliefs. He tells Judge Vlora that Vlora has only one duty--to the National government and that he permits no deviation from that duty. He complains about being dragged to the court for corroboration of prosecution witnesses and says: I must warn you, gentlemen, that if our courts do not know how to deal with their country's enemies, the government will be compelled to find more effective means of procuring justice. There is no place in our state for weakness and wavering. . . .55 In a few moments he is assassinated by Slatarski. His appearance is very brief, but his statements do accurately reflect Hitler's beliefs. He is described by one of his followers as "having revived the national spirit and unified the nation" and by one of his opponents as "blunt" and "brutal." None of the characters in the play is revealed in depth. Robert Hogan noted in The Independence of Elmer Rice that "The 6515id., p. 360. 66Ibid. 75 plot of Judgment Day demanded scope and that is what Rice gave it."67 Nonetheless, the views of Tsankov and Rakovski are sufficiently expressed to identify them as Nazis and not just totalitarian villains. Rice used other elements in the play to add to the portrayal of Nazism. The national emblem of a crossed sword and battle-ax symbolized the swastika and was used prominently on the set as well 68 . . There are some br1ef references to rac1al con- as on armbands. cepts (the superiority of the Slavic race), and the major plot element, the suppression of the (the Communist Party). However, there is no substitute for the Jews as a scapegoat race. Also, the presence of a cross on the set, the green uniforms, the Slavic names, and the fact that the drug-addicted Kurt Schneider is a German all tend to distract from the presentation of the National party characters as Nazis. Rice did not present the Reichstag trial as it really occurred. Those at the real trial included the members of the supreme court, van der Lubbe, Dimitrov and Goering. The other characters and the appearance of Hitler were fictionalized. And, in the real trial, the court acquitted three of the four defendants. Nevertheless, the courtroom procedures, dialogue and many of the plot elements were accurate reflections of the real trial. 67Robert Hogan, The Independence of Elmer Rice (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965), p. 73. 68Photos, White Studios, Inc., Theatre Collection, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center. 76 Arthur Garfield Hayes, a lawyer and a friend of Rice's, 69 Hayes had been present wrote about the trial in November, 1933 at the trial, along with other foreign attorneys, and there are numerous observations in his comments on the trial which occur in Rice's play. He reported that the court prevented any criticism of prosecution witnesses and that Dimitrov was often barred from the court because he insisted on asking questions. He said that van der Lubbe had to be lifted from his chair, was expressionless, absolutely pensive, and sat with his head almost on his knees. His description of the prosecution witnesses' inconsistent testimony is also in the play. Rice said that he had "packed the play with tense situations and highly colored incidents" and, being afraid that he might have overdone it, sent the script to his friend Hayes. Rice said that Hayes complimented him on "capturing the atmosphere of a European courtroom and said that, if anything, I had under- 70 stated the extravagance of the actual proceedings." Judgment Day received mixed reviews. It was praised by one critic for not being propagandistic,7] but others rejected it 72 Edith J. R. Isaacs praised the play and noted as propaganda. that "A second night audience, usually the coldest known to the theatre, stood and cheered when Judgment Day was done" and she 69Hayes, "The Burning of the German Reichstag," pp. 586—589. 70Rice, Minority Report, p. 335. 7'Arthur Pollock, Brooklyn Daily News, 13 September 1934. 72Ibee, Variety, 18 September 1934; Robert Garland, Nam York World-Telegram, 13 September 1934. 77 noted that "The real heroes of this cast, however, theatrically "73 speaking are the villains. . . . John Anderson said Rice damaged his play by "unconsciously making his people such horrendous monsters 74 that they seem, not sinister at all, but merely funny." And Brooks Atkinson took Rice to task for "not being a temperate 75 writer." This remark particularly incensed Rice and he replied to Atkinson in an article in the New York Times ten days later. While disavowing comparison with great plays, he said, "it seems to my uncritical mind that temperance is scarcely a quality which dominates the great masterpieces of the theatre." He rejected a theatre "restricted to triviality, frivolity, and artificiality" and he concluded by Saying: I believe there is a place in the theatre for passion. . . . I cannot discuss fascism with a polite smile or a tolerant laugh, nor depict brutal oppression with a twinkle in my eye. The cheers of the audiences who are coming to see 'Judgment Day' convince me that they are delighted and thrilled to hear a fighting subject discussed in fighting terms.76 Rice was still upset over the negative criticism of the play when he wrote his autobiography years later. He indicated he was most confused by a comment from Burns Mantle: It matters little that Mr. Rice can prove he has not overstated his case of Hitler. The audience still does not believe it 73Edith J. R. Isaacs, "Broadway in Review," Theatre Arts, November 1934, pp. 814-815. 74John Anderson, New York Evening Journal, 17 September 1934. 75Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 13 September 1934. 76 pp. 1, 3. Elmer Rice, New York Times, 23 September 1934, sec. 10, 78 possible for so vicious and brazen a travesty of justice to have taken place in any civilized state.77 As Mantle had noted, the play did not in fact overstate the case. Joachim Fest said in The Faces of the Third Reich that "Hitler could see nothing in the law or the institutions of justice "78 but instruments for combating political foes. Departure from legal norms had begun in Germany on March 21, 1933, with the institutionalization of "political custody." Official reports 1isted 27,000 prisoners by July, 1933.79 The Reichstag defendants were prosecuted on the basis of ex post facto regulations. As in the play, most judges were intimidated, but some attempted to main- 80 The Enabling Act of March 24. 1933. had allowed tain justice. laws to deviate from the constitution. By the time Rice's play appeared, the Nazi Party was the sole political party in Germany (July 14, 1933) and, by law, Hitler had become Fuhrer and Chancellor, taking over the office of President (August l, 1934).81 As to the nature of Goering at the time, Fest said: His speeches at that time, with their positively delirious profession of faith in violence, afford a graphic view of his convictions and measures, as for example, when he declares: "My measures will not be enfeebled by any legalistic hesi- tations. My measures will not be enfeebled by any bureaucracy. 77Mantle, quoted in Rice, Minority Report, p. 338. 73Fest, Faces of the Third Reich, p. 212. 79 80 Bracher, The German Dictatorship, p. 358. Ibid., p. 363. 8IRemak, The Nazi Years, p. 54. 79 Here I have not to exercise justices, here I have only to destroy and exterminate, nothing else!"82 Fest also said that "unrestrained outbursts" were typical of the style of the Nazi movement and that "frenzied raging, with a total 83 loss of self-control, was considered masculine." Georing has been described in his appearance at the trial as "shouting," "84 "ranting," "gesturing wildly, and as being "nearly out of his h."85 Goering's views on law had actually mind and foaming at the mout been published in the United States at the beginning of 1934 in the Hearst newspapers. Goering wrote: We deprive the enemies of the people of legal defense. . . . We National Socialists wittingly oppose false gentleness and false humanitarianism. . . . We do not recognize the fallacious quibbles of lawyers or the monkey tricks of judicial subtle- ties.86 On the basis of knowledge available at the time, the play could not be faulted for portraying an erroneous impression of Goering, van der Lubbe, or the judicial process at the Leipzig trial. Still, the idea persists that the play did exaggerate. Sam Smiley in The Drama of Attack published in 1972 said that "Rice contrived the court rules, procedures, and controlling characters so that they would best permit illustration of the thought."87 82Fest, Faces of the Third Reich, pp. 76-77. 83Ibid., p. 77. 84Hans Bernd Gisevius, To the Bitter End, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947), p. 32. 85Jacques Delarue, The Gestapo: A History of Horror, trans. Mervyn Savill (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1964), p. 63. 861bid., pp. 58-59. 87Smiley, Drama of Attack, p. 155. 80 Judgment Day was not a success on Broadway, it ran only 47 performances, but it was a success later in its 1937 London produc- tion. The London magazine Theatre World had a special photo supple- ment of the play. The text described it as "one of the most exciting, and certainly the best acted for many years" and said the reception "88 The Lord Chamberlain had at first of the play was "tumultuous. refused to license the play because it might offend Germany. Production of the play was prevented in Holland and France, and local Nazis had closed a brief run of the play in Norway.89 In 1938, the Federal Theatre wanted to produce Judgment Day on the west coast but it was cancelled by WPA officials. Hallie Flanagan relates in Amema_that Mr. David Niles, head of the WPA told her that the cancellation was not censorship but merely a matter of "selection." The play was postponed but opened later with no repercussions.90 In The Independence of Elmer Rice, Robert Hogan discussed the lack of success of Judgment Day in New York. He said the criticism against the play was "that it was unreal, exaggerated and frenetically propagandistic" and observes that this was in a time 91 when Americans did not want to face the threat of war. He believes the only valid change against the play is that the final scene was 88Theatre World, September 1937, pp. 117-128. 89Elmer Rice, The Living Theatre (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959), p. 280. 90Hallie Flanagan, Arena: The History of the Federal Theatre (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1965). 9IHogan, Independence of Elmer Rice, p. 71. 81 not well done but notes that the English critics thought the ending was "strong and effective." Rice's portrayal of Nazis was accurate and informed, but may well have appeared exaggerated at the time. This was under- standable. While the Depression was probably foremost in most people's minds, even those with an interest in Nazism might have been misled. William Shirer described his problem in understanding Nazism at the time: I myself was to experience how easily one is taken in by a lying and censored press in a totalitarian state. . . . It was sur- prising and sometimes consternating to find that notwithstanding the opportunities I had to learn the facts and despite one's inherent distrust of what one learned from Nazi sources, a steady diet over the years of falsification and distortions 92 made a certain impression on one's mind and often misled it. In the year Judgment Day was produced, "Secretary of State Cordell Hull pored over cables from Berlin and announced that 'Mistreatment of Jews in Germany may be considered virtually terminated.'"93 Till the Day I Die 94 Till the Day I Die by Clifford Odets was a one-act play produced with Waiting for Leftngarch 26, 1935. Waiting for Lefty had already become a hit off-Broadway and Odets wrote Till The Day 95 I Die as a companion piece. Harold Clurman said in The Fervent 92$hirer, Rise and Fall, pp. 247-248. 93Manchester, The Glory and the Dream, 1:115. 94Ciifford Odets, Six Plays of Clifford Odets (New York: Modern Library, Random House, 1963). 95See footnote, p. 23. 82 96 Years that Odets completed the play in less than a week. The actors in the play included Elia Kazan, Lee J. Cobb, and Lee Strassberg, who was billed Lee Martin.97 The play is often said to be based on a "letter" in an early 1935 issue of New Masses. However, Gerald Weales in Clifford Odets: Playwright points out that the “letter" was actually a short story in letter form. The story was an excerpt from Those Who Are Stronger by F. C. Weiskopf. From this, Odets got details of the methods the Nazis were using to break down their opponents. The method, used in the play, was to make the prisoner appear as a traitor to his friends by having him accompany the Nazis on raids and providing new clothes to make him appear an informer.98 Weales also notes that Odets owed even more to a chapter from a book called Fatherland by Karl Billinger (Paul W. Massing) which had also been printed in New Masses (January 1, 1935). The chapter was titled "In the Nazis Torture House" and contained detailed descriptions of SA guards' activities and brutal games which Odets used in the p1ay.99 Three scenes in Till the Day I Die are set in the Columbia Brown House in Berlin. In March, 1933, concentration camps had 96Harold Clurman, The Fervent Years: The Story of the Group Theatre and the Thirties (New York: Hill and Wang, 1957), p. 143. 97 Helen Deutsch, New York Herald Tribune, 28 April 1935. 98Geraid Weales, Clifford Odets: Playwright (New York: Pegasus, 1971), p. 85. gglbid. 83 been set up around Berlin and private prisons or "bunkers" within the city became "hellish torture chambers." "The SS Columbia prison, the worst of these torture chambers," was also estab- 1ished.‘00 Odets indicates his characters are SA, storm troopers and their officers, rather than $5. In the month Odets' play opened, two prisoners were shot in the Columbia house, allegedly for resisting.101 The central characters of Till the Day I Die are members of the Communist underground. Ernst Taussig is taken prisoner, tortured, and made to appear a traitor to his friends. He is a broken man at the end of the play, and in order to clear his name and protect the cause, he commits suicide. The story is told in seven scenes. There are sixteen characters who can be considered Nazis, but most of them are minor--storm troopers and detectives. Two of the Nazi characters are supporting roles, Major Duhring and Captain Schlegel.102 Major Duhring appears in only one scene, but he is central to the plot. He is described as "a tired, civilized man." Before Duhring appears, Detective Popper says of him, "He's soft as butter but he knows how to make them talk." Ernst is brought into Duhring's 100Martin Broszat, "The Concentration Camps, 1933-45," trans. Marian Jackson, in Anatomy of the SS State, p. 408. 101 102This character is listed as Captain Schmuckler in the typescript of the play, Theatre Collection, New York Public Library. Ibid., p. 435. 84 office for questioning and Ernst discovers that Duhring is an old leftist friend. Ernst asks Duhring what happened to his social ideals. Duhring Why I am in Nazi uniform happens to be unimportant. A realistic necessity. I am married into one of the finest of old German families, Nordic from year one. The work I do for the National Socialists harms no foe of the Nazi state. In fact, I am inclined to believe that if the truth was known my work may often be interpreted as a positive hindrance. (Laughs, and then adds soberly.) Not for publication. Perhaps, I don't care. . . . That's nearer the truth. I will not deny the justness of the scorn in your eyes. This may cost me my head . . I'm not sure I care. I want to warn you. . . . They'll get what they want out of you. Trust me to-- Ernst (bitterly) A man tortured by his conscience? Duhring 103 Call it what you will. Here they use-- They are interrupted by the arrival of Schlegel and Duhring's wife. When those two leave, Duhring tells Ernst that Schlegel suspects him of leniency to prisoners and of his lineage. Duhring then tells Ernst what they will do to destroy him. He says they will release him, follow him, pick him up and beat him, nurse him back to health, repeat the process several times and, finally, make him appear as a traitor to the underground. Schlegel returns and threatens to expose Duhring's Jewish ancestry. They argue and in a scuffle Duhring shoots and kills Schlegel. He says to Ernst, "I'm so slimed over with rottenness. . . . 'Red Front' I can't say to you. . . . But 'United Front'--I can say '030dets, Six Plays, p. 130. 85 that." In every capitalist country in the world this day let them 104 He tells Ernst to have his hand work for the united front." fixed, gives him cigarettes and says, "Say I am not despised. Please say it!" He adds that he is a dying man since he has destroyed files of Ernst's comrades and has killed Schlegel. When Ernst leaves, he removes his arm band, tears the German flag off the wall, puts the muzzle of the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger with the blackout. While the portrayal of an SA officer as a leftist and a part Jew may have seemed far-fetched, it was quite possible. The rules of the state regarding Jews were applied to bureaucrats first, but its application to the military was delayed: It was foreseeable that a great many would be dismissed, for most of the families of the German nobility could count Jewish ancestors in their coat of arms. The Third Reich did not come up with a definition of the term "Jew" until November 14, 1935. It was a complex law which required three grandparents "who are fully Jewish by race" or two such grandparents and practice of the Jewish faith or marriage to a Jew.106 In regard to Duhring's politics, shortly after Hitler became chancellor, at least a third of the SA consisted of the old parties of the left: '04Ibid., p. 135. 105Delarue, The Gestapo, p. 131. 106Raul Hilberg, ed., Documents of Destruction: Germany and Jewry 1933-1945 (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971), pp. 18-21. 86 It is well known that in June and July 1933 there were some SA units which were almost entirely Communist. The popular phrase for them was 'Beefsteak Nazis'--brown on the outside, Red inside. These noble fellows were by no means any gentler with folk of their own kind. They were even worse.1 7 Also, Ernst Roehm, the head of the SA, spoke to the foreign press April 18, 1934, and said, "The revolution which we made is not a national revolution but a National Socialist one. We wish to 108 The portrayal of Duhring as stress the last word, Socialist." a Nazi was not typical, but it was valid. Captain Schlegel appears in two brief scenes, and he reveals characteristics which were attributable to the SA and its leader, Ernst Roehm. Schlegel is the major antagonist to Ernst Taussig. Odets describes him as "a man like Goering." Schlegel is arrogant and contemptuous of the subordinates, particularly Detective Popper. The obsequious Popper is a clownish fall-guy for Schlegel's out- bursts. Schlegel is cooly sadistic. As he discusses Ernst's ability as a violinist, he smashes his fingers with a rifle butt. His sadism is impulsive; he expresses fear at having injured Ernst against orders. At one point, he holds Ernst's jaw and describes his features as being "Non-Nordic." He also reveals a compulsion for cleanliness by wiping his hands everytime he touches Ernst. At the end of his first scene, Schlegel is left with his homosexual lover, a storm trooper named Adolph. Schlegel talks about his loneliness, nervousness, fear of being discovered, and he attri- butes his inability to interrogate well to his femininity. The 107Gisevius, To the Bitter End, p. 105. 108Delarue, The Gestapo, p. 132. 87 scene ends with his concern about the fear gripping the country: "My God! What's the world coming to? Where's it going? My God!" The brief scene reveals Schlegel as anti-Semetic, having elements of an authoritarian character, and suffering from stress. The scene has a considerable amount of humor. Schlegel and Adolf are almost ludicrous as they reveal their relationship. Adolf laughs at the way Popper has clumsily bowed and backed out of the room, and Schlegel says, Schlegel I have seen you in a few peculiar positions at times. In fact it might be much better for both of us if you weren't so graceful with those expressive hands of yours. Flitting about here like a soulful antelope. Adolf You've got me. Eric. Schlegel Hitler is lonely, too. So is God.109 Schlegel is a sadistic villain who is also a deviant in society. Although it may have served a dramatic purpose to ridicule Nazi brown shirts by suggesting or directly implying homosexuality and sadism, it was based on fact.“0 The other Nazis in the play are minor characters. Some are portrayed as nearly clowns and others are brutal villains. Detective Iogodets, Six Plays, p. 119. no[Roehm's] name really came before the public the first time when his homosexual inclinations became generally known. And, in fact, the SA under his leadership became a veritable nest of homosexuality. . . . Because he stood behind his SA men even in its vilest excesses, he was widely feared as the commander-in- chief of a gang of "Desperadoes." Gisevius, To the Bitter End, p. 108. 88 Popper and two orderlies appear in scene two. Popper is an in- effective little tyrant to his subordinates and a bowing and whining fool to his superiors. The orderlies are bumpkins in a vaudeville kind of routime. Popper Take the typewriter. Orderly 2 Me? Popper You. Orderly 2 Yes sir. Where should I take it? . . EEEEEE- 111 What 5 the matter thh you? To type, to type. The scene later includes Schlegel smashing Ernst's fingers. Scene three takes place in a storm troopers barracks. The scene opens and closes with two orderlies named Weiner and Peltz who argue politics. Weiner tends toward Socialism and Peltz toward the "practical side." Within the scene there occur a series of brutal acts by the storm troopers against five prisoners, including Ernst. The troopers hit and kick old prisoners, spit mouths full of beer at them and hit and kick a young boy. Two of them finally play a game to see if they can knock out prisoners with one blow. The character named "Trooper 3" is called "professor" and he intervenes when the troopers are abusing the young prisoner. He is described as "sorry" for the boy. It is the only element of humanity in the scene. The portrayal of these troopers coincides mOdets, Six Plays, pp. 114-115. 89 with a description of a storm trooper's belief that his reputation depended “on the strength of arm with which he conducted a prisoner's 'education.'"n2 Scene four opens with a humorous exchange between two orderlies named Edsel and Martin. Martin's makeup was made to look like one of the three little pigs which had appeared in the Disney movie the year before.”3 The two orderlies discuss the political situation and Edsel questions the government's viewpoints. They begin to read Communist propaganda leaflets on Duhring's desk. They are increasingly curious and frightened and when Durhing comes in, Edsel is forced to quickly chew and swallow the leaflet he is holding. Nearly all the Nazis in Till the Day I Die are villains without any redeeming qualities. However, their opponents are Com- munist and cannot be considered as socially acceptable heroes. Brooks Atkinson complained at the time that "If you want to register a protest against Nazi policy, Mr. Odets requires that you join the "114 Edith J. R. Isaacs praised the play and Communist brethren. said it was "so far ahead of anything else that Odets has done, in every detail that concerns playwrighting, that it escapes com- parison with them." She also cautioned that "If you do not like 1'ztaiserius, To the Bitter End, p. 104. 113 114 Helen Deutsch, New York Herald Tribune, 28 April 1935. Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 27 March 1937. 90 the philosophy of communism, you will not like the theme or story of Till the Day I Die."]]5 The heroes are Marxist heroes and do represent an ideal- ization of the little man projected to the world. Ernst wants to die rather than betray the party and he says, "The day is coming and I'll be in the final result. That right can't be denied me. In that dizzy dazzling structure some part of me is built." In Drama and Commitment, Gerald Rabkin notes the specific nature of the heroes in Till the Day I Die: Unlike the traditional heroes of Marxist literature, whose deaths serve as the catalysts for the awakening of others, Ernst believes that he is the phoenix that will rise from the ashes of his necessary death. Thus the play ends, not with the conversion of the previously uncommitted but with the affirmation by the committed that their existence is contained in the collective of which they are a part.”6 The humorous Nazis in the play did not seem to lessen the effect of the brutality of the other Nazis. However, that view has been voiced. A letter to the New York Times at the time said in part, "In the next war we will see that the German youths have been well trained and are not the imbeciles [Odet's] play pictures "117 them as being. In retrospect, Gerald Weales said of the humor: . . the ineffectuality implicit in the comic figures lessens the Nazis as opponents; and the caricaturing technique, used IlsEdith J. R. Isaacs, "Broadway in Review," Theatre Arts Monthly, May 1935. Pp. 328-331. 116Rabkin, Drama and Commitment, p. 178. 'I7T. A. Sheerin, New York Times. 7 April 1935. 596- 9’ 91 in conjunction with these comic figures infects all the others, turning them into grotesques as well.118 However, the critics indicated no such reaction at the time. In addition to Edith J. R. Isaacs, the most praising critic was Richard Watts, Jr., who said, In "Till," Mr. Odets has captured--for the first time on any stage, so far as I know-—a dramatic mood that presents con- vincingly the feeling of terror and suspigion and neurotic cruelty that characterTZes 1ts subject. John Mason Brown used "Grand Guignol" to describe the hand-smashing scene and said the play "has more tension than any of the anti- Nazi scripts yet produced in our theatre," and he found the brutal scenes "unforgettable in their bludgeoning strength."120 There were reservations about the play as a whole, but "most of the critics felt that the play demonstrates skill and that the characterizations were acute and the handling of the scenes competent."]21 The play was explicitly Communist in its philosophy since it suggested that the individual is not as important 122 as the Party. Till the Day I Die was more successful than the previous portrayals of Nazis and ran 136 performances. 118Weales, Clifford Odets, p. 89. 119 Richard Watts, Jr., New York Herald Tribune, 31 March 1935. IZOJohn Mason Brown, New York Evening Post, 27 March 1935. 121 122Rabkin, Drama and Commitment. p. 177; Weales, CITTTQRQ Odets, p. 107. Shuman, Clifford Odets, p. 69. 92 Till the Day I Die created controversy when produced outside 123 124 and New York: The play was banned in Chicago, Philadelphia, 125 Sidney, Australia. Will Geer (then William Ghere) staged "Till" at the Hollywood Playhouse. He was taken for a ride by three men described as Germans, severely beaten and hospitalized.126 In The Best Plays of 1934-35, Burns Mantle took note of the two American plays in that season with Nazi characters. He said that Judgment Day "suffered from an excess of passionate hatred "127 for the Hitler inquisition. He noted that Waiting for Lefty and Till the Day I Die "proved tensely dramatic exhibits and drew a considerable audience outside the natural response of liberal organizations."]28 1935-1939 In Till the Day I Die, Major Duhring issued a call for a United Front, and it became reality less than six months after the play opened. The declaration by the Comintern in Moscow, 123Unidentified newspaper clipping, Theatre Collection, New York Public Library. 124New York World-Telegram, 10 April 1935. 125Variety. 26 August 1936. '25variety, 29 May 1935. 127Burns Mantle, ed., The Best Plays of 1934-35 and the Yearbook of the Drama in America (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1935), p. 6. 128 Ibid.. p. 16. 93 August 1935, had an effect on the far-left theatre in the United States. Malcolm Goldstein in The Political Stage explains. The very phrase "Popular Front" could be read as a repudiation of the old revolutionary idea of class against class. The new dispensation called for an alliance of liberal-to-left elements in all social and economic classes in a stand against fascism. . . . Clearly enough, a confluence of liberal and leftist sentiments had occurred.1 The New Theatre League announced a new program in 1935 "dedicated "130 to the struggle against war, fascism and censorship. The "struggle against war" had existed for some time. The Congress against War was founded in 1933 and became the Communist supported 131 League against War and Fascism. Pacifism had also been around since the twenties, but it reached an official position in 1935 when Congress passed the first of a series of neutrality acts.132 Nor was it pacifists alone who were against war: In 1935 most Americans rejected the international ideal. "Entanglements" meant war and all its accompaniments-- propaganda, profiteers, repudiated debts, internal conflicts, loss of civil liberties, general confusion. Americans had learned this lesson all too well, taught by the "exposures" which followed the First World War. Pacifists, reformers engrossed in home problems, liberals of the New Republic stripe, Russophiles . . . and Fascist groups all joined with the unthinking head-in-the-sand minority who wanted simply to play safe.133 129Malcolm Goldstein, The Political Stage (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 151. 130 Himelstein, Drama Was a Weapon, p. 33. 131 132 Wecter, The Age of the Great Depression, p. 306. Ibid., p. 305. 133Spi11er, Literary History of the U.S.. pp. 1260-51- 94 The pronounced desire for non-involvement had an effect on infor- mation concerning Nazism. Dixon Wecter explained in The Age of the Great Depression: Few Americans felt anything but disgust at Hitler's overt persecution of the Jews, but a not inconsiderable minority thoughtlessly parroted Nazi talk. Despite growth of anti-Semitism, gullibility to foreign propaganda attracted more notice than ever before, stemming largely from the lurid tales about mutilated Belgian children and crucified Canadian soldiers spread during the First World War by Britain, France and America's own Creel committees. Writings of "revisionist" historians like Harry Elmer Barnes and, at a higher level of scholarship, Sidney B. Fary, buttressed by best sellers like Walter Millis's Road to War (1935) sought . . . to explode the "myth" of German war guilt in 1914. . . . Before the menace of Hitler became irrefutable, many liberals in the United States . . . tended to admire "misunderstood" Germany.134 There was also a timidity on the part of radio to deal with the world crisis. Alexander Wollcott was taken off "The Town Crier" for making rude remarks about Hitler and Mussolini. And Dupont's "Cavalcade of America" eliminated all such issues as "war and 135 peace, the class struggle and religion." All aspects of American society gave indication that isolationism was at its peak between 1935 and 1939.‘36 During this time, the American theatre also reflected the mass opposition to war and foreign entanglements in such plays as Idiot's Delight, Bury and Dead, and Johnny Johnson. 134Wecter, Age of the Great Depression, p. 303. 135 Ibid., p. 230. 136Jeanette Nichols, Twentieth Century United States (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1943), p. 369. 95 Between Till the Day I Die (March 26, 1935) and the next portrayal of a Nazi by an American dramatist, there were four other plays of interest. Races by the Austrian dramatist Ferdinand Bruchner was produced in the same season as Till the Day I Die. It had been produced by the Theatre Guild in Philadelphia in March 1934, but was described as "too partisan and too diffuse for its "137 Guild subscribers. Races was presented in New York May 10, 1935, by the Forum Theatre amateurs in Heckcher Auditorium and was poorly received. The same quality in the play drew opposite re- actions. Burns Mantle said it showed "more intelligent restraint "138 but Variety commented that it "didn't "139 than most anti-Nazi plays get sufficiently heated up. A dramatization of Sinclair Lewis' novel It Can't Happen .Heme_was produced by the Federal Theatre Project October 27, 1936. The play dramatized the threat of fascism in the United States.140 The 1936-37 season also saw the production of a play with Nazi characters by the German dramatist Friedrich Wolf. Professor Mamlock opened April 13, 1937, and ran 74 performances. The play, also a Federal Theatre Project, dealt with the tribulations of a very pro-German, anti-Communist Jewish professor and his family. 137Burns Mantle, New York Daily News, 13 May 1935. 138Ibid. 139Review of Philadelphia performance. Variety. 27 March 1935. 140Relevant comments about It Can't Happen Here and other plays dealing with American fascists can be found in Appendix C. 96 Burns Mantle felt it was the best of the anti-Nazi plays to date, but most of the critics did not agree.]41 Orson Welles and John Houseman produced Shapespeare's Julius Caesar at the Mercury Theatre November 11, 1937. It was subtitled The Death of a Dictator and was done in modern dress using brown shirts and fascist salutes--a reference to contemporary faSCISt Italy. It ran for 153 performances.142 Pins and Needles Although Pins and Needles was a revue and not a play, it is included in this study because it was enormously successful and contained a sketch with a humorous portrayal of Hitler. Pins and Needles had been produced by the Labor Stage on weekends in September, 1937. It was successful and started a regular run at 143 the Labor Stage Theatre November 27, 1937. The Best Plays of 1937-38 credits the revue to Arthur Arent, Marc Blitzstein, Emanuel M‘Burns Mantle, New York Daily News, 14 April 1937. 142Himelstein, Drama was a Weapon, p. 118. The play had actually been done in the same manner earlier by the Federal Theatre ‘ project in Delaware and was scheduled for a project production in New York. However, John Houseman and Orson Welles left the project and opened the play as a Mercury production. Hallie Flanagan lamented in Arena that "It was one of the distinguishing charac- teristics of Federal Theatre that things started on its stages ended somewhere else." Flanagan, Arena. PP. 257-260. 143Morgan Himelstein says Pins and Needles played "to capacity audiences at Labor Stage until June 26, 1939, when it was transferred to the larger Windsor Theatre for a year's run on Broadway." (Drama Was a Weapon, p. 78.) However, the play is listed with Broadway productions in The Best Plays of 1937-38 and not in the separate Off Broadway section. Also, Burns Mantle wrote in that volume that the Labor Stage "broke into Broadway company . . ." with the production of Pins and Needles (Best Playe of 1937-38, pp. 4, 395). 97 Eisenberg, Charles Friedman and David Gregory with music and lyrics by Harold J. Rome. The Best Plays of 1938-39 lists Harold Rome, Arthur Arent, Charles Friedman, David Gregory, John La Touche, and Joseph Schrank with music and lyrics by Harold Rome. The revue grew out of material written by Rome for a resort in upstate New York called Green Mansions.144 The 1937 version contained nineteen numbers and the seven- teenth was titled "Four Little Angels of Peace." The sketch was a burlesque on Eden, Mussolini, a Japanese general, and Hitler.145 It was the most political of the hits in the show and "provided a jaded view of the pacifist claims of foreign rightist leaders."146 Eden and England were viewed as imperialist. Pins and Needles changed as it went along to meet the changing political situation. After the Munich pact September, 1938, Chamberlain replaced Eden. The U.S.S.R.-German non- aggression pact of August, 1939, angered Louis Schaffer, who was in charge of the Labor Stage and he began altering the revue to "a pacifist but clearly anti-Stalinist tone." When Hitler invaded Poland in September, 1939, Chamberlain was dropped, leaving three angels. In November, 1939, Chamberlain and a fifth angel, Joseph Stalin, joined the other three as "The Five Little Angels of Peace."147 144Goldstein, The Political Stage, p. 207. 145 146 147 Himelstein, Drama Was a Weapon, pp. 76-80. Goldstein, The Political Stage, p. 208. Ibid. 98 Pins and Needles was extremely successful and had been per- formed 1108 times in New York City when it closed June 22, 1940. Since Pins and Needles was a topical and changing revue, its suc- cessful run is not used in this study as the record run for the portrayal of a Nazi. The 1937-38 season also included Save Me the Waltz by Katharine Dayton, which opened on February 28, 1938. The play is worth noting because of the negative reaction to its romantic treatment of a dictatorship. The play concerned the problems of a European dictator. It ends happily with the dictator's winning the favor of the people and the hand of a noble young lady. One reviewer saw the actor's portrayal of the dictator "as good a performance as that of Adolph Hitler himself, although he did make him, in a sense a sincere man, a patriotic man and one for whom II148 . one could arouse some pity. Most, however, did not interpret it as a portrayal of Nazism but saw it as Graustarkian149 with the message that "the world may yet be made safe for democracy and kings by cupid and a good time. . . ."150 Another saw the play "as effective as throwing a bouquet of violets at steel-rimmed '48Sidney B. Whipple, New York World-Telegram, 1 March 1938. 149Graustark, a 1901 novel by George Barr McCutcheon, was an enormously popular melodrama subtitled The Story of a Love Behind the Throne and was set in the "highly colorful kingdom of Graustark." It was followed by Beverly of Graustark (1904) and The Prince of Graustark (1914). (William Rose Benet, ed., The Reader's Encyclo- pedia, 2nd ed. (New York: Thomas V. Crowell Company, N.DT). '50Arthur Pollock, Brooklyn Dailnyagle, 1 March 1938. 99 151 storm troopers." The critics' reactions may be interpreted as a desire for a harsh, unflattering portrayal of dictators. Waltz in Goose Step The next portrayal of Nazis was in Waltz in Goose Step produced November 1, 1938. Waltz in Goose Step was written by Oliver H. P. Garrett who was described in Variety as "an ex-New t."152 The premise of York newspaperman now a Hollywood scenaris the play was based on the Roehm purge of 1934. The play takes place just after the purge when August, the Leader, is flying home with his Minister of Defense, Count Gottfried von Laidi, and Schmutzi, the Minister of Propaganda. The pilot, Joseph Straub, is part Jewish but pro-Nazi. He is angry that the leaders have killed those he considered the best men in the party and plans a one-man rebellion to crash the plane and kill the leaders. He is talked out of it by Von Laidi. The other two acts deal with August's suspicions about Von Laidi. Von Laidi starts a counter- revolution but is exposed and given the choice of suicide or being ki11ed.'53 Other than the fact of the Roehm purge, the events in the play are fictional. The critics did view the characters as por- trayals of Nazis. August, the Leader, was, of course, Hitler. Garret described him as follows: 15IJohn Anderson, New York Journal-American, 1 March 1938. 152Variety, 9 November 1938. 153Oliver H. P. Garret, Waltz in Goose Step, Typescript, Theatre Collection, New York Public Library. 100 He uses two contrasting manners of speech: one for private use, stacato, clipped of every extraneous word; the other for public consumption, verbose, hysterical, demagogic. On oc- casion, his oratorical manner creeps into his private usage, when he is inspired by a particularly trite idea. He has the agressive, confident air common in men of small stature. He is a physical coward, shrewd but unimaginative.15 August derides the Socialism of those who were purged. He says if he adopted Socialism, half the world would line up against him, including London, Paris, and New York. In planning what will be told to the nation about the purge of men who stood for social reform, he says to Von Laidi, "Tell 'em traitors. Plotting civil war. Endangering peace of the countr --thousands innocent lives." The answer approximates what Hitler said in a speech to the Reichstag just after the Roehm purge.155 In the course of the play, August expresses anti-Semitism and a strong belief in "strength" and "ruthless force." His specific views may not have been grasped since he was played as "a shouting, frothing at the mouth megalomaniac" with the actor screaming at the "156 top of his lungs and mouthing the speeches. Nonetheless, one critic observed that "It is a performance that might have been regarded as extreme, if all America had not listened in on a surprisingly similar voice from abroad several weeks ago."157 154Ibid., unpaged preface. '55Shirer, Rise and Fall, p. 226. 156Sidney B. Whipple. New York World-Telegram. 2 November 1938. 157Richard Watts, Jr., New York Herald Tribune, 2 November 1938. 101 This was a reference to the September 12, 1938, address by Hitler at the Nazi rally in Nuremberg. William Manchester described the perception of that speech: Millions of Americans, hearing Hitler for the first time over shortwave, were shaken by the depth of his hatred; on his lips the Teutonic language sounded cruel, dripping with venom. Those fluent in German--Franklin Roosevelt was one--cou1d take it straight.158 While the portrayal of Hitler was not rejected unanimously, there was a problem in portraying him accurately.. Brooks Atkinson noted the problem and said the portrayal "may be in the Hitler tradition of rabble rousing, although it is still too theatrical for the stage."159 Count Von Laidi, whose name was obviously intentionally suggestive, was the central character in the play after the first act. He was described by Garrett as "Slim, well preserved and elegant. He has a scar, like that of a saber, on one cheek, which he caresses frequently with his fingertips. He is physically timid, but morally without fear." One critic said Von Laidi was a "sardonic, cultured, piano playing homosexual, full of guile and shrewdness yet unable in the end to withstand the coils of terror and conspiracy that are winding about him."160 The Variety reviewer saw Von Laidi as "a thinly disguised prototype of Putzi Hanfstaengel [sic]."'6' Walter Winchell also 158Manchester, The Glory and the Dream, 1:218. 159Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 2 November 1938. 160 Richard Watts, Jr., New York Herald Tribune, 2 November 1938. 16IVariety, 9 November 1938. 102 162 Ernst (Putzi) Hanfstaengl was a young mentioned the similarity. Harvard graduate whose mother was an American and whose wealthy and cultured family had helped the Nazi party. Hanfstaengl met Hitler in the early twenties and they became close friends.163 Konrad Heiden said of Hanfstaengl: . . . another often present was Ernst Hanfstaengl, . . . who had likewise reappeared in 1930, and, with his excellent English and effervescent manner, was used by Hitler as spokesman for the foreign press. When Hanfstaengl wanted to cheer his leader, he sat down at the piano and played his so-called 'musical portraits,’ and Hitler nearly laughed himself to death when Hanfstaengl hammered out a portrait of the pompous and corpu- lent Goring, or played soft ruRs to portray Himmler moving noiselessly across the carpet. 54 The observation of a prototype does seem accurate, but the similarity of the two ends there, since Hanfstaengl was never an official in the Reich. Von Laidi does not openly express any tenets of Nazism. He reveals his lack of any belief when he says that ideals are only "a covering for men's desires, like a priest's cassock, lending them a holy look." We also explains how he got the scar on his cheek: "Under ether. While I was a student, I discovered that the world insists not so much upon conformity as upon the appear- ance of it."165 Von Laidi is cynical about August and finally plots his overthrow, but his motivation is the fear that he may be purged. 162Walter Winchell, Daiiy_Mirror (New York), 2 November 1938. '53Shirer, Rise and Fall. pp. 46-47. 164Heiden, Der Fuhrer, p. 438. 155Garrett, Waltz in Goose Step, scene 1, p. 7. 103 One of the two typescripts of the play (Theatre Collection NYPL) lists a character called "Bogey, Minister of Propaganda," obviously meant to portray Goebbels.166 The name was apparently too contentious even for New York and was changed to "Schmutzi" for the opening. Schmutzi is a "fanatical violent bundle of frustrations with his most intense hatred reserved for his intel- lectual superiors which affords him with plenty of scope." Some of the critics saw him as a composite of Goebbels and Goering. One other character in the play was noted as based on a real life figure. The character Tessie Konstantin, the Leader's girlfriend, was described as "a thinly disguised Leni Riefenstahl, "167 ex-actress now head of Germany's film industry. The similarity was superficial, but Leni Riefenstahl had been a close friend of Hitler's.168 None of the characters in the play is heroic or stands out in contrast to the rest. The pilot briefly questions the regime in Act One, but is fully assimilated after that. The play is a story of intrigue among villains. Two critics compared Garrett's play to the writing of E. Phillips Oppenheim, an English novelist who published more than 110 novels dealing with international 166Ibid., unpaged preface. 167Variety, 9 November 1938. 168Fest, Hitler, p. 322, and Horst Von Maltitz, The Evo- lution of Hitler's Germany (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1973). P. 349. 104 169 and the involved plot would intrigue and the world of diplomacy, indicate it was an apt comparison. While the critics assumed that Waltz in Goose Step was a portrayal of Nazis, the playwright insisted that was not his in- tention. Garrett wrote that recent events in Europe had made many more Americans aware that fascism may become a problem in the United States. He said he wanted to use "entertainment" to make "as many Americans as possible come to see Fascism as it really is and as a living reality which may affect their own lives." He explained his purpose as follows: I have made much of it fictional as to time and characters, in order, if possible, to make it evident that it is with fascism generally I am dealing--not with its peculiar mani- festations in a particular nation.'l He also mentioned having heard progressively more "unconscious fascist talk" and the "damning of a whole race because of economic conditions." He ended the article, "In any case, pardon my neck. ." The critics unanimously accepted his neck and rejected the play. The play ran seven performances and closed just two days before the Kristallnacht .pogrom against the Jews throughout Germany. There were two other foreign plays with Nazi characters in November 1938. Glorious Morning by the English playwright Norman Macowan was enjoying an extended run in London when it opened in New York November 26, 1938, and closed after nine performances. It 169Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft, eds., Twentieth Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature (New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1942), p. 1052. 170Oliver H. P. Garrett, "Why Write an Anti-Nazi Play," New York Times, 30 October 1938, sec. 9, p. 3. 105 concerned the repression of religion in a mythical country called Zagnia. The totalitarian characters in this play were not exclu- sively Nazis. Several critics noted that the play was referring to both fascist and communist dictatorships and to Russia as well as to Germany. On November 29, 1938, Lorelei by the French darmatist Jacque Deval opened and ran seven performances. It was about a world-famous scientist, winner of the Nobel prize, who is in voluntary exile from Germany and is proclaimed a traitor to the Nazis. He returns to Germany and faces certain martyrdom. Closely following Waltz in Goose Step, Glorious Morning and Lorelei were several more plays dealing directly and indirectly with totalitarianism. Burns Mantle saw them as a trend: It takes theatre a year, and sometimes two or three years, to turn around and set about the business of developing a trend. The trend this last season, insofar as one appeared, was largely patriotic. . . . Not only was Robert Sherwood's Abe Lincoln in Illinois the most outstanding success, but it had as Broadway companions at one time or another Maxwell Anderson's Knicker- bocker Holiday, Elmer Rice's American Landscape, and the George IlKaufman-MossHar'tThe American Way. All these plays . . . can be traced . . . to the political discussions that have arisen within the last few years. . . . These discussions have made our dramatists nation conscious, if not race conscious.171 The quote is used to indicate that while these three plays were warnings about fascism, they were viewed as pro-democracy rather than anti-fascist. Knickerbocker Holiday, a musical comedy, com- mented on totalitarianism versus democracy in the setting of early New York history. The other two plays had minor pro-Nazi American characters. American Landscape by Elmer Rice opened December 3, '7'Burns Mantle, Best Plays of 1938-39 (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1939), p. v. 106 1938, and ran 43 performances. The American Way by George Kaufman and Moss Hart opened January 21, 1939, and ran 244 performances. A brief discussion of these two plays can be found in Appendix C along with a discussion of Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here, which also dealt with American fascists. One other play of the 1938-39 season treated the Nazi problem symbolically. Irwin Shaw's The Gentle People opened January 5, 1939. Shaw labelled it "a Brooklyn fable" and "a fairy tale with a ‘72 Two old men are tormented by a gangster who has the moral." corrupt law on his side. The old men take the law into their own hands and kill the gangster. The nearly total call to pacifism was 'weakening; The Gentle People, written by the author of Bury the Dead, was a call to action. The Brown Danube The final portrayal of Nazis in this period was an unsuc- 173 cessful production called The Brown Danube by Burnet Hershey produced May 17, 1939. Hershey had been a foreign correspondent ‘74 Before opening in New York, the 175 and a New York newspaperman. play had "an extensive career on the road" including Pittsburgh. It angered Nazis in Pittsburgh--a brick was thrown through the 172Gagey, Revolution in American Drama, p. 134. 173Script not available to the writer. Synopsis and com- ments from Best Plays and reviews. 174Arthur Pollock, Brook1yn Daily Eagle, 13 May 1939' 175 Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 18 May 1939. 107 Nixon theatre lobby door and the word "Judge" was scrawled across the hudeing."6 The Brown Danube is about an aristocratic, Catholic family headed by Prince Otto von Torheim. They are on a train attempting to flee Austria in March, 1938, just after the German invasion. They are stopped at the Swiss border and sent back on orders of the chief Nazi in Vienna, Ernst Hammaka (played by Dean Jagger). Hammaka had been born a servant on the Torheim estate and had a longing for Torheim's daughter, Erika. He arrests Erika's brother. To save her brother from a concentration camp, Erika agrees to give up her fiance Stefan (who is also a Nazi) and marry Hammaka. Erika's sly old grandfather convinces Hammaka that his mother was a Jewess and blackmails him into releasing the family. Hammaka was the main Nazi in the play, and Dean Jagger's performance of the role was noted by most of the critics. Hammaka "177 and "a wholly unsympathetic charac- 179 was described as a "villain er."178 and little opportunity t The character had very few lines to express specific Nazi traits. Most of the critics found Dean Jagger too "open-faced and everlikeable" to be an effective villain. Another Nazi mentioned by several critics was Mr. Mueller, a humorous and officious bureaucrat charged with measuring heads 176Unidentified newspaper clipping, New York Public Library Theatre Collection. 177Arthur Pollock, Brook1yn Daily Eagle. 18 May 1939- 178Sidney B. Whipple, New York World-Telegram, 18 May 1939. 179Pollock, Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 108 to determine whether a person was Aryan. One character demands to know whether she is Jewish or Japanese. Mueller says the Japanese ‘80 The Nazis are allies of Germany and, therefore, Japanese Aryans. were in fact interested in racial measurements but had great diffi- culty in reaching any conclusions other than what were desirable Nordic features.]8] Stefan, the boyfriend of Erika, is also a Nazi. Richard Watts, Jr. described him as "that curious contradiction, an upright "182 Other Nazis in the play included a storm and amiable Nazi. trooper and inspectors. The criticism of the play would indicate that the Nazi characters were not developed in the play but merely used to provide a villainous background for a love story. One critic noted the violence in the play and complained: Beatings and typhus and assaults by ruffians on a gentle priest are grimmer matters, suitable for darker tales. They make it hard to feel properly disturbed about Erika's love life, which seems to be after all the author's chief concern.18 The mixing of the romantic melodrama and Nazism disturbed the critics. Richard Watts, Jr. said the play "is completely incompetent to handle even a lesser topic than the current German barbarism" and added "somehow I doubt that it is the essence of the tragedy 180 Variety, 24 May 1939. 18Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1972), pp. 198-199. '82Richard Watts, Jr., New York Herald Tribune, 18 May 1939. 183Richard Lockridge, New York Sun, 18 May 1939. 109 184 of Nazi oppression.“ John Mason Brown said "Austria's tragedy is something beyond Jack-and-Jill romances . . . and certainly too great to be reduced to the tawdriest of melodramatic fustian."185 John Anderson noted disparagingly that the play was "Laid in some "186 mythical Graustark or Ruritania. . . The same complaint had been made against Save Me the Waltz in 1938 for its light treatment of totalitarianism. The critics also commented on the use of Nazism in drama. John Anderson said "The Nazi theme demands either profound tragedy 187 Sidney B. Whipple felt the dramatists or scorching mockery." "should wait another twenty years, at least, before they try to capture and impound the truth about Nazism within the confines of "188 And Brooks Atkinson felt that anti-Nazi plays a single play. could not work because "they are reduced to provide the obvious and attesting to what we have all learned from reading the news- papers. . . ." Atkinson also said there had to be some free will in a play but that "once a Nazi uniform appears on the stage, we know how things stand and expect the worst."189 184Richard Watts, Jr., New York Herald Tribune, 18 May 1939. 185John Mason Brown, New York Post. 18 May 1939- 186John Anderson, New York Journal-American, 18 May 1939. '87Ibid. 188Sidney B. Whipple, New York World-Telegram, 18 May 1939. 189Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 18 May 1939. 110 The audience cheered and applauded several minutes at the 190 final curtain on the opening night of The Brown Danube, but the play ran only 21 performances. After the first three plays with Nazi characters were pro- duced in 1933-34, Burns Mantle wrote "playwrights and players will have to quit trying to cry or to shame Hitlerism out of countenance and begin ridiculing its leaders even as they expose its cause."]91 At the close of this period, the only Nazi on Broadway was Hitler in Pins and Needles. He was reduced to a humorous bit part, but he was acceptable. Conclusion The portrayals of Nazi characters from 1933 to September 1939 were more varied than the critics reactions would indicate. The Nazi characters included portrayals of the Nazi leadership (Judgment Day, Waltz in Goose Step), a student and a teacher (Birthright), judges (Judgment Day), a woman and a part Jewish man (Till the Day I Die), as well as the stereotyped storm troopers. The portrayals of the Nazis in this period were knowledgeable and informed. The characters usually had characteristics which were specifically Nazi in nature rather than generally fascist or totali- tarian. The major traits used to portray Nazis in this period were strong anti-Semitism and anti-Communism. Volkisch thoughts and Nazi party beliefs included adherence to socialism, racialism, the '90Robert Coleman, New York Daily Mirror, 19 May 1939. 19IBurns Mantle, New York Daily News, 22 March 1934. 111 superiority of Germans, and anger at Germany's defeat in World War 1. Reflections of Hitler's thoughts included the Darwinistic con- cept of struggle, the idea of inequality (Fuhrerprinzip), the virtue of war, the need for action over theory, and an opposition to democ- racy, Marxism and peace. There was partial portrayal of Fromm's thesis of the authoritarian character with sadistic and masochistic drives. And, finally, a few indications of Barbu's thesis of Nazis being declassé and under stress. While the anti-Semitism was fre- quently portrayed, no character was sufficiently developed to describe the anti-Semitism as a totalizing and reflexive myth. While most of the Nazis can be considered as villains, some, as in Birthright and Till the Day I Die, were given either mitigating circumstances or explanations for their adherence to Nazism. The villains were always overt oppressors and bullies who were authoritarian, threats to law and order, and, often, deviants. It should be noted that the villains' opponents were mostly Jews and Communists and could not fully be described as American heroes-- champions, splendid performers, socially acceptable, middle-class, self-made men. They were mostly idealizations of the little-man (fascist and communist heroes). All the plays in this period contained Nazi violence.192 Another similarity was that they all took place on the Nazis' own territory; the totally vulnerable Eisner home in Germany in 192Two of the three plays about American fascism, American Landscape and It Can't Happen Here, also contained violence. There was no violence in The American Way. 112 Birthright, the courtroom in Judgment Day, the SA barracks and offices 193 in Till the Day I Die, the German setting of Waltz in Goose Step. The settings of these plays, then, made the opponents of the Nazis extremely vulnerable. Critics writing during the time seemed disturbed and apolo- getic for their rejection of anti-Nazi plays and felt constrained to offer explanations. Burns Mantle said in 1934: It is easy to believe almost anything of Hitlerism, but not the German people--it isn't any easier now then it was in the early days of the war to credit all the stories of atrocities that come hurtling across the ocean.194 He was referring to the false reports of atrocities by Germans in World War I mentioned earlier.195 In discussing Waltz in Goose Step, Arthur Pollock said "Possibly these leaders, being nearly incredible in reality, . . . rob plays of all semblance of reality. Maybe the things they do are so revolting that audiences, being escapists, just don't like 196 to think about them." Brooks Atkinson offered the following explanation: It is easy to sit in an orchestra chair and say "no" to every Nazi play that raises a curtain. It is much harder to dis- cover the reason why. Doubtless we are too close to the events, too familiar with the details of expansion by inhuman force.‘ 193Two of the plays about American fascism also had the fascists on their own grounds. Only the minor Bundist agent in The American Way was off his territory. 194 195 196 Burns Mantle, New York Daily News, 1 April 1934. See p. 50, quote from Wector, Age of the Great Depression. Arthur Pollock, Brook1yn Daily Eagle, 2 November 1938. 113 But it is also true that the problem has gone beyond the personal relations of the leaders and their technique and methods. It involves not one party and one nation, but the world; it is a vast problem of political or social significance that goes to the heart of the enlightened way of living.197 And still another view of that play was voiced by Variety which said "its greatest negative factor is its failure to capture sympa- thy from Pro and anti-Nazis alike."198 Variety had also voiced the unfairness charge earlier in the period. Besides the one suggestion that the portrayals may not have been fair, the reasons suggested for the unacceptability of accurate renditions of Nazism were (1) overcoming false World War I propaganda, (2) not wanting to think about revolting problems, and (3) being too close to the events. Some further insight into the rejection of the plays is found in remarks by Frank Hurburt O'Hara in 1939. All in all, the word propaganda is not in happy repute with the American people today. . . . Some of our distrust of the term . . . stems from too many experiences of having uncovered the hokum behind alleged facts. . . . What we want is unbiased truth. Objectivity is the passion of current idealism. . . . And so we rebel at the very notion of anyone's picking out the facts we ought to have.‘99 A desire for objectivity was combined with the incredibility of the topic. Joseph Mersand, Ph.D., said that when dramatists writing in the 1930's about Nazi Germany were criticized for being too melodramatic, they replied that they were reporting the facts. Mersand commented, "In truth, the story of Nazi Germany is so 197Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 2 November 1938. '98variety, 9 November 1939. 199Frank Hurburt O'Hara, Today in American Drama (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939), p. 237. 114 "200 Furthermore, horrifying that on stage it is unbelievable. accurate portrayals of a Nazi asserting masculinity by ranting and screaming could create a comedic impression. The portrayal of the Nazis in this period had been generally unsuccessful. Broadway success is not an indication of dramatic quality, and, conversely, the lack of commercial success of the anti-Nazi plays cannot be assumed to be a result of a lack of quality. Moreover, most of the plays had extreme reactions from the critics and an admission that the content was disturbing. Without attributing dramatic quality to the plays, it seems reason- able to suggest that to some degree the reception of the plays was similar to Robert Hogan's retrospective explanation for the failure of Judgment Day: The unavoidable conclusion is that the play's Broadway failure had little to do with its innate merit and much to do with the imperception of the critics and the temper of the times.201 Certainly, the temper of the times was a basic pre-occupation with the depression and a desire to stay out of war. 200 201 Mersand, American Drama Since 1930, p. 81. Hogan, Elmer Rice, p. 72. CHAPTER IV THE PORTRAYAL OF NAZIS SEPTEMBER. 1939 - December, 1941 The Munich treaty and Czechoslovakian crisis in 1938 had considerably awakened America to the existence of Nazism. None- theless, isolationism was far from dead, and, in fact, reached a new pitch before America's entry into the war. The world situation was not easy to grasp. With the August, 1939, Soviet-Nazi non- aggression pact, the European alignments had undergone several changes.1 World War II began in September, 1939; Germany invaded Poland on September 1 and England and France declared war on Germany September 3. Observers of the New York theatre began to discuss theatre in terms of what had happened in World War I and began to speculate and make observations on the possible impact of World War II. Harold Taubman in The Making of the American Theatre said: From the day that Hitler's panzer division stormed into Poland and his bombers splintered a beleaguered Warsaw into rubble while a brave radio station defiantly, but hopelessly broadcast a proudly Polish Chopin Polonaise, war conditioned the American theatre. Although the United States was not involved in IThe alignments had been: 1. Germany, France and England against Soviet Union; 2. Germany against France, England and Soviet Union; 3. Germany and Soviet Union against France and England. And the third alliance was to change back to number two within this period. Slochower, No Voice Is Wholly Lost, p. 14. 115 116 fighting until the attack on Pearl Harbor, its mind was on it constantly.2 The reaction to the beginningof the war, however, was a deepening of the division over possible involvement in the war, and this occurred both in society at large and in the theatre. Relations between the United States and Germany were not good. Hitler had been attacking the United States and particularly President Roosevelt. In a speech on November 10, 1938, he "declared that the United States was a conglomeration of races with less than half being Anglo-Saxon and the rest composed of Negroes, Jews, Mongolians and other inferior races."3 In April, 1939, Roosevelt warned the Axis about further acts of agression and Hitler called "4 However, "The leaders of the him a "madman" and an "imbecile. Reich were convinced that, despite Roosevelt's attitude toward Germany, America would not intervene in a war such as they envisaged."5 When Poland was invaded, the atmosphere changed. From the first day of the war, the Germans stopped their attacks on Roosevelt and ordered their papers to treat all questions concerning the United States with caution. The intent was to prevent any diffi- culties for the isolationists in the United States.6 2Harold Taubman, The Making of the American Theatre (New York: Coward McCann, Inc., 1965), p. 248. 3Saul Friedlfinder, Prelude to Downfall: Hitler and the United States, 1939-1941, trans. Aline B. and Alexander Werth((New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), p. 10. 4 Ibid.. PP. 12, 13. 5Ibid., p. 15. 6Ibid.. pp. 41-42. 117 The New German policy, while imposing severe restrictions on criticism of the American government, did not prevent Germany from continuing to circulate all kinds of propaganda periodicals and pamphlets within America itself.7 The immediate response to the war was avoidance. The American Press coined the phrase "The Phoney War" and it became. adopted on both sides of the Atlantic. The phrase was meant to imply that the war was spurious because no great battles were being fought between the Franco-British and German forces.8 The war, however, "was real, horrifying and bitter for the Poles, the Esthonians, the Lithuanians, the Latvians, the Finns, the Danes, and the Norwegians."9 All of these nations had suffered invasion or defeat in the winter and spring of 1939-40. The reaction of theatre audiences was also to avoid the issue. Brock Pemberton reported at the time: The immediate reaction was in sharp contrast to that in 1914. Then the World War paralyzed the American theatre for several months; in September, 1939, the shock resulting from the beginning of hostilities lasted scarcely more than a week. . Immediately playhouses were packed and even weaker Shows prospered with the result that September and October were exciting months. There were several contributing factors besides the war to this upswing. Escape from the harrowing drama in Poland described over the ether waves was one. 7Ibid., p. 52. 8B. H. Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1971), p. 33. 9Mark Arnold-Forster, The World at War (New York: Stein and Day, 1973), p. 30. 10Brock Pemberton, "The Year 1939 on the Stage," New York Times, 31 December 1939, sec. 9, p. l. 118 But the response to the war situation and its political implications by members of the theatre profession was pronounced. The Soviet-Nazi non-aggression pact of August, 1939, was interpreted in the United States as "a serious defeat for the democracies . . . , "1] by all except for the far-left and the Russophiles. Just before the pact was signed "three hundred intel- lectuals and artists Sign a statement denouncing the fantastic falsehood that the USSR and totalitarian states are basically a1ike."'2 Among those who signed were Clifford Odets, Dashiell Hammet, S. J. Perelman, and James Thurber. Following the pact, the leftists turned extremely isolationist. They were to find themselves in severe conflict with members of the theatre profession who were interventionists. In November, 1939, Russia invaded Finland and the theatre profession responded with benefit performances for the Finnish Relief Fund. There had already been benefits for the British Relief Fund. Tallulah Bankhead was in The Little Foxes and claimed the producer and Lillian Hellman had refused to allow a benefit for Finland. Lillian Hellman contended that such relief would give impetus to a war spirit in the country. She said that she "would like to make sure that our charitable aid does not mask a Pro-war movement in the United States.“13 11 12Stefan Kanfer, A Journal of the Plague Years (New York: Atheneum, 1973), p. 31. 13 Friedlfinder, Prelude to Downfall, p. 33. New York Times, 21 January 1940, p. 27. 119 Another number was added to the revue Pins and Needles in November, 1939. It was called "Stay Out, Sammy" and in it a mother cautions her son to stay out of a street brawl. It was clearly a plea for isolationism.14 Isolationist activities in the theatre continued well into the period. In June, 1940, the Theatre Arts Committee picketed There Shall Be No Night for inciting war.15 While isolationists in the theatre were visible and included some important names, most people in the profession were inter- ventionist. No one . . . took the fate of Britain--the land of Shakespeare and Shaw--more to heart than the American theatre. It was virtually impossible for anyone . . . on Broadway to avoid being either in or at a benefit for Britain.16 Of the five plays with Nazis in this period, three were clearly interventionist and were written by such respected play- wrights as Robert Sherwood (There Shall Be No Night), Elmer Rice (Flight to the West), and Maxwell Anderson (Candle in the Wind). The other two plays (Clare Boothe's Margin for Error and Norman Krasna's The Man with Blond Hair) were anti-Nazi, if not 14 1SVariety, 5 June 1940, p. 42. In 1940, the committee also produced a publication called "The Actors Present War" which, among other things, complained about anti-Nazi films and called on actors to join "all those forces working to keep America out of the war, of helping to swell the great voice of the American people in saying: 'The Yanks Are NEE Coming.'" Richard Hood, The Actors Present War (New York: Theatre Arts Committee and Hollywood League for Democratic Action, 1940), p. 50. 16Geoffrey Perrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph: The American People 1939-1945 (New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, Inc., 1973), p. 64. Goldstein, The Political Stage, p. 212. 120 interventionist, and neither was perceived by the critics as a plea for isolationism. In 1940, the nation's attention was on the presidential election, but not off Germany entirely. Concern over the war intensified. In June, William Allen White, an interventionist, set up a "Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies" and the isolationists formed the "America First Committee."]7 The America Firsters had 60,000 members, the prestige of its chief propagandist Charles Lindbergh, the money of Henry Ford and others, and the respectability of John Foster Dulles and Joseph P. Kennedy. The Committee to Defend America enlisted writer Elizabeth Morrow Cutter (Lindbergh's mother-in-law) and members of the intellectual community led by Robert Sherwood. That year Hitler invaded Norway, Holland, Luxembourg and France. A New York Herald Tribune editorial called for a declaration of war. It was written by Walter Millis, 18 In author of the 1935 isolationist best seller The Road to War. September Americans were seeing pictures of the bombing of London. Public reaction to a draft law went from fifty-fifty on June 1 to 19 The America Firsters became 71% in favor after the London blitz. strident. Lindbergh warned the American Jews to "shut up--or else." Senator Key Pittman suggested the British give up England and move 17Friedlfinder, Prelude to Downfall, p. 99. 18Perrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph, p. 27. '9Manchester, The Gloryyand The Dream, 1:270-271. 121 to Canada. Joseph P. Kennedy said the idea that Britain was fighting for democracy was "bunk."20 Roosevelt's election in 1940 led to the beginning of a de facto war against Germany. The American people committed themselves to Britain with the passage of the Lend-Lease bill March 11, 1941. In September the United States Navy began operating under wartime 21 conditions. Events moved rapidly after that. When Germany attacked Russia in June, 1941, Lend Lease was extended to the Russians.22 In August, 1941, Fortune magazine devoted a 175-page issue to the U.S. war effort. A Fortune survey found the American citizen "believes Hitler means to conquer the world; is willing to risk war to help Britain win;" and would accept taxes, reduce gasoline consumption, and even accept military training one day a week. But the citizen was described as a "reluctant interventionist who wants to turn to an isolationist after the war. . . ."23 There were two events in the period which help to clarify attitudes about the portrayal of enemy characters in this period. Archibald MacLeish wrote an article in Namigm_called "The Irre- sponsibles" in which he raised the question: Why did the scholars and the writers of our generation in this country, witnesses as they were to the destruction of 20 21 22 23Review of August 1941 Fortune, Time Magazine, 18 August 1941. PP. 27-32. Ibid.. 1:267. Hoyle, The World in Flames, pp. 67-69. Morrison, The Oxford History, p. 999. 122 writing and of scholarship in great areas of Europe and to the exile and the imprisonment and murder of men whose crime was scholarship . . . fail to oppose those forces while they could-- while there was still time and $5311 place to oppose them with arms of scholarship and writing? He said that scholars and writers had failed to recognize the specific nature of the crisis of their time. He said we had wars, murder, inquisition, torture, and suppression before and observed, But in the past these things have been done, however hypocriti- cally, in the name of truth, in the name of humanity--even in the name of God. . . . What is new is a cynical brutality which considers moral self-justification unnecessary and therefore--and this is perhaps its worst indecency--dispenses even with the filthy garment of the hypocrite. To use brutality and force . . . in the name of force alone, is to destroy the self-respect and therefore the dignity of individual life, wigh- out which the existence of art or learning is inconceivable. MacLeish turned to the nature of scholars and writers. He felt that modern scholars were "irresponsible" in their "purity" and that writers were responsible only to "the truth of feeling." He said that the painter's devotion to the thing observed was "naked of judgment, stripped of causes and effects." He concluded that the writer who uses an artist as a model "sees the world as a god sees it--without morality, without care, without judgment."26 Both writers and scholars freed themselves of the subjective passions, the emotional preconceptions which color conviction and judgment. . . . They emerged free, pure, and single into the antiseptic air of objectivity. And by that sublimation of the mind they prepared the mind's disaster. 24Archibald MacLeish, "The Irresponsibles," Nation, 18 May 1940. p. 608. 25Ibid.. pp. 619-620. 26Ibid.. pp. 621-622. 27Ibid.. pp. 622-623. 123 It was noted at the end of the last period that Frank Hurburt O'Hara saw society in general as desiring only objective and unemotional opinions. The writers, according to MacLeish's attack, were filling that need. Brooks Atkinson responded to MacLeish's charges. He said, "That is a hard accusation to make, especially against the theatre, which never before has been so earnestly concerned with matters of current importance." He said many playwrights had been speaking to the point for years: Certainly no one can say that the theatre has not understood from the beginning the meaning of Hitlerism, nor that it has neglected to defend the democratic culture of the West.28 He offered as examples Judgment Day, Till the Day I Die, Lorelie, The Brown Danube, Waltz in Goose Step, and Maggipyfor Error. He wondered, again, why the plays of persecution of the Jews had not succeeded and added "But no one can say that the theatre, pursuing beauty with artistic detachment has not understood the infamy of "29 While Atkinson defended the Nazi assault upon the Spirit of man. the playwrights, he did not question his own and his fellow critics' rejection of the subject matter of Nazism through the thirties. The other event which illustrates the temper of the period was the attack on Hollywood for being too anti-Nazi. Stefan Kanfer related the circumstances: 28Brooks Atkinson, "Where the Theatre Stands," New York Times, 9 June 1940, sec. 9, p. 1. 29Ibid. 124 In 1941 only the naive or deluded doubted that war was imminent. But, on the right, several Senators still stood on the beach, commanding the ocean to roll back. It was useless, they decided, to attack the president. Instead, they would embarass his administration by exposing the vicious war-mongering movies that the New Deal had secretly sponsored in California. With the lunatic timing characteristic of the pre-war isolationists, Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Idaho chose September, 1941 for his probe of Hollywood.30 Among the charges was one that the movies were controlled by the "foreign-born." It was obvious this meant Jewish. The "foreign- born" engaged Wendell Wilkie as counsel and he called the hearings a kangaroo court. Among the films the committee presented as evidence of subversion were The Great Dictator, Sergeant York, and That Hamilton Woman, in which Admiral Nelson pleads to the King of Naples for aid against Napolean (pro-British propaganda). An article in Christian Century did say, "Anti-Nazi melodramas, rather honest and restrained at first, have become more and more bitter in their denunciation, with the Nazis painted as such monsters they become almost caricatures." The article charged that the propaganda was reaching a hundred million people a week and was in the hands of "groups interested in involving the 31 U.S. in war." However, Norman Cousins expressed the opinion that Hollywood had been forced into a hero's role at the point of a gun. Up until comparatively recently, Hollywood lived for years in that most Utopian of all worlds, a snow white paradise whose inhabitants, apparently, were miraculously oblivious to the facts of life as they related to intercourse among nations. 2 30 31 Kanfer, A Journal of the Plague Years, p. 20. 11 M. Frakes, Christian Centory, 24 September 1941, pp. 1172- 73. 32Norman Cousins, Theatre Arts, October 1941. 125 Cousins said Hollywood was actually late in catching up with the rest of the country in its distaste of Nazism, and he wondered why the industry should be investigated for now supporting the policy of the United States. The magazine, Mariam, editorialized that the hearings were held to "soften up" the American people into believing that Nazism was no danger to the country and to show "that the Nazi menace was a figment of the Jewish imagination."33 By the end of this period, the interventionists' concern to have Nazism recognized and the isolationists' desire to avoid it had made the portrayal of Nazis a national issue. Margin for Error The first play with Nazis in this period was highly suc- 34 cessful. It was Clare Boothe's Margin for Error, which was 35 was accepted for production, completed just before the war began, and opened November 3, 1939. Clare Boothe had been a successful magazine editor and novelist and was married to Henry R. Luce, editor of lime, Life and Fortune. She had two earlier hit plays, The Women in the 1936-37 season and Kiss the Boys Good-Bye in 1938-39. She had astounded critics and admirers of the latter play, a comedy, by calling it "a political allegory about Fascism in America."36 33flatipm, 20 September 1941, p. 241. 34Clare Boothe, Margin for Error (New York: Random House, 1940). 35 36Clare Boothe quoted in Burns Mantle, The Best Plays of 1938-39 (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1939), p. 257. Nammes, Politics and the American Drama, p. 135. 126 Margin for Error was the first commercially successful anti- Nazi play and ran 264 performances. The plot was basically simple. A despicable German Consul named Karl Baumer (played by Otto L. Preminger) is hated by Six people, each with enough motive to kill him, and he is killed--three times--with prison, a knife, and a gun. The motives of the suspects reveal the character of the Consul. Baron Max von Alvenstor is the Consul's secretary. The Consul has learned that Max's grandmother is Jewish and is using the knowledge to blackmail Max into covering up the Consul's misappropriation of embassy funds. The Consul's wife, Sophie, is in love with an American journalist named Thomas Denny, who has been successfully attacking the Consul in his column. Sophie has been giving Denny information. The Consul threatens Sophie's father in Czechoslovakia and threatens to send her back to Germany as a traitor if she does not convince Denny to abandon his attacks. Thomas Denny, the journalist in love with Sophie, is willing to kill the Consul for the threats he is making to her. Dr. Jennings is one of the Consul's many innocent victims who has been bilked of money in the hopes of getting relatives out of a concentration camp. Dr. Jennings learns his daughter has died in childbirth in the camp and that his son-in-law is in a mental hospital, hopelessly insane. Otto B. Horst, the American Bund leader, has been fingered by Berlin to be liquidated as a martyr because he is ineffectual 127 and bumbling. He suggests he would rather make a Consul a martyr. And, finally, one of the policemen sent by the Mayor to guard the Consul is American Jew named Moe Finkelstein. The Consul has threatened to have Moe falsely charged with dere- liction of duty and have him lose his job. The Consul is found dead at the end of act one and act two is a murder mystery unravelling the puzzle of his death. The Consul is discovered by turns to have been shot by Dr. Jennings after he was stabbed by his wife. But he was already dead, acci- dentally poisoned with cyanide which he had put in a drink intended for Max. The Consul had planted a vial of the poison on Max and had intended Max's death to look like suicide. Consul Karl Baumer is described as "the type of German who make caricaturists' lives easy, and pro-German propaganda difficult." He has a shaved head, a deceptive "expression of gentle and bovine torpor." "A born sycophant, he is thoroughly unrelentingly arrogant to his dependents." He is something of a 37 The catalogue of his deeds is quite lengthy. sadist and a glutton. He is a thief, an embezzler, a blackmailer, double crosser, traitor, and a would-be murderer. "By making him a particularly vicious Nazi agent, the massacre becomes more than bearable and a good time can be had by an."38 37Boothe, Margin for Error, p. 24. 38Richard Watts, Jr., New York Hera1d-Tribune, 4 November 1939. 128 Clare Boothe did attribute several specific Nazi charac- teristics to the "caricature" Consul. His anti-Semitism is extremely pronounced. Max says it is "rather an obsession" with the Consul. The Consul is very upset at the Mayor's joke of assigning Jews to protect him.39 In anger at Officer Finkelstein's remarks about Hitler, he says, "You parasite! You lousy, illiterate, poverty- stricken spawn of the Ghetto!" Later in the play he refers to "President Rosenfeld," a reference to Roosevelt's being Jewish, 4° The Consul which was believed by many people in the 1930's. also expresses extreme adoration of Hitler. In addition, he makes brief references to his dislike for democracy and peace. He also reveals that he was only a "common chemist" before "Hitler called me" and he is touchy about his background. The Consul is the villain of the piece and has no element of audience sympathy. The Consul's hero opponent is Officer Moe Finkelstein. In an introduction to the play, Clare Boothe's husband, Henry Luce, said that it was in Moe that she had succeeded in making a credible spokesman as a rebuttal to National Socialism. "For the character of Moe Finkelstein is the best advertisement for Democracy since "4] Sherwood's Lincoln. Moe (played by Sam Levine) is a wise-cracking, 39According to Goldstein, The Political Stage, p. 409, Mayor LaGuardia had assigned Jewish policemen to guard the German consulate in New York in 1938. 40Morrison, The Oxford History, p. 971, says the common yarn was "that F. D. R. was the descendant of a German Jew named Rosenveldt whom Peter Stuyvesant had exiled to Hyde Park because he engaged in seditious activities in New Amsterdam." 41Henry Luce, Introduction to Margin for Error, p. xvi. 129 enthusiastic, cop who loves his life and adores his Jewish mother. While he knows little of ideology, he tells the Consul that his having to guard the Consul is a cockeyed thing that could only happen in a Democracy. Yeah. Ain't it swell? I mean--this is the kind of a country where you gotta defend the other guy's life and liberty with your own life, even though you know he ain't feeling so sweet toward your person.42 Luce also said that Clare Boothe had failed to make a good hero opponent in Thomas Denny who is just an American who will never die because he never lived--"a fine, good-looking, lump of stale dough which, when squeezed by the author, produced mechanical sound effects." While Moe may have been a credible opponent hero to place against a Nazi, the villain Nazi in the play was too generalized to effectively delineate Nazism. Richard Lockridge felt that the playwas "not at bottom really an anti-Nazi play." He explained, "Consul Baumer is a stage villain in Nazi clothing; his major rascalities are personal, not political."43 The consul's secretary, Baron Max von Alvenstor, is also a Nazi. He was described as "a nice fellow, a German of the spiritual stamp who sincerely believes that the Treaty of Versailles is the one great crime in history." He believes in the gala r.of Germany rather than guns, but would use the guns. He is blond, blue-eyed, well-bred and speaks faultless English learned at Oxford. 42 43 Boothe, Margin for Error, p. 50. Richard Lockridge, New York Sun, 4 November 1939. 130 Max says he is a Nazi, and at one point the Consul makes him discuss how he, Max, had killed an old Jew on Kristallnacht. He says he was glad, but Sophie says his face looks like he hates himself. Max answers, "Well, damn it, nobody's glad to live in a world where he's got to kill other human beingS--!" When Max leaves, Sophie says of Max, "I don't believe in his heart he's a real Nazi" and the Consul agrees. When the Consul suggests that Max may have Jewish blood, Max denies it and expresses his love for Germany and for Hitler. He is devastated at first when he finds out he is one-quarter Jewish. Later, he says he is "no longer a Nazi--not even a German." He questions Moe about what it is like to be a Jew. He tells Sophie that he is going back to Germany, even if it means death and says, "If I were not what I am, I'd like to be an American." Max is a self-proclaimed Nazi who, because of the Consul's actions and the revelation of his Jewishness, becomes a sympathetic non- Nazi character. Variety said that it fell to the character of Max "To say by implication, a good word or two for the better elements of Germany, the sincerely patriotic, the proud rebels against Verseilles [sic]."44 The third Nazi in the play is Otto B. Horst, the head of the American Bund and self-proclaimed American Fuhrer. He is a "fat, forty-year-old ex-elocution teacher, with a pasty intra- mural complexion" who wears a tight uniform to hide his pudginess. 4QXEEIQLX, 8 November 1939. 131 "Horst is ruthless, but timid, he is without a shred of humor, and is generally dour, unless drunk with his own verbosity." He thinks he's cunning, which makes him the target of others. Horst is a satirical presentation of Fritz Kuhn, who was the head of the German American Bund. Horst is a comical character whose main concern is the state of the Bund. "I've got to do something to get my picture in the papers! Short of fan dancers or murder, nothing seems to astonish the American public." He expresses Nazi views about Jews, Communists, peace and war, but it is always done in a humorous context. He says a hundred and sixty-three people came to hear him speak and that there were thousands in the street. The Consul asks if they were trying to get in and he replies, "No. Waiting for me to come out." He complains that the people he hired to throw things at him were dispersed by.the police. "I tell you, in America the protection of discontented minorities amounts to a political monopoly--" A critic described him as A mixture of fool, pervert and vaudeville caricature [who] lacks the thick-necked, half-sincere, half-unconscionable, bigotry that would make such a bund leader seem believable. Otto B. Horst is such a complete ass as authoress Boothe has overdrawn him that plausibility is lost.45 Plausibility was not necessary to make Horst a clown for a play intended as an entertaining melodrama. When the German Embassy in Washington complained about the tryout of the play there, Clare Boothe replied "The play was not intended as a compliment to 451bid. 132 the Nazis, but neither was it supposed to be a blast . . . the 46 political setting is simply the background for a murder mystery." ~ The program stated "No actual person, living or dead, is depicted or intended to be depicted in the play." Several critics felt it was the best anti-Nazi play that had been written and that the satire was on target and effective. ”Miss Boothe threats the entire ideology of the Reich government as something which, when the world's sense of humor is at last 47 restored, will be laughed to death." Burns Mantle found it the first acceptable anti-Nazi play.48 In an article titled "Notes on the Theatre During War" written in early 1941, Ernst Schwarzert discussed the problem of writing on the current world Situation and praised Robert Sherwood's And There Shall Be No Night for its realistic approach. He then stated: In "Margin for Error," Clare Boothe succeeded by the opposite method. There can be no doubt about the fervor of her atti- tude toward the theme of our time. But she subordinated it to the requirements of a farcical thriller. She transformed the reality of our world into the playful, self-sustained, irreality of farce so thoroughly that even the word "Hitler" took on a Chaplinesque meaning. In spite of its newspaper reality, the plot was intrinsically theatrical. . . .49 The success of Margin for Error in handling the important theme depended on portraying a Nazi villain, as John Mason Brown phrased I 46Nannes, Politics in the American Drama, p. 135. ’ 47Sidney B. Whipple, New York World-Telegram, 4 November 1939. 48Burns Mantle, New York Daily News, 4 November 1939. 49Ernst Schwarzert, New York Times, 11 May 1941, sec. 9, 133 it, that is so "attractive dramatically one hates to have him kined."50 There Shall Be No Night The next Nazi character appeared in Robert Sherwood's There Shall Be No Night, which concerned the Russian invasion of Finland November 30, 1939. The Russians outnumbered the Finns three to one, but they were dealt surprisingly devastating initial losses. They profited by initial mistakes, renewed their assault in February, 51 1940, and the Finns capitulated March 12. Sherwood wrote the 52 and it opened April 29, 1940. play in two months, In a preface to the play in 1941, Sherwood discussed the accusations that he, having long identified himself as a pacifist, had now become a war monger. He said that There Shall Be No Night was not a denial of his earlier, successful pacifistic play Idiot's Delight, but was, rather, a sequel.53 He described his experiences in World War I that had led to his deep pacifism. He said the outbreak of war had put him in "a frenzy of uncertainty." He described his dilemma: Being myself so confused, I couldn't speak up with any positive conviction. I was terrified of identifying myself as a "War- monger." But my mind was settled principally by two events: The first was a speech in October by Charles Lindbergh, which 50John Mason Brown, New York Post, 4 November 1939. 5lHoyle, A World in Flames, pp. 27-28. 52co1dstein, The Political Stage, p. 351. 53Robert E. Sherwood, There Shall Be No Night (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941), p. ix. 134 proved that Hitlerism was already powerfully and persuasively represented in our midst; the second was the Soviet invasion of Finland.54 Sherwood said he had viewed the Soviet Union as a "force for world peace" and as the "mightiest opponnent of fascism" and the pact with Germany as a shrewd game. With the attack on Finland "the last scales of illusion fell." "I knew that this was merely part of Hitler's game of world revolution. . . ." Sherwood was shocked that the United States did not aid Finland. He said he decided to raise his voice "in protest against the hysterical escapism, which dominated American thinking and . . . pointed our foreign 55 policy toward suicidal isolationism." Sherwood had originally titled the play Revelation.56 There Shall Be No Night tells the story of an eminent Finnish scientist, Dr. Kaarlo Valkonen, winner of a Nobel Prize, who is married to an American woman. He does not believe Russia will attack, but believes even if they did, it would be stupid and reckless to resist. Russia does attack, his son goes to fight, the war closes in on him, and he justifies a decision to join his countrymen in the war. Sherwood uses a German Consul General, Dr. Ziemssen, as a spokesman for beliefs inimical to Dr. Valkonen. Ziemssen is "a 'mild, scholarly, correct German of thirty-five or forty." Ziemssen 54 55 Ibid., p. xxvii. Ibid., p. xxviii. 56Bo1dstein, The Political Stage, p. 351. 135 is introduced in Scene One. Dr. Valkonen has made an impassioned broadcast to America decrying a dictatorship, obviously Germany, which is "under the leadership of a megalomaniac who belongs in a psychopathic ward rather than a Chancellery." In the broadcast. Valkonen makes a plea for pacifism as the correct response. Ziemssen tells him Berlin heard the speech and found it "highly entertaining." In Scene Three, Ziemssen asks Volkonen if he believes the Communists are Finland's enemies. Valkonen says he thinks so. Ziemssen The Russians think so, too, but they are wrong. me_are your enemies, Herr Doktor. This Finnish incident is one little item in our vast scheme. We make good use of our esteemed allies of the Soviet Union. All the little communist cells, in labor movements, youth movements, in all nations--they are now working for ma, although they may not know it. Communism is a good laxative to loosen the Constricted bowels of democ- racy. When it has served that purpose, it will disappear down the sewer of excrement that must be purged. Ziemssen, with unusual candor, tells Valkonen what has happened in Poland. He says Poland will not rise again because it is dead as a result of a process of annihilation. Ziemssen . . It is a studied technique and it was not invented in Moscow. You will find the blueprints for it, not in Das Kapital, but in Mein Kampf. . . . It involved, first,-TTqui- dation of thought--political, religious, economic, intellectual. Among the masses--the difficult ones are killed--the weaklings are allowed to die of starvation--the strong ones are enslaved. Kaarlo You are an anthropologist--a man of learning, Dr. Ziemssen. Do you approve of this technique? Ziemssen Naturally, I regret the necessity for it. But I admit the necessity. And so must you, Dr. Valkonen. Remember that every 57Sherwood, There Shall Be No Night, p. 86. 136 great state of the past in its stages of construction has required slavery. Today, the greatest world state is in the process of formation. There is a great need for slave labor. And--these Finns and Scandinavians would be useful. Is that brutal--ruthless? Yes. But I am now talking to a scientist, not a snivelling sentimentalist. Vivisection has been called brutal, ruthless--but it is necessary for the survival of man. So it is necessary that inferior races be considered merely animals. . . .58 Kaarlo asks how Ziemssen can prove racial inferiority when he knows it is a lie. Ziemssen says that, of course, it's a lie biologically, "But we can prove it by the very simple expediency of asserting our own superiority. . . ." He says if Valkonen stays and resists destiny, he will die. Kaarlo I appreciate your motives in warning me, Dr. Ziemssen. And I understand that all you have told me is confidential. Ziemssen You are_an innocent, my friend! Nothing that I have said is confidential. You may repeat it all. And you will not be believed. There is the proof of our superiority--that our objectives are so vast that our pigmy-minded enemies simply have not the capacity to believe them. They are eager to accept the big lies we give them, because they cannot comprehend the big truth. And the big truth is this: For the first time since the whole surface of the earth became known, one dynamic race is on the march to occupy that surface and rule it!59 Ziemssen also says the United States is secure because it has shown great intelligence in not interfering in European affairs. Thus, in a play attacking Russia's invasion of Finland, the antagonist is a Nazi. Ziemssen's speeches are a distillation of the Volkisch concepts of race, blood, Germanic superiority, and 58 59 Ibid.. PP. 87-88. Ibid., p. 89. 137 the inferiority of other people. There is a clear expression of Hitler's concept of Darwinism and the necessity for struggle. While Ziemssen represents a quientessence of many Nazi beliefs, he makes no specific reference to Jews. There is, however, a reference by another character about having old friends in Germany who live in terror because they have Jewish blood. Ziemssen talks about the desire to use Scandinavians as slaves. This does not jibe with the racial theories of the Third Reich. The terms "Aryan" and "Nordic" were used to refer to the superior race, and it did not refer exclusively to Germans. A 1935 textbook states, "It was Nordic energy and boldness that were responsible for the powers and prestige enjoyed by small nations "60 The racial views expressed such as the Netherlands and Sweden. by Ziemssen were improbable as Nazi views, but they did suit Sherwood's purpose of broadening the scope of Nazi malice to include the characters in his play. Insofar as speech is behavior, Ziemssen's words constitute a verbal violence which assaults the presumed standards of the audience. Ziemssen leaves in Scene Three of the seven-scene play so he is presented in contrast primarily to Dr. Kaarlo Valkonen and his family. Valkonen and his American wife are certainly socially acceptable opponents, but their heroism occurs after Ziemssen is gone. There is another factor which tends to diminish Ziemssen as a villain. His speeches are quite outrageous, but, 6OMoose, Nazi Culture, p. 79. 138 except for a mild questioning by Valkonen, no one attacks him for his views. He is verbally villainous, but without opposition. Sherwood injected another opinion about the Nazis into the play. He has characters refer to the Russian drive on the Mannerheim Line as being led by German officers. There is no evidence for it, and it is highly improbable. The Russians had attempted, in the first place, to negotiate a readjustment of territory with Finland to hinder a possible attack by the Germans against Leningrad.6] "The Finns had ties with Germany as well as with the Western Allies, and for a time it looked as though both might intervene on her [Finland's] beha1f."62 Richard Watts, Jr., had questioned Sherwood's contention in his review of the play.63 Sherwood's sympathy with Finland was shared by most people in the West. Finland was seen as a fresh victim of aggression and its resistance aroused much sympathy. As noted in the beginning of this chapter, the play drew criticism from the temporarily rabid isolationist far-left Russophiles. There Shall Be No Nighr_received the Pulitzer Prize for the 1940-41 season. The play ran 115 performances and had a return engagement of 66 performances, for a total of 181. It had starred the Lunts, and after its Broadway run, the Lunts toured the play to forty-two cities and in 1943 took the play to England. Brooks Atkinson observed in late 1941, "By an ironic twist of fate Finland 61 62 63 Hart, History_of the Second World War, pp. 43-44. Hoyle, A World in Flames, p. 28. Richard Watts, New York Herald-Tribune, 30 April 1940. 139 is no longer on the side of the angels, and her demoniac enemy of 1939 and 1940 is now fighting the evil tyrant who is trying to 64 He felt the play still had "inner truth" and crack our world." that it was still vital. Edmond M. Gagey commented in Revolution in American Drama: Before long [There Shall Be No Night] became dated, however, in one of the intricate political turnabouts in Europe which saw Finland fighting on the side of Nazi Germany. The play's general message still held true, as Sherwood pointed out, but the American public began to wonder whether Russia might not have had good reason for its Finnish policies.65 When the Lunts took the play to England in 1943, the markedly changed war alignments caused a change in the script--the locale was changed to Greece and Italy was the aggressor nation.66 Flight to the West The next characterization of a Nazi occurred in the 1940-41 67 The play opened season in Flight to the West by Elmer Rice. December 30, 1940. A transatlantic flying boat bound from Lisbon to New York has passengers that include refugees from Nazism, Americans fleeing the war, an American businessman returning from meetings with Hitler and Goering, an American woman journalist and two Nazis, a diplomat and a spy. Since the spy is posing as a Russian, only the diplomat is portrayed as a Nazi. 64 65 66 67Elmer Rice, Flight to the West (New York: Coward- McCann, Inc., 1941). Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 5 October 1941. Gagey, Revolution in American Drama, p. 136. Goldstein, The Political Stage, p. 352. 140 The German diplomat is Dr. Herman Walther, "stout, bald, clean-shaven, in his middle fifties." Walther is a major concern of the other passengers. Some are refugees who have suffered severely because of the Nazis, and the others include Americans who take issue with Walther's opinions. Walther's first confrontation is with Louise Frayne, an American journalist. He tells her that Germany's present task is the pacification of Europe. He says it is unfortunate that that can only be done by force. "But, after all, force is the funda- mental law of nature. In the struggle for existence, the strong must conquer the weak." He reveals a belief in Darwinism as expressed by Hitler. The discussion is joined by an American oilman, Colonel Archibald Gage, who has met Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco and finds they are all "just folks--1ike you and me." When the subject of Jews comes up, Walther says, "These are matters of biological theory, not of the hatred of individuals." Charles Ingraham, a liberal writer, asks if the Germany he knew as a youth is the one that "lends itself to pogroms and the mutilation of children?" Walther says the present situation is the same as in 1914; "a conspiracy of the plutocracies to imprison us in our narrow borders until we die for want of air." He then interprets his fighting against the Belgians in World War I: We had no quarrel with the Belgians--then or now. But we were fighting for our existence, and they shut their gates and turned against us. They were the aggressors, not we. You have spoken of Louvain. My battery stood before Louvain, 141 and each time I gave the order to fire, I prayed that the beautiful library would be spared. And when, at last, we entered the city and I saw the building in ruins, my eyes ~filled with tears. Why didn't they let us through? What did they gain by resisting? What--68 69 about the This is the first clear expression of Fromm's thesis authoritarian Nazi who, like Hitler, saw the German people as always innocent and the enemies as sadistic brutes. One of the passengers recalls having seen the Russian before, and through a series of radio cables it is revealed that he is a Nazi agent who is undoubtedly being run by Walther. The plane is taken to Bermuda in order to have the British able to make an arrest. When Walther makes a speech inveighing against Britain and the United States, one of the refugees tries to shoot him. Charles Nathan, the American Jew, steps in between and is wounded. The refugee is Marie, a Belgian woman whose mother and son were killed by a German bomb. The same bomb blinded her husband and maimed her twelve-year-old daughter. They are all on the plane including her tiny baby, who was born at the roadside as they were fleeing the Germans. It is the action by Charles Nathan which provides a detailed debate revealing more of Walther's beliefs. Walther is asked if he feels any gratitude for Charles' action. He replies in part, I am a scientist and a realist. You are a sentimentalist and a romantic. I speak for a young, vigorous, and determined 68Ibid., p. 62. 69See Chapter II, pp. 21-22. 142 race . . . which rejects the whining beatitudes and the weak slave morality of your dying Jewish-Christian culture.70 His statement is the first Clear condemnation of Christianity by a Nazi character. The entire concern about Nathan's actions is to Walther "one more example of the mental debilitation that results from exposure to liberalism and democracy." He says there is nothing admirable in risking one's life to save an enemy. "Such an action seems to me quite atavistic, or perhaps I should say devolutionary--a form of biological retrogression. The healthy organism is concerned first with survival and second with domination." Walther then says that Nathan's mind had not been trained to function logically, but instead had been warped by the "corrosive philosophy of liberalism and the insidious poisons of Jewish mysti- cism." Walther leaves and it is then that Rice has another character delineate Nazi ideology. Charles Ingraham, who has been confused by world events, says that Walther has restored his faith and sense of values because he knows Walther will lose in the end. nge Well, that I don't understand at all. How could talking to Walther make you believe in anything but the certainty of universal destruction. Ingraham No! That's what I've learned on this plane--that it's not their way of life that will win in the end, but ours. I see clearly now something that I only sensed before. It's just this: that rationality carried to its ruthless logical extreme becomes madness, because man is a living and growing organism and not a machine, and in all the important things of life, a scane man is irrational. Do you see what I mean? Hope Yes. Yes, I think I do! You mean what Charles did--! 7°16id., p. 146. 143 Ingraham Yes, exactly. An impulsive act that goes beyond reason and self-interest. That's how sane people 1ive--illogically, instinctively, intuitively. Thinking with their feelings, rather than with their minds. Reaching out to each other, trusting each other. That means flexibility, and in felxibility there's strength and the potentiality of growth. But the other thing is rigid and in the end there's no strength and no growth in that--only brittleness and sterility. That's the issue: rational madness against irrational sanity. It sounds para- doxical but it's true. And, in the long run, madness will lose; because madness is a disease and sanity is health and, if disease wins, it means the end of the world and no healthy man can believe in that.71 The idea that the Nazis emphasized rationality and opposed instinct was noted and accepted by several of the critics. None seemed aware that it was an erroneous impression. George L. Mosse in his introduction to Nazi Culture stated: Activism was important. After all, the Nazis conceived of their party as a "movement." This and the irrational foun- dations of their world view represented strong opposition to intellectualism. Hitler summarized his own viewpoint in 1938: "What we suffer from today is an excess of education. Nothing is appreciated except knowledge. . . . What we require is instinct and will." "Instinct" meant the love of Volk and race which came from a realm beyond empirical knowledge, from the soul.72 . Joachim Fest also quotes an early writer for the Nazis as having said, "The renewal of the German reality must come not from the head but the heart, not from doctrines but from visions and 1173 instincts. Fest described the victory of Hitler as "ushering in a new era that would bring to an end the rule of reason and 74 restore life to its primordial rights." Hitler himself was clear 7‘Ibid.. pp. 149-150. 72Mosse, Nazi Culture. PP. xxvii-xxviii. 73Fest, Faces of the Third Reich. P- 252- 74Ibid.. p. 252. 144 on the matter in Mein Kampf. He wanted scientific schooling to be 75 last in educational priorities and he stressed the need for general education over specialized knowledge.76 It is of considerable import that Ingraham, Rice's spokes- man for democracy, who makes a plea for instinct and irrationality, sounds more like a spokesman for the Nazis. The fact that the critics accepted Rice's view of Nazism would indicate that his notion was, if not a commonly held belief, certainly one that seemed plausible. As the villain of the melodrama, Walther is portrayed as formidable and strong. He defends and retains his views throughout the events of the play. He is generally disliked by all the other passengers, but he retains his superior demeanor. Atkinson said he was a man to be taken seriously and that "his superiority is no cheap vanity, but the expression of a driving conviction about the role his race will play in the world of tomorrow."77 Walther is opposed by extremely sympathetic characters, especially the refugee family which has suffered because of the Nazis. Marie's decision to shoot Walther can be viewed as heroic as well as Charles Nathan's stepping into the line of fire. Gener- ally, however, the characters are not heroic but they are acceptable 75Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 408. 76Ibid., p. 423. 77Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 19 January 1941, sec. 9, 145 and admirable in contrast to Walther. The opponents include Ameri- cans and Jews. Flight to the West was not a big success. It ran 136 per- formances. Brooks Atkinson thought it was "the most absorbing "78 However, Louis Kronenberg com- American drama of the season. plained that the play "tries to achieve the swift force and sure punch of a speech or an editorial while using the long-winded 79 A few weeks later, Atkinson and discussive form of a symposium." addressed himself to those who complained Rice had said nothing new. No other American drama of the season has so frankly come out of the ordeal of today. And to me it will not be dull as long as the homes and families are annihilated from the air, as long as the Nazis oppose democracy with the inhuman fanaticism of their creed and as long as comfortable people talk of coming to terms with Hitler.80 It should be noted that one of the most successful of anti- Nazi dramas (without Nazis) was produced three months after Rice's play. Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine opened April 1, 1941, and ran for 378 performances. It won the Drama Critic's Circle Award for the 1940-41 season. The play had no Nazi characters but dealt with the effects of Nazism on an anti-Nazi German. The villain was not even a pro-Hitlerite, but a penniless, despicable black- mailing Rumanian count. Two aspects of the play indicate the degree of isolationist sentiment among audiences. 78Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 31 December 1940. 79Louis Kronenberg, BM, 31 December 1940. 80Atkinson, New York Times, 19 January 1941. 146 First, Watch on the Rhine was produced before Germany attacked Russia, and the play came the closest to pleasing the Communist press which was vehemently isolationist. The Daily Workers' critic, Ralph Warner, wrote: Emphasis is wholly upon the revolutionary way out for the German people; and in the presentation of Kurt, Miss Hellman definitely rejects anti-German sentiment and does a service to the real understanding of the nature of the German people. She does not mention gingoism or war as a possible means of destroying Hitlerism. 1 Second, there are no adverse portrayals of Germans in the play. The villain is Rumanian. Charlotte Hughes wrote about the play in the New York Times and said So many people told her "that they are deeply pleased at seeing a decent, honest German . . . on the stage, after a long string of thick necked, pig-headed stage and movie Germans." She then quoted Lillian Hellman: "One thing I tried to say in 'Watch on the Rhine,‘ is that I have a love for the German pe0ple."82 Candle in the Wind The next play with Nazi characters in this period was 83 The play, a joint pro- Candle in the Wind by Maxwell Anderson. duction of the Theatre Guild and Playwrights' Company, starred Helen Hayes and opened October 22, 1941. The play takes place 81 82Charlotte Hughes, "Women Playmakers," New York Times, 4 May 1941, sec. 7, p. 10. 83Maxwell Anderson, Candle in the Wind (Washington, D.C.: Anderson House, 1941). Ralph Warner, Daily Worker (New York), 4 April 1941. 147 between June, 1940, after the fall of Paris, to September, 1941. The heroine, an American actress, has fallen in love with a French journalist. When he is imprisoned by the Nazis, the actress spends a year trying to get him out. All of her plots prove to be subtle methods of extortion worked out by the Nazis. She finally does effect his escape, but, at the end, is herself a hostage. There are two important Nazis in the play--Colonel Erfurt and Lieutenant Schoen, who run the concentration camp near Paris where Madelaine Guest's lover is a prisoner. The first scene takes place in the gardens behind the palace at Versailles. Raoul has been through "miracles" and has found his way to Paris to find Madeline. He is arrested by the Nazis who are correct and polite. The second scene is in the camp, and there is an immediate revelation of Nazi brutality. Colonel Erfurt and Lieutenant Schoen are talking to Corporal Behrens, who is reporting for duty. Behrens' specialty, in which he has been trained, is "punishment." He answers questions. Men are punished "Because they are condemned by the state, and the state makes no errors." What would he do if the state made an error? "It is impossible. . . . In any conflict . . . the state is right and the individual is wrong." What if God says otherwise. "It is impossible, sir. There is no God except the state, and the state carries out the Fuhrer's will." And, finally, Schoen asks what if Behrens is right and Schoen is wrong. "It is impossible, sir, because the state has set you above me in authority." The brief scene establishes Behrens as completely integrated into the Nazi system of authority. 148 The explicit denial of God, alluded to in Flight to the Weai, was still a rather new attribution to the Nazis. The Nazis had not directly tried to destroy Christianity. "Nazis' opposition to Christianity took the form of elevating its own world view into a matter of direct religious expression." The Nazis were careful to keep traditional forms intact. "The attempt to fill the tradi- tional framework with their own content meant bending Christianity itself into conformity with Nazi ideology and culture."84 The Nazi ideology in the play is revealed mainly in the scenes between Madeline and the officers who run the concentration camp. In Act One, Erfurt tells Madeline that "Here it seems to you that the lunatics are in charge and those who are normal are restrained." He tells her it is the usual reaction because she has stepped from one world to another"--from the old world to the new. You have stepped from freedom and chivalry and legend, into science, reality and control." Erfurt's emphasis on science, reality and control in Nazism is similar to the stress on logic and rationality in Nazism found in Elmer Rice's Flight to the West. As pointed out in the discussion of that play, the stress was actu- ally on instinct. emotional reality, visions and knowledge of the 85 Even renowned scientists who were Nazis deprecated the 86 soul. value of science and praised spiritual knowledge. 84Mosse, Nazi Culture, p. 235. 85 86In 1936, Philipp Lenard, a 1905 Nobel Prize winner and supporter of Hitler, occupied the chair of theoretical physics at See pp. 32-33. 149 Erfurt also places legend in Madeline's world. This, too, was not an accurate reflection of Nazi ideology. Building myths and heroes was an integral part of the Nazi cultural drive. . . . The flight from reason became a search for myths and heroes to believe in, and National Socialism was only too glad to provide both in full measure.87 Anderson seemed to attribute to Nazism assumptions similar to those expressed by Elmer Rice in Flight to the West. Erfurt elaborates some of his thoughts to Madeline, by commenting on Shakespeare: When I read Shakespeare nowadays, I come to the reluctant conclusion that he is essentially alien to us. He makes, for instance--Edmund the villain in Lear. And what is Edmund? A Machiavellian, a clever young fellow with no illusions, and only those scruples proper to a sensible young man. But Shakespeare makes him the villain of the piece, and kills him off in miserable fashion. No, Shakespeare's got the whole moral system upside down. In real life the strong and ruthless win, and the weak suffer. And that's how it should be, or must be.88 the University of Heidelberg. He wrote on the subject "Materialism: A Delusion" and said in part: The peculiar tendency to recognize only matter and not spirit must be mentioned here since it is an outgrowth of natural sc1ence. In recent times, the successes of technology have produced a special form of arrogant delusion with respect to matter. . "Man has slowly become the master of nature." Such utterances on the part of spiritually impoverished "grand technicians" acquired a great influence because of the im- pressive display their new techniques and inventions made possible. . . . In the face of this development, the spiritual sciences . . . have utterly failed. Philipp Lenard, "The Limits of Science," quoted by Mosse, Nazi Culture. pp. 197, 205. 87 Ibid., p. 96. 88Anderson, Candle in the Wind, p. 74. 150 Erfurts' discussion of Shakespeare was very credible for a German at the time. He was the most popular playwright in Germany in the summer of 1940 and tickets to Shakespeare's plays had to be bought weeks in advance.89 The act closes shortly after the comments on Shakespeare. Raoul tells Madeline, "Even though we should lose, we have won! They know what they are and no words can cover it!" Erfurt is left alone and comments on the indefatigable optimism of Raoul and Madeline--"And yet something perishes with them when they are exterminated. A kind of decadent beauty one hates to lose." Lieutenant Schoen is sent to deceive Madeline once again about freeing Raoul. He admits he was sent by Erfurt. Madeline believes he is her best hope because of the tears in his eyes. "Yes, but I have seen tears in Erfurt's eyes when a man lay dying. And he let the man die. You must not depend on tears." In Act Three, Schoen does aid Raoul in a genuine escape. Raoul escapes, but Madeline is captured. Erfurt says she will speak because no human will "can hold out against us." Madeline says she has heard that lovers are a problem to them, "that the heaters are inclined to throw down their whips when a woman in love is brought before them." Erfurt tells her his power is abso- lute. "My fear is that I must use it. I beg of you, do not make me use it." Madeline says neither his power nor Germany's is 89"The Berlin Theatre Has a Boom." New York Times, 7 JUIY 1940. sec. 9. p. 1. 151 absolute. "A cold wind of hatred blows at you from every corner of the earth! You have felt that wind before, and you know what it means. It means that you will lose." Erfurt appears to be a Gestapo or SS officer. He is the villain, but a rather sophisticated villain compared to the earlier portrayals of villains such as storm troopers. He is the first clear example of a Nazi portraying institutionalized terror--he is not impulsive, he is correct, dispassionate, and efficient about his business. Nearly every critic commented on the effectiveness of the portrayal of Erfurt by John Wengraf. Lieutenant Schoen is a Nazi who changes during the play. His Nazism is not delineated other than that he helps run the camp. There is some foreshadowing of change when he tells a guard he does not want to hear a description of how the guard tortured a prisoner. He aids in harassing Madeline, but finally tells her that he has watched her and Raoul for a year and feels sorry for them and will help them. When he effects the escape, Madeline asks him why he is trembling. Selma Is it so easy to break with all you've ever known? To thrust your neck under the axe? I have seen too many executions. But I have come to the end of this quarrel with myself. This quarrel over whether it is better to be what you are and die for it, or to be what they would have you, and live. Perhaps I have found a sort of courage. Madeline Where will you go? Schoen You must not worry about me, I have my own private war to fight. But, however it goes, not everything is lost. For 152 I am a soldier against what I hate, and it's good to fight alone. Good-bye and thank you.90 Schoen's conversion is complete but the quarrel with himself is not dramatized. Brooks Atkinson said of the brutality of the prison management that "Mr. Anderson has occasion to reveal the moral baseness of the whole Nazi system and the closely integrated evil 91 of Nazi philosophy and methods." Atkinson was very Close to the observation that Nazi ideology is expressed in action. Brutality in the play is imputed to the Nazis by reaction rather than portrayal. A French couple, the Fleurys, have been allowed to see their son. She collapses and is carried out. "What they have seen within has broken them down to speechless, whining animals." In Act Two, there is further discussion between two "punishers" which suggests unspeakable tortures. Behrens and Schultz have taken a cigarette break because Schultz has gotten "a little sick" doing his work. Richard Watts, Jr., commented on the portrayal of Nazism in the play: It is often said that the theme of Nazi fury is so overwhelming that it makes playwriting particularly difficult and forbidding these days. What might be noted, though, is that this same topic can just as well be of greater help to a dramatist than his play deserves. The terror of the Gestapo and the concen- tration camp is so great that the mere placing upon the stage of some fierce, gutteral actors, with swastikas on their sleeves, lifting their palms in Nazi salute and threatening to destroy decadent democracy, can achieve a certain irrestible dramatic power, no matter how routine the writing of the accompanying 90Anderson, Candle in the Wind, pp. 103-104. 9IBrooks Atkinson, New York Times, 23 October 1941. 153 drama may be. This is pretty much what happens in "Candle in the Wind."92 Erfurt's portrayal was set against the most possibly accepta- ble opponents. The heroine is a courageous American actress risking her safety for love. Her journalist-soldier lover is the epitome of valor, but is shallowly developed. These two completely meet the definition of hero opponents--champions, splendid performers, socially acceptable, and servants of an admirable group. They are middle class and fully acceptable American heroes. However, the play was highly romanticized and its main attraction was the highly praised acting of Helen Hayes. John Anderson of the New York Journal-American said that in choosing these two heroes, Anderson "brought the issues clearly into focus" but "the trouble is that n93 they are clear, even obvious, but not dramatically exciting. Two observations by critics should be noted. The Variety critic said that although the play was propaganda, "it should surely meet with popular approval, as atrocities of Hitler's "94 fanatics appear increasingly in the public press. Ralph Warner, the Dailerorker critic, who had been so pleased with Watch on the Rhine because "it did not mention jingoism or war as a possible means of destroying Hitlerism," found Candle in the Wind "a ' 92 T941.- * 93 Richard Watts, Jr., New York Herald-Tribune, 23 October John Anderson, New York Journal-American, 23 October 1941. 94Variety, 29 October 1941. 154 forthright declaration of America's determination to face the Nazi danger, to fight it and to end its threat to world freedom."95 Hitler had attacked Russia June 22, 1941, and interventionism was now de_rigemr_for the Communists and Russophiles. They were not the only ones to change. Mable Driscoll Bailey points out in Maxwell Anderson that in the last Speech of the play Madeline said the conflict is a "war between men and beasts." "It is the Armegeddon battle which only two years before [in Key_hargg] Mr. Anderson had declared to be impossible."96 Candle in the Wind had a rather limited run of only 95 performances on Broadway. However, Helen Hayes, who had been highly praised, toured with the show and it garnered huge grosses on the road.97 The Man with Blond Hair The last play in this period was the poorly received Ihe_ Man with B1ond Hair98 by Norman Krasna, which opened November 4, 1941. Krasna had written a moderately successful play called Small Miracle and then went to Hollywood and achieved considerable success as an author-d1rector-producer. In The Man with Blond Hair, 95Ralph Warner, Daily Worker, 25 October 1941. 96Mabel Driscoll Bailey, Maxwell Anderson: The Playwright as Prophet (New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1957), p. 118. 97Marguerite and Howard Cullman, "Malnutrition of the Box Office." New York Times, 7 June 1942, sec. 8, p. 2. 98Norman Krasna, The Man with Blond Hair, typescript, Theatre Collection, New York Public Library. 155 99 and Sturner, have escaped from a two German aviators, Rudolph prison camp in Canada. They are picked up by the New York police. They are arrogant and one of the station cops gets his friends to kidnap the Nazis in order to beat them up and worse. One of them escapes and is hidden by a young girl, Ruth Hoffman, who lives with her very typical, old-fashioned Jewish mother. Ruth passes Rudolph off as a refugee teacher from Germany. He spends two days with the Hoffmans, playing rummy with the mother, listening to the radio, and eating Jewish Strudel. When he discovers that the police were willing to shoot an American to keep his cohort from being assassi- nated, he is completely converted to democracy and freedom. Rudolph is the main Nazi in the play. He is an SS-man who is humorously naive about the United States. He believes the telephone is tapped, that a Western Union boy in uniform must have some rank, and that a radio commentator critical of the country must be broadcasting from a secret station. In his two-day stay at the Hoffman's, he reveals some of his beliefs. He frequently snaps to attention and says "Heil Hitler!" He finds democracy unworkable and believes free speech which affects the state is a danger. He claims that humanitarian democracies are trying to strangle Germany. He says, "The Third Reich is an outcast country to be crushed by the world, and it is our purpose to see that the 99Rudolph is called Carl in the script of the play. "Rudolph" is used in this discussion to be consistent with reviews of the play. 156 world is crushed first!" He also says, "the state, and the capi- talists, they have such a plot!"100 Rudolph reveals several Nazi beliefs in his conversations with Ruth, but he is not developed as an SS-man. His anti-Semitism is minimized, he is opposed to the United States and capitalism, and his belief in power and war is strongly expressed. At the end of the play, Rudolph is impressed that a federal agent has shot and killed an American who was about to shoot Sturner, the other Nazi in the play. Rudolph refuses to aid Sturner in an escape attempt and then thwarts his escape by revealing that Sturner's "gun" is a piece of pipe. The play ends as Rudolph addresses Sturner: Rudolph There's a limit my friend. It's not true we can't be saved. It'll be hard, but don't give up! Don't give us up! In God's name--help us! At the beginning, Rudolph is a villain by definition, but his villainy is undercut first by Ruth Hoffman's acceptance of him and then by his total conversion. His adherence to Nazism seems fully predicated on a misunderstanding of the United States. Sturner, the other Nazi, is portrayed only briefly. When he discovers that Rudolph is being cared for by Jews, he says it must be a plot to poison him and leaves. He is a total believer and is not phased by the fact that a law officer has shot an American to save his life. At the end when Mama Hoffman is yelling 'Ookrasna, The Man with Blond Hair, act 2, p. 24. 157 at him to get out of her house, he orders Rudolph to hit her. His brief portrayal is villainous but not developed as a Nazi. The opposition to the Nazis is provided by a group of men who have kidnapped the Nazis so, as one of them says, "We can give 10] The men have them the God-damndest beating they ever had." various reasons for their anger. The father of one is a policeman who was roughed up by the Nazis when they escaped from police custody. Another is a Pole whose grandfather was bayonetted by Nazis. As a group, they act like hoodlums willing to take any extra-legal actions. By implication, the opposition to Nazis is made as broad based as possible. In discussing the possibility of killing the Nazis, one of the men says, When did a Nazi ever worry about murder when he killed a Jew-- or a Pole--or a Catholic--or a Protestant minister--or a nun-- or people in hospitals--or even other Germans!‘02 The critics praised Rex William's portrayal of Rudolph. Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times said, "Rex William's laconical and sullen Nazi [Rudolph] gives the performance a solid under- "103 pinning, and another said "Mr. Williams looks like a German army recruiting poster and behaves with stolid simplicity, square- 104 jawed sterness, and a good deal of charm.” However, the por- trayal of Sturner by Bernard Lenrow was not accepted as convincing. 10'Ibid., act 1, scene 1, p. l3. 102 103 104 Ibid., act 1, scene 1, p. 28. Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 5 November 1941. J.D.B., Christian Science Monitor, 5 November 1941. 158 The critics felt he lacked "the officer caste the lines suggested"105 and looked and acted I'too much like Mephistopheles."106 The play was very poorly received and ran only seven per- formances. It was generally criticized for being unbelievable and undeveloped. Louis Kronenberger said it was "a farrago of incompe- "107 tence, tastelessness and absurdity. . . . John Anderson of the New York Journal-American said of the play that "in dialogue and situation it sounds more like 'The Rover Boys Play Hitler' or 'Fun on the Fire Escape.'" Anderson called the conclusion "claptrap" and said "The Nazi is just this side of sprouting little pink wings, and I half expected an orchestra to break into 'Hearts and flowers.'"108 Another critic also found the closing speech (quoted above) "positively embarrassing.”09 Several critics mentioned Maxwell Anderson's Candle in the Wind in their discussion of The Man with Blond Hair because both contained the conversation of a Nazi. John Anderson said "Mr. Krasna's idea is fathered by the wishful thinking that if a nice little Nazi ape-boy could be brought face to face with American democracy, he "110 would see his mistake and abandon his wicked ways. Similarly, John Mason Brown said "Their recent playwrights wishful thinking on 105George Freedley, New York Morning-Telegraph, 6 November 194l. . ' 106Kelcey Allen, Women's Wear Daily, 5 November 194l. 107Louis Kronenberger, EM, 5 November l94l. 108John Anderson, New York Journal-American, 5 November l94l. 109Wilella Waldorf, New York Post. 5 November 194‘- 110John Anderson, New York Journal-American, 5 November 1941. 159 the subject of Hitler can only be described as alarming." He derided the idea that information would convert Nazis and felt Krasna's play was "as silly a bit of bluebirdism as has yet been offered as a challenge to the Swastika."']' Conclusion The playwrights seem to have heeded the critics and provided a rather different Nazi after the start of World War II (September, 1939). There was a difference in the type of Nazi portrayed and a different pattern in the place of action. Most of the plays in this period had Nazi characters who were officials or diplomats. The characters included the consulate officials in Margin for Error, Dr. Ziemssen in There Shall Be No Nigh , and Dr. Walther in Flight to the West. These Nazis tended to be quite intellectual and prone to express their ideology and defend it. This was also true of the officers in Candle in the Wind. Only the Nazis in The Man with Blond Hair did not fit this pattern. The portrayals in this period were, like those of the first period, knowledgeable and informed. With the exception of the Consul in Margin for Error, who was a somewhat generalized villain, the portrayals were specifically Nazi in nature. However, there was a shift in their beliefs. The Nazis continued to reveal a belief in anti-Semitism, German superiority, racialism, the neces- sity for struggle and the survival of the fittest. However, there n'John Mason Brosn, New York World—Telegram, 5 November 1941. 160 was little anti-Communism expressed, the anti-Semitism was less pronounced, and there was a marked increase in the Nazis' oppo- sition to other ethnic groups, Christianity, liberalism, and democracy. There was also the erroneous attribution to the Nazis of a strong belief in science, logic and rationality discussed in 112 Flight to the West and Candle in the Wind. Also new was the conversion of Nazis to anti-Nazis which occurred in Margin for Error, Candle in the Wind, and The Man with Blond Hair. In regard to the conversion in Candle in the Wind, John Gassner said . . . Anderson placed his reliance upon some residue of human feeling which not even years of National Socialist conditioning would eradicate from the soul of Hitler's goose—steppers. It was a consoling philosophy from a distance, even if it was of no avail to millions of less securely remote Europeans.H3 Most of the Nazis in this period could be described as villains. However, their villainy was portrayed more by thought than deed. As a whole, they are in marked contrast to the many outwardly crude and brutal Nazis of the earlier period. There are two related patterns in the plays which explain the relative docility of the Nazis in this period. First, with the exception of Candle in the Wind, all the Nazis were portrayed off their territory and in vulnerable circumstances. Thus, secondly, there is no violence committed against victims by the Nazis. (The aviators in The Man 112This view was also being expressed in film. In Invisible Agent (1942), a Nazi (played by Cedric Hardwicke) vaunts the superi- ority of "German logic" and says "There's no place in our New Order forzgentimentalists." Lingeman, Don't You Know There's a War On? p. 5. 1'3John Gassner, ed., Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre, 2nd series (New York: Crown Publishers, 1974), p. xix. 161 with Blond Hair fight with their captors.) Also, the brutality against victims in Candle in the Wind was totally offstage. What- ever violence was in the plays was directed toward the Nazis as in Margin for Error and Flight to the West. The opponents of the Nazis also changed in this period. The opponents included Americans, American Jews, and Nazis who became anti-Nazi. They were generally much more heroic and more acceptable as American heroes. Joseph Wood Krutch wrote about Candle in the Wind near the end of this period and commented on anti-war plays in general. He said the fact that audiences were flocking to them showed that people were taking World War II much more seriously than they took World War I. He said it was total war which people were thinking about all the time and that "Nothing can be said or done without reference to the one monstrous and overwhelming fact."H4 Krutch did not believe good contemporary war plays could be written, but he said they had been a "good deal better than one had much reason to hope." He explained what he felt was the play- wright's difficulty in portraying Nazism and the limitations of the audiences in these perceptions of it: Mr. Anderson is also as successful as anyone else has been in trying to expose the chill horror of the Nazi philosophy, but I should hesitate to say that he has, any more than the others, actually made it any clearer or any more terrible; and like all the rest he depends, not wholly in vain, upon what we know from other sources to lend his sheer melodrama a sub- stantiality and a significance neither of which it would '14Joseph Wood Krutch, Nation, 20 September l94l, p. 24l. 162 have if we did not bring into the theatre with us information and convictions gained elsewhere.1 The problem seemed to be how to present to the audience its most pressing concern when it had such a meager conception of it. While Krutch's observation would seem to apply to any play dealing with a foreign or strange topic, it does explain why audiences began to be more receptive to the presentations of Nazism. The playwright could rely on’a much greater degree of shared knowledge and emo- tional response to the subject. Ernst Schwarzert observed at the time that the portrayal of Nazism had a built-in, unavoidable shortcoming: The problem is how to establish a play, which has to be a self-contained world, inside the three walls of the stage while the wide world with which it deals is being blown to bits by a hurricane outside. One will understand more easily what I mean when one remembers what happens to these plays whenever the name "Hitler" is mentioned. In this moment the play is no longer a world of its own; the absolute reality of our time breaks through the walls, soars over the stage, sweeps over the footlights and chills the audience with emotions strange to the play. Any word will have this effect--"con- centration camp," "anti-fascism," "passport," etc., if it is taken from the dictionary of our political reality. In those moments the play stops, the public's mind wanders. Precious minutes are needed before the intimate contract between audience and play can be re-established. One remains uncomfortingly conscious of the hurricane.116 While the problems of portraying the Nazi characters did not vanish in the next period, the objections of the isolationists certainly did. ”51m. 1'6Ernst Schwarzert, "Notes on the Theatre During War," CHAPTER V THE PORTRAYAL 0F NAZIS DECEMBER. 1941 - MAY, 1945 In the summer of l94l, eighty-five per cent of Americans believed they would be involved in a European war, and shortly before Pearl Harbor two-thirds of the country predicted that a 1 Although the war was expected, war with Japan would occur shortly. the country, including isolationists, reacted with shock and anger at the Pearl Harbor attack. The isolationists had been as viru- lently anti-Japanese as the liberal interventionists.2 The isolationists did not have to decide whether to support a two-front war including Germany. On December ll, Hitler addressed the Reichstag. He said Roosevelt had failed in his New Deal because the Jews around him with their "full diabolical meanness of Jewry" had diverted attention from domestic policy to foreign policy.3 At 2:30 p.m., Germany declared war on the United States. Under the Tripartite Pact of l940, Germany did not have to aid Japan unless Japan was attacked. "Germany, therefore, was not bound to join 1Richard R. Lingeman, Don't You Know There's a War On? The American Home Front, 194l-1945 (New York: Paperback Library, l972 , p. 17. 2Perrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph, p. l90. 3Shirer, Rise and Fall, 2:899-900. 163 164 Japan in the war against America."4 Hitler's advisors begged him not to involve the United States in Europe but he wanted vengence against America's assistance to the allies.5 The effect on theatre was immediate. The Admiral Had a mg, a spoof on the Navy set in Pearl Harbor, was scheduled to open December lO but was withdrawn permanently.6 The Lunts were on tour with There Shall Be No Night and it was closed, according to Robert Sherwood and associates, so that . . no possibility of a misunderstanding of motives be permitted to exist under the present wartime situation that finds the Soviet Union our ally, and a stalwart one, and Finland fighting on the Nazi side.7 "December of 194l and January of l942 were in some respects 8 Japan had two of the darkest months in all American history." knocked out half the battleship fleet and was overrunning the Phillipines; German submarines were wreaking havoc in the Atlantic and the German army was threatening to capture Moscow. "The country "9 Few was fused as it had never been before in living memory. Americans thought the war was unjust and most viewed it as "a conflict between the forces of light and darkness." Radicals, especially Communists, who had been the harshest critics of war, Noakes and Pridham, Documents on Nazism, p. 60l. Manchester, The Glory and the Dream,.l:3l6. 0301b Ibid., 1:287, and New York Times, ll December l94l, p. 38. \1 Variety, l7 December l94l, p. 59. Spiller, Literary History of the U.S., p. l262. moo Perrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph, p. 2l5. 165 became ardent supporters of the war, opposed strikes against war production, supported the suppression of war critics, and, along with the American Legion, supported universal military training.10 However, there was no immediate war-like mood. Brock Pemberton said in late December, l94l, that plays about war suffered the most following Pearl Harbor.]] The public environment for the presentation of Nazis was no longer confused; the Germans were an official enemy. Anti- German attitudes were pronounced. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, Americans were asked if the country contained aliens seceretly loyal to foreign governments and 82% said Germans were while only 12 29% included Italian and 24% the Japanese. And in February, l942, the response to whether Germany or Japan presented the greater danger was: Germany 47.5%, Japan 10.2% and Equal 32.3%.13 '4 With these atti- The Germans clearly outdistanced the Japanese. tudes prevailing, one might have expected many portrayals of totally villainous Nazi characters. However, there were several mitigating factors: the playwrights' previous concern with social protest, the problem with Nazism as a topic, the attitude of 1OPolenberg, War and Society, p. 38. nBrock Pemberton, New York Times, 28 December l94l, sec. 9, p. l. 'zPerrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph, p. 2l7. '3Ibid., p. 221. 14 The incongruity of these attitudes with the internment of Japanese-Americans is discussed by Perrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph, Chapter XVIII, pp. 2l6-230. 166 liberals toward the war, official calls for restraint, optimism about victory and a lack of knowledge about the enemy. These factors will be explained briefly before turning to the first play of the period. John Gassner pointed out that after Pearl Harbor "The younger playwrights could only choose between a status quo they found unacceptable and a world dominated by Hitler's and Hirohito's master-races." He said they were forced to make a choice they i didn't want to make and could not even oppose the status quo with- out the risk of aiding the enemy. Their forte was social protest and it could not be written. Gassner said the theatre was "on terra incognita . . . being pacifistic and anti-heroic by temper- "15 ament and conviction. In March, 1942, John Gassner observed the specific problem of dealing with Nazism in drama: That the serious dramas lack much significance is probably the consequence of a state of mind that finds nothing new to add to current issues, accepts them without any deep understanding, and thrills to no vision. They are the products of a psychological stalemate. Nothing is pro- foundly or clearly seen or questioned, so that anti-Nazi sentiment sounds commonplace, the attitude to the war seems tritely sentimental, and the attempt to criticize the status quo becomes confusedly oblique.‘6 Liberals had been the major opposition to Hitler for years and the major advocates of war against Fascism. '5John Gassner, "The Years of Crisis," Introduction to John Gassner, ed., Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre: Second Series (New York: Crown Publishers, 1947), p. x. 16John Gassner, "Stalemate in Theatre," Current History, March l942, p. 66. 167 But once the war began, they shrank from seeming to be warmongers. They had been embarrassed by the Nazi-Soviet Pact. . . . They also felt guilty about their part in the great war hysteria. Having painted themselves into a corner, they now clung to Objectivity with the desperation of the damned.1 An example of this attitude occurred right after Pearl Harbor when Bosley Crowther called for restraint in war films. He said the people should be “safeguarded against hysteria" and asked that the "entertainment pictures hold their fire--that they do not endeavor to add fuel to already roaring flames. . . ."18 The official directives calling for restraint in the por- trayal of the enemy were directed at films but they do help clarify the milieu in which the theatre operated. The Office of War Information acquired the Bureau of Motion Pictures and issued a manual for motion pictures. War content films were put into six categories including one called The Enemy (his nature).19 The Bureau suggested script changes such as Don't make blanket condemnation of all Germans and all Japanese as this country does not regard the German and Japanese people as our enemies, only their leaders.20 In general, the various media directed hatred for the enemy toward leaders rather than the people. Hitler and Mussolini were despised rather than Germans or Italians. (Attitudes toward the Japanese 17Perrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph, p. 92. 18 9, p. 7. Bosley Crowther, New York Times, 14 December 1941, sec. 19Lingeman, Don't You Know There's a War On?, p. 22. 201bid., p. 225. 168 were more racist.)2' Whether or not Broadway producers and play- wrights knew of official directives regarding films, they probably would have noted attitudes portrayed by the media. Following official wishes, the first war movies stayed away from emphasizing the evils of the enemy and concentrated on 22 The first play with Nazis in the glories of America's allies. this period also followed that pattern. The play was John Steinbeck's The Moon Is Down, which extolled the virtues of the Norwegians. The play's favorable treatment of Nazis created a controversy that developed "into all-out warfare on the literary 23 front." The first batch of war films included Mrs. Miniver (England), Song of Russia, Paris Underground, Hangmen Also Die 4 Chetniks (Yugoslavia), and The Moon Is Down (Czechoslovakia),2 (Norway).25 The vehement controversy over the play-novelette Ih§_ Moon Is Down had no effect on its appeal to Hollywood. 20th Century-Fox paid a modern-day record price of $300,000.00 for the film rights.26 21Poienberg, War and Society, p. 135. 22The Office of Censorship denied export licenses to "Pictures that would discredit the war-effort of any of the allies. Lingeman, Don't You Know There's a War On?, p. 233. 23 New Republic, 18 May 1942, p. 657. 24Co-authored by Bertolt Brecht according to Lingeman in Don't You Know There's A War On?, p. 407. 25Paul Rotha, The Film Till Now: A Survey of World Cinema (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1960). 26Variety, 12 May 1943. 169 There were eight other plays with Nazis in this period and they were all produced after 1942 in an atmosphere of attitudes which increasingly assumed victory over Germany and the Axis powers. At the beginning of the year [1942], the Axis was winning the war on every front. At the end, it was losing on every front. The key battles of the Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, E1 27 Alamein, North Africa, and Stalingrad had been fought and won. By the end of the year, Washington turned its mind "to setting the 28 terms of enemy surrender." The assumption of victory was wide- spread. In April, 1943, Variety had a first page story titled "29 "Mapping Global Show Biz: Lush Era Seen When War Ends. The context for the portrayal of Nazis was not, however, fully hospitable and consistent. The European Theatre of Operations had little crusading 30 spirit. There were no stirring songs as in World War I. There was only a "grim determination to defeat the enemy," it was a 3] There just cause, and the nation fought with a "deadpan face." was a degree of guilt caused by the war boom. Corporate profits in 1943 exceeded those of 1929. The war was a "Depression dream 27Henry H. Adams, Capt., USNR, 1942: The Year That Doomed the Axis (New York: Warner Paperback Library, 1973), p. 477. 28 Perrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph, p. 270. 29Variety, 7 April 1943, p. l. 30Lingeman, Don't You Know There's a War On, offers reasons for the lack of stirring songs. He said World War I was a marching war and songs were written in both 2/4 (march) and 6/8 (dance) tempo. Also, "the new breed of soldier was rather embarrassed by old-fashioned patriotism, and he tuned out flamboyant expressions of it. . . ." p. 258. 31Manchester, The Glory and the Dream, 1:345. I) 170 32 In the fall of come true" for tens of millions of Americans. 1944, Rosamind Guilder commented in Theatre Arts on war plays. She said, It seems to be Broadway's opinion that it is safer to joke about the war than to take it seriously, and in this opinion those involved 33 the war, as well as those profiting by it, seem to concur. She commented on the success of Franz Werfel's Jacobowsky and the Colonel "which had been adapted by S. N. Behrman. In the play the menacing Gestapo officer is a "rosy-faced pig with a lisp."34 Americans viewed the Nazis as the enemy of the American fighting man and America's Allies and had little knowledge or con- cern for the specific ideology of Nazism, particularly in regard to Jews. In mid-1943 only half the population thought that the death camp "rumors" were true. At the end of 1944 this portion had risen to 76 per cent, but few antici ated that the death toll would be greater than "thousands."3 Undoubtedly, skepticism was in part due to the anti-German atrocity stories of World War I. Skeptical Americans were in the company of "Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir who were two of many whose ears were still affected by the backfire so they did not 36 believe stories of the Nazi extermination of the Jews." Ironically, 321bid., pp. 353-354. 33Rosamond Gildner, "'Legitimate' Hopes," Theatre Arts, October 1944, p. 566. 34Burns Mantle, Best Plays of 1943-44, p. 264. 35John E. Mueller, War, Presidents and Public Opinion (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1973), p. 65. 36Brooks Atkinson, Broadway (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1970). p. 423. 171 American anti-Semitism actually grew during the war. NPublic opinion polls indicated that anti-Semitism--as measured by a belief that Jews were greedy, overpriveleged, and trying to get ahead at one's own expense--increased during the war." The Jews were charged with avoiding the draft and avoiding combat. There were ugly anti- Semetic incidents in the eastern part of the United States.37 During the war a poem called "America's Fighting Jew" was widely circulated. The import of the poem was that the Jews had started the war for their own profit and that, further, they were evading the draft and letting Christians do all the fighting.38 The most important plays in this period are The Moon Is Dgwg_with its startlingly different portrayal of Nazis and Tomorrow the World, which holds the record as the most commercially success- ful portrayal of a Nazi. Considerable attention is given to the last play in the period, Common Ground, because of its portrayal of an American traitor who is a virulent Nazi. There was a play by Maxwell Anderson in this period and another by Lillian Hellman, but the Nazi characters in them were very minor. It should be noted that there was a substantially different group of reviewers in this period. By the end of 1942, only 50% of the preceeding season's first string critics were on the job. Several became war correspondents (Brooks Atkinson), went to work for the 37 38 Polenberg, War and Society, pp. 137-138. Lingeman, Don't You Know There's a War On?, p. 405. 172 government (Richard Watts, Jr.), or went into the service (John Mason Brown).39 The Moon Is Down The first portrayal of Nazis after the United States entry 40 which into the war was in John Steinbeck's The Moon Is Down, was first published as a novel March, 1942. Burns Mantle wrote it had "caused as startling an explosion of superlatives in book review circles as any work of the year," and that it had already gone through innumerable printings when it opened on Broadway April 7, 1942.“ According to Peter Lisca in The Wide World of John Steinbeck, Steinbeck wrote the book as a result of conversations with Colonel William J. Donovan of the Office of Strategic Services on ways to aid resistance movements in Nazi-occupied countries.42 Despite its short run on Broadway (71 performances) the play is particularly significant to this study because of the intense controversy over the portrayal of the Nazis. The attention given to this play will focus on that controversy. Despite Steinbeck's attempt to make the play universal by not specifying the locale of the play and making the uniforms of 39Variety, 25 November 1942. 40John Steinbeck, The Moon Is Down (Binghamton, New York: Dramatists Play Service, Inc., Vail-Ballow Press, Inc., 1942). 4'Burns Mantle, The Best Plays of 1941-42 (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1942), p. 72. 42Peter Lisca, The Wide World of John Steinbeck (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1958), p. 186. 173 the invaders in the play not identifiable with any nation, all the reviewers accepted the play as a dramatization of Nazis in a Norwegian mining town. And even those who supported the play viewed it in that light. The Moon Is Down takes place in a small mining town. Seven of the eight scenes take place in the drawing room of the Mayor Orden's house. The Nazis have taken over the town with the aid of a local pro-Nazi, fifth columnist, George Corell. The Nazis, headed by Colonel Lanser, establish their headquarters in the Mayor's house. The story concerns the efforts of Colonel Lanser to get the cooperation of the mayor and townspeople to continue operating the coal mine. In taking the town, the Nazis killed six young men of the town. The Nazis insist they want as little friction as possible and want the Norwegians to keep their mayor and govern- ment. A young man balks at working, is ordered to work, and kills a Nazi Captain with a pick. The mayor refuses to preside over the trial, but the young man is tried by the Nazis, sentenced to death, and executed. Immediately after he is shot, a shot crashes through the window and wounds one of the Nazis. Two months later, relationships between the Nazis and townspeople have reached bottom. Sabotage is occurring and the Nazis have resorted to keeping the men in the mines and threatening to starve their children if they do not work. One of the young Nazis, Lieutenant Tonder, wants to go home and cannot stand not 174 being able to relate to the people. He begins to disintegrate and voices treasonous thoughts. He is laughing and says, Conquest after conquest! Deeper and deeper into molasses. Maybe the Leader's crazy. Flies conquer the fly-paper. 11.13123“???'fiyi'e'irl'éé'i'fiflwlil'is °' “map... “”5 Tonder then attempts to establish a relationship with the widow of the executed man and is killed by her. The allies begin dropping small parachutes with dynamite and the people begin using it for sabotage; the Nazis intensify their campaign against the people by shooting hostages. Finally, Colonel Lanser uses the Mayor and his old friend Or. Winter as hostages against further sabotage. The Mayor hopes the sabotage would continue whether or not he requested the people to stop. He recites Socrates' denunciation which he had known as a student. An explosion is heard. The Mayor "turns and walks slowly toward the door as another explosion is heard, this time closer." One soldier leads the way and others follow as the Mayor walks out to his execution. Colonel Lanser (played by Otto Kruger) dominates the action of the play. Peter Lisca said that the difficulty with Lanser in the novel was the same as with the other characters. "After reading the first description of him, one knows as much about him as one 44 does at the end of the book." The descriptions in the play script are also extensive, but do not have the inherent adverse effect 43 44 Steinbeck, The Moon Is Down, p. 68. Lisca, Wide World of John Steinbeck, p. 193. 175 they would in the novel. In the play, Steinbeck described Lanser as follows: COLONEL LANSER, among them all, knows what war really is. He had been in Belgium and France twenty years before, and he tries not to think what he knows: that war is hatred and treachery, the muddling of incompetent generals, torture and killing and sick tiredness, until at last it is over and nothing has changed escept for new weariness and new hatred. LANSER is a soldier; given orders to carry out, he will carry them on . And he will try to put aside his own sick memories of war. Lanser is very polite to the Mayor and other townspeople. He requests permission to use the Mayor's house. The Mayor's cook, Annie, throws boiling water on German soldiers. Lanser tells the Mayor he must discipline her. Annie is brought in. The Soldier Shall I arrest this woman, sir? Lanser Was anyone hurt? Soldier Yes, sir, scalded, and one man bitten. We are holding her down, sir. Lanser [Helplessly, leans against desk.| Oh! Release her and go outside. soldier leaves and closes the door. Lanser I could lock her up. I could have her shot. Mayor Then we'd have no cook. Lanser Our instructions are to get along with your people. I'm very tired, sir. I must have some sleep. Please cooperate with us for the good of all.46 45Steinbeck, The Moon Is Down, PP. 23-24. 46Ibid., p. 19. 176 Lanser expresses over and over again his desire to get along with the Norwegians. When resistance has increased and the young officers begin having mental problems, he says that the young men were told "they were braver and brighter than other young men" and they are shocked to find out it isn't true. He orders his men not to shoot unless there are overt acts. He is forced to order reprisals: Lanser You know who they are. Take the leaders. Shoot the leaders. Take hostages. Shoot the hostages. Take more hostages. Shoot them. (His voice has risen and now it sinks almost to a whisper.) And the hatred growing. And the hurt between us deeper and deeper. Lanser offers a description of himself in a discussion with the local traitor, George Corell. Léfléér. This war should be for the very young. They would have the proper spirit, but unfortunately they are not able to move guns and men about. I suffer from civilization. That means I can know one thing and do another. I know I have failed-- I knew we would before we started. The thing the leader wanted to do cannot be done.48 But Lanser adds that he will not break the rules and that he will "help tear and burn the world." Throughout, he refers to the fact that he will carry out his orders. The other Nazis in the play, except for one, are drawn in a similar light. Major Hunter is a mining engineer, a man of figures and a formula, and if there had been no war, "no one would have thought of making a soldier of him." Captain Bentick is a 47 48 Ibid., p. 89. Ibid., p. 93. 177 family man who is "A lover of dogs and pink children and Christmas." Lieutenant Prackle is "an undergraduate . . . a snotnose, who is "a devil with women" and, if he were an American, would view the war as a football game. Prackle does hate degenerate art and has destroyed several canvasses. Lieutenant Tonder is "a dark and bitter poet, who dreams of the perfect ideal love of elevated young men for poor girls." Tonder broods on death and "he has his dying words ready to speak." Captain Loft is the only truly military man. He has no unmilitary moments and believes a soldier is the highest development of animal life. All of these characters behave basically as they are described in the playwright's notes. Only two of the Nazis, Captain Loft and the local traitor, George Corell, express any specific Nazi thoughts, and those are brief. Corell makes a reference to how rotten and inefficient democracy is. Loft talks about conquering the world, the need to cut off weakness, and refers to weakness as being treason. The strongest descriptions of brutality in the play are reminiscences by Colonel Lanser about World War One. Lanser . . I remember a little old woman in Brussels. Sweet face, white hair. . . . Delicate old hands. She used to sing our songs to us in a quivering voice. She always knew where to find a cigarette or a virgin. We didn't know her son had been executed. When we finally shot her, she had killed twelve men with a long black hat-pin. Corell But you shot her. Lanser Of course we shot her! 178 9.9161 And the murders stopped? Levee: No . . . the murders didn't stop. And when we finally retreated, the people cut off the stragglers. They burned some. And they gouged the eyes from some. And some they even crucified. There are no brutalities equivalent to these attributed to the Nazis in the play or to other Nazis. The only Nazi who can be considered a villain is George Corell, the local Nazi who falls into the category of an under- handed traitor. Corell is used to make Lanser seem more moderate and reasonable. Lanser tells his officers that hostages must be taken and shot to stop sabotage, but he questions the efficacy of shooting hostages. Corell says they should not have sent a man like Lanser to Norway. Corell proceeds to go over Lanser's head and gets orders to have the Mayor and, then, Dr. Winter shot if necessary. When the orders come, Lanser says he will follow them but adds, "I don't like you, Corell. I am licking my wounds surely. And--I'm giving you wounds to lick." After everyone else 50 Corell leaves, Corell slowly seats himself in Lanser's chair. both promulgates and approves the deaths of the brave Mayor and his friend. The main opponents of the Nazis are Mayor Orden and his friend, Or. Winter, who are acceptable middle-class heroes. 49Ibid., p. 36. Lanser's reference to the crucification of Germans is a reversal of the canard spread by World War I allies that the Germans were crucifying Canadian soldiers. See Chapter III, p. 50. 501bid., pp. 89-93. 179 Steinbeck described the mayor in part as "a fine-looking man of about sixty-five" who is "a little too common and too simple for the official morning coat he wears." His wife watches him "as the lady shower of a prize dog watches her entry at a dog show." Dr. Winter is "Bearded, simple and benign." They are admirable in their decision to die rather than submit to the Nazis demands, but they are quite colorless in comparison to the Nazis. The play was favorably reviewed by George Freedley and Brooks Atkinson. Freedley referred to the characterization of the Nazis and said Steinbeck "paints the Nazis naturally, and not with- out sympathy for the humanity they must supress in order to live "51 Atkinson said up to the demoniac preaching of their leader. that it would be "a long time before German commanders share the misgivings of Colonel Lanser." Then he added, "But perhaps Mr. Steinbeck is right even in this characterization."52 Most of the reviewers did not agree with Freedley and Atkinson. Louis Kronenberger stated that "His Nazis behave as no Nazi conquerors have been known to behave." He also commented that while the Nazis might "swiftly crack up in the face of defeat, there are simply no grounds for believing that they go rapidly to 53 pieces in the face of victory." Richard Watts, Jr., felt Steinbeck had gone overboard in his fair treatment of Nazis and the "essential 5(George Freedley, New York Morning Telegraph, 9 April 1942. c “‘arooks Atkinson, New York Times, 8 April 1942. 53Louis Kronenberger, PM, 8 April 1942. 180 boyish ingenuousness about them is to be questioned not as bad propaganda but as unsound drama and a wild lapse from the truth."54 Burns Mantle raised two other points about the portrayals. First, he said I would hesitate to contend that there are no idealists at heart hiding their philosophies under Nazi helmets and shouting their orders in disguised animal growlings. But I find it difficult to believe that they would have so completely fooled the Hitlers and Himmlers and Goerings on their way up to the higher command.55 Second, he said that if Steinbeck's Nazi officer class was true, "then the popular belief in stories of Nazi brutality, and the deliberate and sustained cruelties of Nazi invasions of the occupied countries, must have been grossly exaggerated."56 Richard Lockridge also found the invaders "more sinned against than sinning."57 At the same time The Moon Is Down opened and was playing on Broadway, the controversy concerning the novel was occurring. The literary war was precipitated by James Thurber in the New_ Republic. "If these are German officers, if they are anything else but American actors, I will eat the manuscript of your next play." He said these "pussycats" could be routed by merely shouting "Boo!" He ended by saying "I keep wondering what the people of 58 Poland would make of it all." Thurber's attack started an argument that spilled over into other publications. Thurber answered a 54 55 Richard Watts, Jr., New York Herald Tribune, 8 April 1942. Burns Mantle, New York News, 8 April 1942. 56Burns Mantle, The Best Plays of 1941-42, p. 72. 57Richard Lockridge, New York Sun, 8 April 1942. 58James Thurber, New Republic, 16 March 1942, p. 370. 181 complaint in the New Republic that his review was a slap in the face of decent people who were moved by the book by saying, "I am sorry about that slap in the face, I didn't realize my hand was open."59 The same issue had a letter from a Pole who had lived under Nazi rule and sided with Thurber, saying the officers were unrealistically portrayed as "the Ffihrer's helpless and at times unwilling tools. . . ." On April 20, Newsweek gave a run down of the argument over the portrayal of the Nazis,60 and in May the New Republic had an 61 editorial on the subject. The editorial dubbed the anti- Steinbeck forces led by Clifton Fadiman as the Blue forces and the pro-Steinbeck forces led by John Chamberlain as the Green army because its opponents felt Steinbeck's "Moon" was made of green cheese. The New Republic said it was all right to depict some Nazis as Steinbeck did, but wrong not to depict any Nazis as "essentially hateful." Later, writers discussed the controversy by raising essentially the same question--did Steinbeck give a fair portrayal of Nazis? Peter Lisca said, "However otherwise typed, Colonel Lanser and his officers do avoid being prototypes of the brutal Nazi monomaniacs so often depicted in novels and motion pictures 62 about the war." Lisca also quoted the following passage from '59James Thurber, New Republic, 30 March 1942, p. 431. GQNewswggk, 20 April 1942, pp. 72-73. 61 New Republic, 18 May 1942, p. 657. 62Lisca, The Wide World of John Steinbeck, p. 195. 182 Harry Slochower's No Voice Is Whollnyost as offering the most articulate perceptions of the controversy: What Steinbeck seems to be saying is that a change of the capital-situation [Berlin to Oslow] makes possible at least a partial readjustment of their distorted humanity. To deny this is to invite as an alternative the necessity of ex- terminating all Germans or all deluded Nazi followers. Steinbeck's hope seems to lie in the people'g aroused aware- ness that their capital is unrepresentative. 3 Another writer criticized Steinbeck's portrayals of Nazis not for attempting to reveal the humanity of the Nazis, but for attributing false humanity to them--"These men do not ring true: they are like sentimental Americans" and "no German occupation officer acted or thought like Lanser."64 The critics then and now seem to have overlooked another possibility. The writer of this study was unable to find any reference to the seemingly obvious possibility that the Nazis behaved differently in Norway than in other countries--that their racial policies might have excluded the Norwegians from the treat- ment accorded the Poles and other Slavic countries as well as Jews. The response to the play at the time of its production gives a strong indication that the critics and the public at large did not understand the fundamentally racist character of Nazism. The issue was seen simply as a question of whether Steinbeck gave a fair portrayal of Nazis rather than a fair portrayal of Nazis in Norway. That it was not comprehended at the time might be 63Slochower, No Voice Is Wholly Lost, p. 247. 64Joseph Fontenrose, John Steinbeck: An Introduction and Interpretation (New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1963), p. 99. 183 attributed to a lack of knowledge and to wartime nationalistic concerns of the critics; that it is not noted in contemporary criticism of Steinbeck reveals a narrow concern for text without regard for reality and historical fact. Historians are generally agreed the German occupation of Norway was to assure Norway's neutrality which was threatened by Britain and France. Norman Rich said in Hitler's War Aims that the Norwegians were Nordic and the Nazi government was influenced by ideological considerations. Hitler's secret directives for the invasion of Norway and Denmark differed strikingly from those for 65 the invasion of Poland and other Slavic nations. Rich said the Germans wanted to persuade the Norwegians to become a member of the Greater Germanic Reich. He continued: Because of the Norwegian's undeniable status as a Germanic people, the Germans had been dismayed by the necessity of having had to fight them at all. "This development was much regretted by the Reich from its National Socialist racial-political view," the official Nazi journal on German occupation policies stated. "For the German Volk sees in the Norwegian Volk a Volk of the same race and the same blood." It was Germany's political goal "to achieve the closest possible friendly relationship with Norway."66 The invasion of Norway came as a "paralyzing shock." The heritage of the people and generations of condemnation of war and its instruments required a rapid adjustment. However, to the amazement of the Germans, there were two months of hard fighting and resistance.67 55Rich, Hitler's War Aims, 2:107. 66Ibid., 2:137. 67Haldvan Koht and Sigmund Skard, The Voice of Norway (New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1967), pp. 285-286. 184 German soldiers seemed genuinely surprised that their "pro- tection" was not welcome, and German authorities hoped and wished for "cooperation"--in other words, submission--on the part of the people.68 The nation was conquered, but the opposition to Nazism continued 59 The Germans began to be less inclined to with the Underground. view the Norwegians as brethren and began measures of repression. The Nasjonal Samling (N.S.), headed by the pro-Nazi Vidkun Quisling, was the only political party tolerated, but it achieved a total of 70 The membership of only 43,000 or about 5% of the electorate. Germans achieved whatever compliance they could "by a continually growing use of imprisonment, torture, executions, concentration camps [in Norway] and in Germany, and a general policy of crafty, brutal terror."7' This brief summation of the Nazi occupation of Norway indicates that Steinbeck's portrayal of the Nazis vis-a-vis non- Jewish Norwegians immediately following the invasion was reasonably accurate. It should be noted that the book became very popular with resistance groups in Europe. A representative of the Royal 68Karen Larsen, A History of Norway_(Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1965),p. 546. 69Richard Petrow in The Bitteerears gives an unflattering view of the resistance. He says that "At no time, even when the tide of battle turned sharply against Germany, did the majority of the . . . Norwegians come out in active opposition to the Germans." He also said, had Germany won, Norway could have asked for favorable consideration because of governmental accommodation of the Germans, pp. 366, 367. 70T. K. Derry, A History of Modern Norway, 1814-1972 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), p. 391. 7lLarsen, A History of Norway, p. 550. 185 Norwegian Delegation in New York had some reservations about the portrayals of Nazis, but the King of Norway decorated Steinbeck for his book.72 Twelve years after the play was produced, Steinbeck said: I had written of Germans as men, not supermen, and this was considered a very weak attitude to take. I couldn't make much sense out of this, and it seems absurd now that we kngw the Germans were men, and thus fallible, even defeatable.7 It is ironic that Steinbeck himself was unaware of the difference between Nazis in Norway and Nazis in eastern Slavic countries. The controversy over the portrayal of Nazis in The Moon Is Down was a moot discussion. Both sides were right; The Moon Is Down offered a reasonable portrayal of Nazis in Norway in April, 1942, but it was not a valid generalization of occupational Nazi forces. The point is clarified by Joachim Remak in The Nazi Years in his discussion of occupation practices: The Nazi-occupied western areas--France, the Lowlands, Denmark and Norway-~suffered too. Any signs of resistance, in parti- cular, resulted in very brutal Nazi reprisals. But compared to what was happening in the East, theirs still was a bearable occupation. T93 major atrocities were reserved for the East, for the Slavs. The ideological racial basis for occupational behavior is clear in Nazi documents. For example, in 1942 the SS issued a con- centration camp order that "greasy Polish and Lithuanian priests" 72Lisca, The Wide World of John Steinbeck, p. 187. 73Steinbeck quoted in Lisca, The Wide World, p. 195. 74Remak, The Nazi Years, pp. 122-123. 186 could be used for "any sort of labor" while "German, Dutch, Norwegian, etc. clergymen" were to be "employed in the herb gardens only."75 As noted earlier, The Moon Is Down was made into a film. Hermine Rich Isaacs commented about the film in Theatre Arts. She said The Moon Is Down had tried nothing new and lacked imagination to make it "vital and interesting." But she did praise the por- trayal of the Nazis as Credible human beings, invested with intelligence as well as sheer brute strength and subject to the fallibility of mortals. They have a three-dimensional quality that stands out in bold relief against the usual run of Nazi villain, Hollywood style, and they are no less formidable because they are more real. Like the other critics, she had not differentiated between Nazis in various countries. Her comments also imply that the public was accepting (in film) a standardized Nazi villain. There were three plays in the 1942-43 season with Nazis which were off-Broadway or foreign but should be noted because all three concerned the Russians and were part of the Broadway and Hollywood goal of portraying the glories of America's allies. Winter Soldiers, written by an American dramatist, Daniel Lewis James, was presented by Irwin Piscator at the Studio Theatre of New York School of Social Research on November 29, 1942. It received favorable reviews but ran only 25 performances. The other two plays were by Russian dramatists. A translation of The 751bid., p. 125. 76Hermine Rich Isaacs, "Beauty and the Beast of Berlin," Theatre Arts, May 1943, pp. 283-290. 187 Russian People by Konstantin Simonov opened December 29, 1942, and ran 39 performances. And a play called Counterattack, based on a Russian play by Ilya Vershinin and Mikhail Ruderman was presented February 3, 1943, and ran 85 performances. The Barber Had TWo Sons The next play with Nazis was produced nearly a year after The Moon Is Down and after the Axis powers had begun to lose the war. The play, which opened February 1, 1943, was The Barber Had 77 Two Sons by Thomas Duggan and James Hogan. Duggan was an actor and Hogan a screen director: they had opened their play successfully on the west coast.78 Like The Moon Is Down, The Barber Had Two Sons also concerned the invasion of Norway by the Nazis. Mrs. Mathieson (played by Blanche Yurka) is the barber and she has two sons. Johann is an ambitious, promising, and weak artist who is not concerned with the Nazi invasion. Chris is a courageous seaman who works in the Underground to oust the Nazis. Both sons fall in love with an enticing young school teacher, Karen Borson, who is a boarder in their home. She tries to entice Johann to run away and be a traitor and, finally, she is revealed as a Quisling character. At the end, the mother turns in her artist son to the Nazis (who are looking for Chris) and then she shoots the girl. 77Script not available to the writer. Synopsis and com- ments from Best Plays and reviews. 78 Ward Morehouse, New York Sun, 2 February 1943. 188 The play was very melodramatic and filled with considerable action and violence: A German spy is choked to death on the stage in the first act; an unsuspecting Gestapo Chief has his throat slit in a barber's chair as the secbnd act curtain descends: a female Quisling is washed out by Miss Yurka in the third act; and, off-stage, throughout the play the Nazi invaders are decimated in grati- fying numbers and in gruesome ways. Several hundred German troops aboard ship, off-stage, are blown to hellanggne through a plot you watch hatched by the Norwegian patriots. 9 The Nazi who sits in the barber chair at the end of Act Two is seated and prepared for a shave by Lars Tugar, whose wife has been raped and driven mad by the Nazis. One reviewer said, "The audience roared with laughter and began to look around for beer and pretzels."80 Several of the critics made observations about the por- trayal of the Nazis. They give a singular impression of the Nazis being overt villains without particular Nazi traits. The Germans in this play are hateful enough, but are just 3:322?) 1dumb-clucks, mechanically and stupidly obeying . . . TheABarber Had Two Sons . . . makes hating Nazis a real pleasure.“2 They are brutal and beastly in the accepted stage manner.83 However, the Variety critic said "The cruelty of the German soldiers upon the citizenry is displayed, but it's hardly the brutality that 79 80 Burton Roscoe, New York World-Telegram, 2 February 1943. Wilella Waldorf, New York Evening Post, 2 February 1943. 81 82 Burton Rascoe, New York World-Telegram, 2 February 1943. George Freedley, New York Morningerlegraph, 3 February 1943. 83Burns Mantle, New York News, 2 February 1943. 189 ]."84 This observation is associated with Nazi stormtroopers [sic might have indicated a comparison to past portrayals or to current knowledge about stormtroopers' activities. The references above that the portrayals were given "in the accepted stage manner" might also have indicated a disparity between accepted stereotypical behavior on stage as contrasted with, perhaps, different public knowledge of Nazi behavior. The implication seems to be that the Nazis were not portrayed as extreme villains. The people of the town were apparently quite heroic. John "85 Howard Anderson described them as "brave and unflinching. Barnes noted that opponents of Nazism took on a nearly automatic status of heroism. He said that The mere account of Civilian courage in the face of Nazi aggression and brutality carries tremendous weight, in whatever medium it is set forth. It should be noted that the townspeople did include two unsympa- thetic characters, the artist son and the girl. George Freedley gave the play a favorable review but said one would have to see the play in haste "because I suspect that ."87 He was correct because mine may be a minority report. . . the play ran only 24 performances, and most of the critics were inclined to the view that Duggan and Hogan had turned out 84Variety, 3 February 1943. 85John Anderson, New York Journal-American, 2 February 1943. 86Howard Barnes, New York Herald Tribune, 3 February 1943. 87George Freedley, New York Morning;Telegraph, 3 February 1943. 190 . . a blood and thunder melodrama gory enough to suit the most violent murder addicts, besides mixing in a heavy dose of mother love, patriotism, brute forcg love making and comic relief via the village drunkard. 3 Tomorrow the World Tomorrow the World89 by James Gow and Aruaud d'Usseau was the most commercially successful of all the plays covered in this study. It opened April 14, 1943, and ran 500 performances. Gow and d'Usseau were refugees from Hollywood. Gow had been a reporter before heading for Hollywood in 1931, where he co-authored One Night of Love and became in demand for scenarios involving operatic matters. d'Usseau had been a set dresser first and then reached success as a screen writer with One Crowded Night. They were privates in the service working out east for the Office of War Information when they collaborated on Tomorrow the World.90 The title of the play is taken from a Hitler Youth song which includes the line "Today Germany is ours: and tomorrow the world."91 Tomorrow the World concerns Emil Bruckner, a twelve-year- old German who is an orphan and has come to live with his mother's brother in the midwest. In the household are his Uncle, Professor 88Wilella Waldorf, New York Evening_Post, 2 February 1943. 89James Gow and Arnaud d'Usseau "Tomorrow the World," in Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre, ed. John Gassner. 90Gassner, Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre, p. 598. 9'Ilse McKee, Tomorrow the World (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1960), title page. 191 Frame, his ten-year-old daughter Patricia, his sister Jessie, and his Jewish teacher friend whom he intends to marry. Emil arrives wearing his Nazi uniform under his regular clothes. He reveals the uniform and announces that he is a Nazi. He is recalcitrant in his beliefs, and in the course of the play he attempts to prevent the marriage and plays off one household member against the other. Frame is doing secret government work at his university, and Emil attempts to steal the key to Frame's office. In the course of the play, Emil lies, steals, and fights. Leona, the Jewish teacher, tolerates Emil's behavior and tries to convince Frame to change Emil by love and patience. Eventually, however, she herself slaps Emil--the first child she has ever struck--and says she now believes Emil should be given corporal punishment. Frame now believes they should continue to try to reform Emil. When ten-year-old Patsie catches Emil trying to steal his uncle's keys, she refuses to promise not to tell. Emil then tries to kill her by smashing her with a heavy bookend. When Frame learns the truth, he literally tries to strangle Emil and is stopped by Leona. Patsie's generosity in giving Emil a watch, her willingness to forgive his attack on her, and the influence of others produce a change in Emil. At the end, he breaks down and his Nazi armor is also broken. The validity of Emil's Nazism will be discussed by deline- ating it first, examining the critical responses, and then comparing him with the educational process in the Third Reich. 192 Much of Emil's behavior and dialogue express Nazism. He complains about having had to sit next to "a big fat Jew" on the flight to the midwest, and he is contemptuous of Leona because she is a Jew. The war news is also a result of the "Jewish Capitalist newspapers." Leona accuses him of writing graffitti on the sidewalk, and he responds, "It's a lie! A Jewish lie! . . A Jewish lie from a Jewish whore!" Emil's father, Karl Buckner, was a Nobel Prize winner in 1933. He opposed the Nazis and was tortured and executed in a concentration camp. Emil, how- ever, believes he was a traitor to the Third Reich--he had, with Jewish Bolsheviks, helped defeat Germany in World War One, had helped weaken Germany and caused inflation and Communism. He believes his father committed suicide. At the end of Act One, he takes his dagger and slashes the painting of his father, which hangs in a position of honor over the mantle. Emil is given to saluting and to saying "Heil Hitler!" He is asked why he has only one suit if the Fuhrer is so providing, and he answers that such things are a result of the Treaty of Versailles. He says he will always be a German and gives his opinion of America: America is a cesspool. To be an American is to be a member of a mongrel race. The American blood stream is a mixture of the scum of the earth.92 When he is informed that his uncle will marry a Jew, he says "Then it is true. Such marriages are still permitted in America." 92James Gow and Arnaud d'Usseau, "Tomorrow the World," in Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre, ed. John Gassner, p. 612. 193 Emil attempts to enlist the German-American maid, Freida, to work to defeat the enemy. And later he attempts to enlist the aid of a German-American university janitor in stealing secrets from his uncle's office. His dedication to the Reich is total. Germany forgot her destiny, but the Fuhrer has given back courage and will show the way. He will not change. He says, "You can beat me. You can torture me. I am prepared for the most horrible experiences." He wants to serve as a spy regardless of the conse- quences. He tells his uncle that "If there is necessity, I will die for Der Ffihrer." Frame asks him if he wants to die, and he says "It is my duty." Later he says that "Death is the highest honor." In terms of expressed ideology, Emil Bruckner was the most complete Nazi to appear on the stage up to that time. One critic said "The Nazi has never been pictured so graphically on the "93 And another commented more specifically that American stage. the "horrible little beast" was "the very embodiment of the clever, shrewd, self-righteous cruelty, cold bloodedness and treachery we associate with Nazism." He added that "all the German propaganda cliches are there."94 1 There is nothing in Emil's behavior or dialogue, even telescoped in the play, that seems exaggerated in light of the evidence concerning education under Nazism. A brief overview of 93 94 Arthur Pollock, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 15 April 1943. Burton Rascoe, New York World-Telegram, 15 April 1943. 194 the probable education of a twelve-year-old in the Third Reich and a comment on Emil's specific deeds and words will help to explain the accuracy of the portrayal of Emil. There are four major aspects of Emil's character to be noted: (1) His anti-Semitism, (2) His knowledge of Bolsheviks, Communists, Inflation, Versailles, etc., (3) His contempt for America, and (4) His immersion in the fghrgr Prinzip and his willingness to suffer and die for Hitler. 95 In Education for Death, Gregor Ziemer noted that ideo- logical education began in pre-school nurseries run by the NSV (National Socialist Welfare Organization). He visited one in which little boys barely able to talk were being drilled in a song. The second stanza was: We believe in our Fuehrer, We live for our Fuehrer, We die for our Fuehrer, Until heroes we are. The teacher told Ziemer that the children became thoroughly acquainted with the Fuhrer Prinsz_and looked upon Hitler as a superman who could save Germany from her enemies. He observed pre-schoolers being taught to click their heels.96 95Gregor Ziemer, Education for Death: The Makingyof the Nazi (New York: Oxford University Press, 1943). This book was first printed in October, 1941, and was into its fifth printing in January, 1943. Ziemer had been the president of the American Colony School in Berlin. Curiosity about Nazi education led him to seek and obtain permission to visit and observe Nazi education from pre-school children to the university. The writer used Ziemer's book as the primary source for evaluating the character- ization of Emil. The book was also made into a film titled Hitler's Children. 96 Ziemer, Education for Death, pp. 49-50. 195 From the age of six to ten, the boys were placed in the Pimpf, the Little Fellow. This organization clothed him in a uniform with a swastika armband and gave him a Leistungsbuch, an efficiency record b00k in which every detail of his school, home and Party activities were recorded. "Every accomplishment and every mistake was registered, signed and countersigned by offi- cials." All the energies of the six to ten-year-old were devoted to being promoted to the Jungvolk. Ziemer relates that in the Pimpf, the boys were inculcated endlessly with the desire to become soldiers. They were taught about Nazi heroes, the doctrine of race purity, and about the struggle existing in nature so they would learn to become aggressors rather than victims. Ziemer attended a class in which the teacher launched a devastating dia- tribe against the United States. The teacher said the United States was sinking lower and lower because of racial impurity and that Americans had a corrupt, low type of government, called a democ- racy, which was run by rich Jews.97 At the age of ten, the Pimpf_was eligible to take a test to enter the Jungvolk. After he had passed all tests in athletics, camping, and Nazified history,98 he attended an initiation ceremony and took a solemn oath: In the presence of this bloodflag, which represents our Fuehrer, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the savior 97Ibid., pp. 55-70. Ziemer's views on Nazi education are corroborated in Mosse's Nazi Culture, Chapter 8, "The Key: Edu- cation of Youth," pp. 263-318. 98Shirer, Rise and Fall, p. 253. 196 of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and able to give up my life f8; him, so help me God. One people, one Nation, one Fuehrer. Ziemer makes direct references to the boys' being taught about the Treaty of Versailles, "the Jewish swine," and Communists.100 In regard to self-sacrifice, Ziemer said, "In Nazi Germany the ideal of self-sacrifice, of dying for Hitler, has taken on proportions that to an outisder would seem sadistic perversion." He added, "And for those who oppose Hitler deep hatred is aroused ‘01 The emotional intensity of the in the hearts of German youth." self-sacrifice is illustrated by an oath taken by Jungvolk: "I consecrate my life to Hitler; I am ready to sacrifice my life for Hitler; I am ready to die for Hitler, the savior, the Fuehrer.”02 Melita Maschmann in Account Rendered: A Dossier on my Former Self discussed the battalion of six hundred.German boys aged fifteen and sixteen who defended a bridge in Berlin in April, 1945, and suffered severe casualties. She said . . I know what went on in those boys' hearts. They had sung countless times: "Germany, look, on us, we dedicate our death to thee, as the least we can give. When death comes to our ranks we will become the great seed. When Emil says he is ashamed of his father, he explains his anger also: 99Ziemer, Education for Death, p. 59. 'OOIoid.. pp. 103-121. 101 . Ibid., p. 108. 'ozibid., p. 121. 103Maschmann, Account Rendered, pp. 157-158. 197 Because of my father, they would never permit me to be trusted. I excelled in all endeavor, yet they would not make me Captain of my troop, because my name was Bruckner. I did everything I could. I informed the Gestapo about the mother of my besfi friend, though it pained me greatly, and I lost my friend. 4 The speech sounds truly exaggerated until it is placed alongside the following account by Ziemer: How seriously the Pimpf takes his rank I realized when I talked with Hermann P., a broken-hearted German father whose boy had been refused permission to attend the graduation exercises of his troop. His Liestungsbuch showed excellent marks; he had fulfilled all the rigid requirements. But he had been told quite openly that he could not be promoted because his father was not as good a Nazi as he should be!)05 This meant he could never become Jungvolk, Hitler Youth, S.A., nor expect any sort of advancement. The father told Ziemer his son had tried to commit suicide. Emil's account becomes understatement by comparison. The question arises as to why such a fully villainous young Nazi was found acceptable by the critics and audiences when other harsh portrayals of Nazis were deprecated as stereotyped Nazis. The critics had an explanation. All of the critics praised the performance of Emil by Skippy Homeir. Howard Barnes stated, "It is one of the finest ‘06 However, there was an child performances you will ever see." implication in their praise of Homeir's performance. Barnes said, "Perhaps the pint-size Nazis are all as diabolically cunning 35 104 105 Gow and d'Usseau, "Tomorrow the World," pp. 613-614. Ziemer, Education for Death, p. 75. 106Howard Barnes, New York Herald Tribune, 15 April 1943. 198 the goose-stepping gossoon who parades across the stage . . . but it is a bit hard to believe." And Barnes added that the credibility came from Homeir's performance. Burton Rascoe explained it: There is still another way in which this play is extraordinary: It carries its own answer to any possible charge that it is altogether too incredible that a boy 12 years old could learn all the Nazi cliches which pass for thinking and use them all so patly in the circumstances in which the youngster in the play finds himself: that he could so cleverly maintain his fantastic delusion. The answer is that Skippy Homeir performs a more difficult feat than that: . . . he completely sustains the illusion of the audience that he actually is the pitiable monster he portrays.107 The credibility of Emil Bruckner may have resulted from Homier's performance, but it was a valid, informed, and unexaggerated portrayal of a twelve-year-old Nazi. One other minor character in the play is a pro-Nazi American. Fred Miller is the university janitor who tries to get Frame's key ostensibly to be able to clean the secret office. Emil offers to help Miller get the key but is rebuffed by him. When Emil runs away after attempting to kill Pat, he is returned by Miller. Frieda, the maid, has already revealed that she believes Miller was a Bundist. When Miller and Emil return, Frame tells Miller he believes he is a Nazi sympathizer and that he will let the FBI handle the matter. Miller responds by ridiculing books and "educated fools." He says nothing can be proved and in an outburst says, Just because I'm a janitor you think you can wipe your feet on me!‘ Always being polite to you! Always cleaning up your messes! Well, some day we'll see who are the janitors. This war isn't over yet!108 '07Burton Rascoe, New York World-Telegram, 16 April 1943. 108Gow and d'Usseau, Tomorrow the World, p. 635. 199 It is a clear delineation of the declassé type of individual por- trayed in the earlier plays as the type who joined the SA. The emotional response to Emil and Miller and the nature of their opponents was clearly stated by George Freedley: This is a wartime melodrama that says precisely those truths about our German enemies which it pleases to hear. Americans are revealed as foolish, sentimental, friendly, irreverant and nice until they are outraged and then their steel interior is exposed. Freedley's remarks about the Americans in the play are very like a description of the way the media portrayed the American GI-- courageous, antimilitaristic, essentially kind at heart, devoted to principle, but a killer in combat.“0 The assumption after 1942 of an allied victory (referred to in the introduction to this chapter) was also reflected in the reviews for Tomorrow the World. John Anderson said Tomorrow the Wgrlg_had raised the problem of what the allies would have to do with the twelve million "mentally distorted children" when the war was over."' And Lewis Nichols said in the New York Times that "the Messrs. Gow and d'Usseau apparently have been wondering about post-war planning too. . . ."112 'ogGeorge Freedley, New York Morning_1elegraph, 16 April 1943. noPolenberg, War and Society, p. 124. 1“John Anderson, New York Journal-American, 15 April 1943. 'lzLewis Nichols, New York Times, 15 April 1943. 200 Land of Fame The next play by an American dramatist with Nazi characters 113 was Land of Fame by Albert and Mary Bein, based on a story by Charles Paver and Albert Bein. The play opened September 21, 1943, and ran for six performances. The locale of the play is Greece. A Greek lieutenant colonel has become a guerilla in the fight against the Nazis who have conquered and are occupying Greece. In the course of the play, he gives himself up to the Nazis in order to save a small village from reprisals. In captivity he meets a tormented, intellectual member of the Gestapo who tells him how to cut the German supply lines. In the end the Germans are all dead or hostages and the villagers are safe in the hills. The critics noted the similarity between Land of Fame and "114 The Moon Is Down, and one called it "almost a parody. The Nazis again have to learn the lesson of the flypaper, and in this play the audience actually sees "some of the foul dramatic fiends toulls dramatically sho One critic found the "play . . . so shallow and stagy and amateurish a representation of the deep and continuing agony of Europe . . ." that she "had to leave after the first act."”6 113Script not available to the writer. Synopsis of play and comments from Best Plays and reviews. 114 115 Woolcott Gibbs, The New Yorker, 2 October 1943, p. 38. Stark Young, The New Republic, 4 October 1943, p. 458. 'lfiMargaret Marshall, Nation, 2 October 1943, p. 388. 201 The Nazi character who received the most attention of the critics was the one "who sickens at the Nazi theories in action."117 Woolcott Gibbs in The New Yorker gave the most extensive comments on the Nazis in the play. He said: finally, the behavior of the Germans, hemmed in by people who clearly don't like them much, is even more absurd than it was when the Steinbeck invaders began to realize they were getting on their victim's nerves. The Bein's most spectacular creation . . . is the renegade Nazi, an archeologist unhappily drafted into the Gestapo, and his fate is a peculiar and embarrassing one. For nine of the ten scenes, he desperately tries to attract a little attention by insulting Hitler and the Reich, but none of his fellow-officers seems to give a damn until he starts quoting Byron. Then they shoot him down like a dog. Even as a form of literary criticism, it seems drastic. The natives on the other hand remain generally calm. When the German colonel nervously threatens to exterminate the whole adult population of Talom, the heroine, an earnest girl, just looks at him sharply. "Why, that would be a terrible injustice," she says, and, not liking her attitude, they hustle her away to the officers' brothel.11 The characterizations of the Nazis seems to have been generally villainous with the exception of the one Gestapo man. The opponents of the villains are heroic allies. Lewis Nichols raised the question as to why certain war plays, including Land of Fame, were folding: The difficulty with a play such as "Land of Fame" and "The Moon Is Down," "Counterattack," "The Russian People" and others which were similar--is that they must compete with the news- papers and the radio. This is also true of plays about the underground movements in Nazi-conquered countries and of plays about the guerilla fighters behind the lines. The newspapers have told their story well, and imagination, in fitting a character to each 117Young, New Republic, 4 October 1943, p. 458. '18Woo1cott Gibbs, New Yorker, 2 October 1943, p. 38. 202 unknown name, has set up a cast of players and a sequence of 119 incidents that no play, in two hours on the stage could touch. Storm Operation There was a very brief appearance of a Nazi in Maxwell 120 Anderson's Storm Operation which opened January 11, 1944. The play was a dramatization of the American troops fighting in North Africa, and Anderson had gone there with the permission of the Army to get background material. Anderson had received the sug- gestion for the title, which was the code name for the invasion, 121 from General Eisenhower. Storm Operation has only one subsidiary character who is a Nazi--a German prisoner of war named Corporal Hermann Geist. Geist gives only his name and rank. However, he is arrogant and tells his captors they were "fools to venture into the Mediterranean . . . for now we have the west coast and you will never get out." He also tells them they are filled with propaganda and are not edu- cated. "When those who lead are military idiots, not much can be "'22 Geist was little expected of the schwine [sic] who follow. more than a walk-on character, but he did reveal an adherence to Nazism. The character's only function, however, was to provide 119LeWis Nichols, "Notes on the War Plays," New York Times, 3 October 1943, sec. 2, p. 1. 120Maxwell Anderson, Storm Operation (Washington, D.C.: Anderson House, 1944). 12'Lewis Nichols, New York Times, 12 January 1944. 122Anderson, Storm Operation, p. 104. 203 background for the scene. There was no mention of the character by the critics. Although Burns Mantle included the play as one of the best of 1943-44, it received a cool reception from the critics and ran only 23 performances. Most critics contrasted it with Anderson's The Eve of St. Mark, produced the previous season. The severest criticism came from Louis Kronenberger, who said "Storm Operation is not only an extremely bad play; it is also a staggeringly dull ne."123 0 Burton Rasco praised the drama particularly because "the soldiers talk and act like soldiers and not like pantywaists. "124 Thank You, Svoboda The next play with Nazi characters was Thank You, Svoboda '25 which was based on John Pen's novel You Can't by H. S. Kraft, Do That to Svoboda. The play opened March 1, 1944. Svoboda (played by Sam Jaffe) is a simple-minded Czechoslovakian railway porter. His manner of speech is very childlike. He explains his fear of drafts, "My mohmmy [sic] die from draft. If you keep doors and "126 windows closed, you never sick. I never sick once. He en- counters difficulties when the Nazis take over his village. The soldiers loot the village and try to divert the attention of their '23Louis Kronenberger, BM, 12 January 1944- 124Burton Rascoe, New York World-Telegram, 12 January 1944. 125H. S. Kraft, Thank You,,Svoboda, typescript, Theatre Collection, New York Public Library. 126Ibid., Act 3, p. 2. 204 superiors from the looting by claiming someone had attempted to blow up a bridge. They interrogate an old retired Czech colonel and he dies. In the meantime, Svoboda's junk-dealer sweetheart, Mary, has given him a watch. A German soldier smashes it and Svoboda trounces him. He then signs with an "X" what he believes to be a complaint, but is, instead, a confession to having attempted to blow up the bridge. Svoboda is sent to a concentration camp where he fairs very well. He comes out in a couple of months with new clothes and money he earned working for other prisoners. Svoboda's experi- ences in the prison camp are truly incredible. It seems unlikely he would possess the guile to survive in a concentration camp, let alone prosper in one. He explains to Mary that it was bad for the other "fellers" but he is used to it--"Poor feller and whip-- they old friends." Svoboda is released from the camp and discovers that the Germans have confiscated his savings account to pay for his prison time; he is angered and really does blow up the bridge. At least one critic noted the similarity of the story of Jaroslav Hasek's The Good Soldier Schweik.'27 The first Nazi portrayed is Private Recht, who smashes Svoboda's watch. After Svoboda slams him against a wall, punches his nose, twists his arm, and steps on his rifle, Reicht jumps up and runs out. In the Second Act, two storm troopers arrive. 127Burton Rascoe, New York World-Telegram, 2 March 1944. 205 Private Schmatz is described as aggressive and dominant and Private Lahgheld is weak "almost to the cry baby type of gangster." Corporal Bauer is the Nazi who has tortured the old colonel to death. He is also the one who dupes Svoboda into signing a confession. Bauer is in on the looting, and Sgt. Kurtz speaks to him. $1112. Don't stall. Plunder, Corporal, is the business of the state, not the individual. Remember that. Now what about it? Bauer It's in a bag in my room. Kurtz I like your frankness. Good. I expect a reasonable share of the proceeds. I am no pig, Corporal.) 3 The Nazis are not strongly delineated and their venality overrides their ideological beliefs. One critic did find the German soldiers "rather good because they are quietly, believably played and not "'29 However, most of the critics saw them t."]30 the usual caricatures. as "routine caricatures of German greed and decei The Nazis are generalized villains and their brutality is referred to rather than shown. In spite of the torture death off-stage, they are not serious villains. It is true they are opposed by heroic allies-- the Czechoslovakians. However, the overall impression is that they are bumbling incompetents. One critic said, 'Zakraft, Thank You, Svoboda, Act 2, scene 3, p. 28. 129 130 John Chapman, New York Daily News, 2 March 1944. Wilella Waldorf, New York Post, 2 March 1944. 206 Stage Nazis always carry a certain menace, but we've had more sinister groups than those that come to pillage this unnamed . . . town. Dim-witted Svoboda is more than a match for the lot of them. . . .131 And another noted, "Moronic menials don't go around manhandling invading German troops and live to laugh it off in cozy concentration camps."132 Thank You, Svoboda was poorly received and closed after six performances. The SearchingyWind There was a brief portrayal of a German diplomat in Lillian 133 Hellman's successful The Searching Wind which opened April 12, 1944. The play covered a time span from 1922 to 1944 and related the story of three generations of a distinguished American family set in the context of world events. The cast included Dennis King as Alexander Hazen, an American Ambassador, Cornelia Otis Skinner as his wife, and Montgomery Clift as their son. The second act beings with a flashback scene set in a cafe in Berlin in 1923 in which a riot against Jews is being conducted 4 outdoors by members of the Friekorps.13 However, there are no Nazis in the scene. 13'Ward Morehouse, New York Sun, 2 March 1944. 132Robert Garland, New York Journal-American, 2 March 1944. 133Li11ian Hellman: The Collected Plays (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1972). 134"Free corps--armed bands, principally composed of ex- servicemen excluded from the Reichswehr by the limiting terms of the Versailles Treaty, that sprang up throughout Germany after the war." Fest, The Faces of the Third Reich, p. 20h. 207 The next scene in the play, also a flashback, takes place in the Hotel Meurice, Paris, in September 1938, just preceding the Munich agreement. A German diplomat, Count Max von Stammer comes to see the American Ambassador, Alex Hazen. Von Stammer's purpose in calling on Hazen is to try to persuade him to urge Washington not to interfere with the European situation: we would like to know that your government will not bring pressure on England or France to make war with us." In his brief appearance, von Stammer refers to several topics concerning Nazism and the Nazis' political position. He makes a humorous reply to Hazen's comment that there are social vogues--homosexuals one year, Nazis the next. He says, "And one year they combine both." He tells Hazen that Hitler wants the Sudetenland and insists that those who oppose his wish are the ones who threaten war. He says, unofficially, that if given cooperation, Germany might "rid Europe of the menace of Russia." He makes a reference to the importance of childhood and comments that he has read Freud, "the Jewish Viennese psychiatric physician." The remark is intended to show he is cosmopolitan. He makes a clear statement about his own desires as he leaves: Peace may come this year, but war will come another. Naturally, I speak this afternoon as if I thought it wise to be on the side of my country. But I do not always think that. And I do not much care. In two months I buy a house in Switzerland. And a briefcase. I have had a career of sorts and I might like to write about it.l35 135Hellman, The Collected Plays, p. 311. 208 The character is very minor and the Nazism portrayed is perfunctory for a diplomat. There is the added implication that even those beliefs may not be sincere. The critics commented on the excellent portrayal of von Stammer: Arnold Korff gives a marvelous performance as a Nazi diplomat at the time Germany was going its way unchecked, and this scene which he plays with the American Ambassador who is about to report indecisively to his country, is one of the play's strongest.136 The brief portrayal was different from past portrayals of Nazi officials both in the context of time and place and in the competency of the official. Von Stammer was a wily diplomat rather than an ideologically rigid one. The play was quite well received in a season which was described as "funny, beautiful, cheap, melodious, dirty" and "fifth- rate" but without worthwhile "sober thought or thought on current ."137 However, most critics made the reservation that events. . . it was not as good as Miss Hellman's previous work. The play was the second most successful of this period (after Tomorrow the World) and ran 318 performances. The Day Will Come There was a portrayal of Hitler on Broadway in the fall of 138 1944. The Day Will Come by Leo Birinski opened September 7, 136Ward Morehouse, New York Sun, 13 April 1944. 137 John Chapman, New York News, 13 April 1944. 138Script not available to the writer. Synopsis of play and comments from Best Plays and reviews. 209 1944. Birinski was a European dramatist who had been in Hollywood since 1927.‘39 A press release heralded the play as the first time Hitler had appeared on the living stage. This was not quite ac- curate, since portrayals of Hitler had occurred in Dimitrov (off- Broadway) and Pins and Needles, in addition to the representations of Hitler in Judgment Day and Waltz in Goosestep. The Day Will Come takes place in a Russian village which is evacated and burned, leaving only Arrum Dovid, the Jewish patriarch. David has survived many pogroms and regards the invasion as an interruption of his observance of the Sabbath. He is not disturbed when his home is used as the German's headquarters. The generals consider Hitler "a nincompoop and a superstitious fool '40 Intrigued by Dovid, they decide and don't care who knows it." to pass him off as the Wandering Jew and use him to try to dissuade Hitler from his mad attempt to take Moscow in the winter. They arrange for the two to confront each other, but Hitler is angered and orders Dovid shot. However, the bullets do not kill Dovid and he goes away while Hitler cowers in terror. There was no indication in the reviews that the generals and Hitler reflected specific Nazi traits. One critic said, "The portraits of most of the Germans are orthodox; they click their 141 heels--and stab one another in the back." Another noted that '391he Day Will Come, clipping, Theatre Collection, New York Public Library. '40Wiie11a Waldorf, New York Post, 8 September 1944. 14‘Lewis Nichols, New York Times, 3 September 1944' 210 "Mr. Birinski wants to keep things light, so the play is a comedy 3 90°d Pi!"t 0f the way. in Spite of the war and Hitler. . . ."'42 When the Jew and Hitler meet, they engage in dialectical arguments in which the Jew says that, . Hitler is the great benefactor of the Jews because his insane slaughter of defenseless members of the race has "liberated the Jews from the idea of their Jewishness" and has united them with all the rest of humane mankind in a determination to wipe Hitlerism and the Germanic idea of racial superiority from the face of the earth.143 Critics' responses to Brandon Peters' characterization of Hitler varied, but most were complimentary or suggested it was a difficult and thankless job. Ward Morehouse said: Brandon Peters plays Hitler straight and rather gets away with a difficult job. He looks the part of the Fuehrer and pictures him as a violent and bombastic egomaniac. Also, as a creature of fright and terror.)44 And George Freedley said that while he found Peters "too masculine for Hitler" he is "positively uncanny in the way he catches the illness, softness, demonical fury and hysteria of the German."145 Burton Rascoe gave an analysis of the difficulty of portraying Hitler: Hitler is a madman's caricature of a man in his own person. Therefore, any attempt by an actor to characterize or cari- cature him on the stage is bound to seem inept, amateurish, 142Arthur Pollock, Brook1yn Eagle, 8 September 1944. 143Burton Rascoe, New York World-Telegram, 8 September 1944. 144Ward Morehouse, New York Sun, 8 September 1944. 145George Freedley, New York Morning Telegraph, 9 September 1944. 211 and a poor likeness--the mustache but nothing else, none of the paranoic essence of that human monstrosity. Brandon Peters did as well as he could in the thankless role, but he was licked from the start. You simgly can't believe that any actor on the stage is Hitler.14 At least two of the critics found the play confusing, describing it as "a mixture of realistic drama, farce, and al- "147 148 legory and "a stage jigsaw puzzle put together all wrong." One review said the play was "several cuts above most of the new plays . . . and a good deal better than the great majority that 149 have dealt with Hitler and his brood.‘I However, the majority were inclined to the view that the play was "a belated act of noble faith and sentiment rather than a meritorious drama, or indeed "150 an acceptable piece of theatrics. The Day Will Come closed after 20 performances. Common Ground The last play in the war period with Nazi characters was 151 Common Ground by Edward Chodorov, which opened April 25, 1945, shortly before the German High Command surrendered (May 7), A U.S.O. unit of entertainers crash in a plane near Naples before the Allies 146Burton Rascoe, New York World-Telegram, 8 September 1944. '47Wile11a Waldorf, New York Post, 8 September 1944. '48Howard Barnes, New York Herald Tribune, 8 September 1944. 149Arthur Pollock, Brook1yn Eagle, 8 September 1944. 'SoBurton Rascoe, New York World-Telegram, 8 September 1944. 15lEdward Chodorov, Common Ground (New York: Samuel French, 1946). 212 had gotten there. They fall into the hands of a Nazi, Colonel Hofer, who offers all but one of them the choice of entertaining Nazis with anti-American propaganda or being shot. The exception is Buzz Bernard, an American Jew, who will be sent to a concen- tration camp in any case. The entertainers all happen to have foreign-born parents--German, Italian, and Irish. They debate the merits of the case and decide they would rather die as patriots than live as traitors. There are two Nazis in the play, Colonel Hofer and an American journalist named Ted Williamson. Hofer is a rather standard Nazi, but Williamson is quite unusual. Williamson is a thirty- five-year old American newspaperman who has gone over to the Nazis. He is portrayed as rabidly anti-Semetic and racist. As he meets the troupe, he addresses Buzz, whom he had known before: (Softly) It's nice having you here, Jew-boy! I don't know any kike in show business I'd rather see--You didn't have much time for me that night in Chicago. . . . (Buzz is motion- less, looking at him.) But we've got lots of time now. . . . Buzz Bernard! Get funny now, you lousy kike! (He is shouting.) Somebody cut your tongue out? . . . I've been having dreams about this! Oh, we're going to have lots of fun--you and me! Lots of fun1152 Williamson reveals that he was in Cairo December 7, 1941, and took the first plane to Berlin and has been making radio broad- casts for the Nazis ever since. He refers to the Italians as "wops." He inquires about his "Jew-pal, Darryl Zanuck" and com- plains the Jews are never at the front. He tells Nick, "You're a real American, aren't you? And I'm a Nazi." Then he launches 152Chodorov, Common Ground, pp. 26-27. 213 into a tirade against America. He says "Adolph" made a mistake fighting in Europe. He should have started in America--"We're just lousy with all kinds of animals that look different, smell different--and hate each other at the bottom." Williamson returns briefly in one other scene. He is drunk, grinning, and ranting. . . You're a Wop! You're a Mick! You're a Dutchman! I'm an American! You're a nigger! You're a spic, you're a spink, you stink--! . . . Lousy Jew—dealers, giving our dough to the lousy frogs, and the Finns and the Poles--and the lousy Reds! . . Look out for the Communists! Look out for the lousy unions! . . . We the Christians! Christians only! Buy Gentile! Think Gentile! Niggers and Jews keep out! Look out for the Catholics! . . . The good old free press--that'll kill any soneofabitch [sic] who really tries to stop it! Kill any sonofabitch who thinks he's Abe Lincoln. . . . 53 His catalog of hatreds nearly covers the spectrum of Nazism. Although he is not a developed character, Williamson's racial tirades come close to the concept of racism becoming a totalizing '54 Williamson seems to have internalized the and reflexive myth. racism to the point where it provides answers to all questions and substitutes a mythical reality for an objective reality. Williamson is a full-blown villain, a bully and a traitor. Paul McGrath received some praise for his acting of Ted Williamson. However, the critics were generally negative about the character. One said Williamson was an "utterly unbelievable character . . . who delivers a tirade against America that is only a paraphrase of Hitler's paranoic utterances in 'Mein Kampf.”155 '531bid., p. 61. 154See view of Dietrich Orlow, Chapter II, p. 20. 155Burton Rascoe, New York World-Telegram, 26 April 1945. 214 Colonel Hofer has two brief appearances. In the first he orders the troupe to perform under very trying circumstances. He is arrogant and abusive. One of the entertainers, Alan, says "No, thank you" to an offer of champagne. Hofer replies, "Yes, do. Here!" and he flings the champagne into his face. In the next scene, the troupe is performing for him, and he offers them a chance to tour for the Axis armies and disseminate propaganda. He asks if there are any questions, and Alan speaks. Alan Doesn't the fact that we're American citizens and carry identification from the army-- Hofer Identification? Yes? Your Army! We identify you!-- Garbage-can Americans! Traitor German! Traitor Italian! Traitor Irishwoman!--and Jew!--Any more questions?156 Because of the plot of the play, Hofer's anti-Americanism is more pronounced than in the other Nazis, but other than that he is not developed as a Nazi. 157 The critics had mixed responses to Colonel Hofer. One saw Hofer as a "suave, champagne-drinking, cold-blooded German 1."158 Another saw him as "a caricature . . . who drank "159 colone champagne and Sneered. . . The opponents of the Nazis are very acceptable heroes. They represent a cross-section of American immigrants, second 156Chodorov, Common Ground, p. 46. 157Colonel Hofer was played by Peter von Zerneck, who had previously appeared as a Nazi in Land of Fame, September 21, 1943. 158John Chapman, New York News, 26 April 1945. '59Richard P. Cooks, Wall Street Journal, 26 April 1945. the 215 generation, and they are given the opportunity to decide to die. However, in an article in Commentary, Louis Kronenberger noted that Buzz Bernard, the Jew in the play, was not exemplary. He "has a good deal about him of the show-off and the wise-cracker" and is the type that more genteel Jews "are given to blush over." In addition, Buzz is not given a chance to make a moral decision 160 but is immediately condemned to a concentration camp. Common Ground was poorly received by the critics and ran only 61 performances. The common criticism was that it was "too 16] and "too soap boxy."162 undramatic, too long-winded" There are two aspects to the play concerning audience response and audience knowledge which should be noted. First, Louis Kronenberger, in the article cited above, described the character Ted Williamson as a psychopathic Jew-hater. He said Willianson's remarks felt like a kick in the belly for Jews in the audience. And he commented that "Broadway rarely goes in for such body blows, which is why its social theatre lags so far behind even the newspaper in its ability to rouse or even to reveal.”63 Second, when Chodorov's play opened, a degree of audience innocence concerning Nazism had vanished. In the play, Buzz, the American Jew, says, 160Louis Kronenberger, "The Decline of the Theatre," Commentary, November 1945, p. 48. 161 162 Louis Kronenberger, PM_(New York), 26 April 1945. Robert Coleman, New York Daily Mirror, 26 April 1945. 163Kronenberger, "The Decline of the Theatre," P- 48- 216 . when I was having lunch with that fellow, the English correspondent who saw the death camp in Poland--where the Germans took the shoes off the children, and stacked them up neatly, according to size, before they—-One camp, he said-- a million and a half people--164 The audience did not have to accept Buzz's word, since the nation was already seeing "Newsreels with their pictures of corpses piled "163 high in Belsen concentration camp. . . The newsreels of the brutalities "served to bring into focus the Hitler era which had finally been expunged."166 Conclusion This period produced a third distinct group of Nazis on the stage--occupation troops. In the preceding period, occupation troops were portrayed in only one play--Candle in the Wind. If the foreign plays on Broadway with Nazis were included, occupation troops would be the overwhelming impression of Nazi portrayals. Still, five of the nine plays written by Americans were set in occupied countries and portrayed Germans occupation troops: The Moon Is Down (Norway), The Barber Had Two Sons (Norway). Land of Fame (Greece), Thank you, Svoboda, (Czechoslovakia) and The Day Will Come (Russia). The rest of the portrayals included a young Nazi boy, an American Nazi, a diplomat, and a prisoner of war. A new type of Nazi appeared in this period--the collaborator. There were two such portrayals-- George Corell in The Moon Is Down and Ted Williamson in Common Ground. 164Chodorov, Common Ground, pp. 67—68. 165 Lingeman, Don't You Know There's a War On?, p. 434. 166Bosley Crowther, "For the Offensive," New York Times, 3 June 1945, sec. 2, p. l. 217 There was very little delineation of the Nazis in this period. The two exceptions were Common Ground and Tomorrow the World. Ted Williamson (Common Ground) revealed a strong racism and the only totalizing and reflexive anti-Semitism portrayed up to that time. Emil Bruckner (Tomorrow the World) revealed nearly the entire gamut of Nazi ideology and was the most completely delineated Nazi in the period. Most of the plays contained Nazis who were villains. The clear exception is the diplomat in The Searching Wind. The villainous portrayals were very generalized and contained few specifically Nazi traits. In the preceding period several Nazis were converted away from Nazism. This period contained two such conversions--Emil Bruckner in Tomorrow the World and the Gestapo officer in Land of fame_who is repulsed by Nazi theories and killed by his fellow officers. For the most part, the plays in this period, like those in the last, continued to avoid the depiction of violence. The major exception was The Barber Had Two Sons, which showed Nazis killed on stage. The Nazis were on their own territory in only one of the plays, Common Ground, Where the Colonel and American Nazi are an Axis territory (Italy). Since most of the Nazis were occupiers, they were on contested ground and vulnerable to varying degrees. The rest of the Nazis were off their own territory. n4 «~l u.- 218 The opponents of the Nazis were mainly heroic Allies, but there were Americans opposing the Nazis in Tomorrow the World, Common Ground, and Storm Operation. 'Most of the plays with Nazis in this period were unsuc- cessful. Taken as a whole, they were considerably less successful than those in the preceding period, which had included more plays by major playwrights. The Searching Wind was successful but con- cerned appeasement rather than Nazism. The major exception was Tomorrow the World. It would have been difficult to predict the successful presentation of the twelve-year-old Nazi in Tomorrow the World. However, in retrospect the appeal seems clearer. The play opened when the Axis had begun to lose the war. In Tomorrow the World, Nazism is literally cut down to size and, further, placed in enemy territory. Regardless of Emil's viciousness, he doesn't stand a chance. Further, he is not defeated by force, but is converted (like several Nazis in the preceding period). The play seemed to fit the "tone" of the war. Robert Sherwood was Director of the Overseas Division of the Office of War Information. In January, 1943, he sent out a long-range directive which said, in part: Our principal duty is to convince the people of the world of the overwhelming power and incontestable good faith of the U.S.A. . . . We are a peace-loving people. We do not start fights, but we have a habit of finishing them. We don't like to be pushed around and we do not want to push anybody else around; what is more we don't like anyone else to be pushed around by a bully.167 167Robert Sherwood quoted in an article by Jack Hammersmith: "The U.S. Office of War Information (OWI) and the Polish Question, 1943-1945," The Polish Review, 19 (1974), pp. 67-76. 219 The statement is very like a generalized comment on the plot of Tomorrow the World. During America's involvement in World War II, the Nazi on Broadway, except for one little boy, was not particularly engaging. Most of the other Nazis in this period were generalized villains; they were the wartime enemy of the United States and her allies and not a menace that needed to be clarified. CHAPTER VI THE PORTRAYAL 0F NAZIS MAY: 1945 - DECEMBER. 1970 The postwar period is the least cohesive and most deverse period in this study in terms of American attitudes toward Nazis. This period contains ten plays spread over twenty-five years, and the attitudes toward the Nazis in that time ranged from hatred to indifference. World War II has been called, from the American viewpoint, ”the perfect war." It was accepted as "a just and necessary act." It was also a "perfect war" because the civilian population was not harmed."1 The war became increasingly justified as Nazi con- centration camps fell into Allied hands. American passions against Germany and Japan were so stirred up in the final year of war that American officials reflected them. Tom Connally, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, referred to the "two savage and brutal enemies" and said it was “the duty of civilization to crush these monsters."2 1Perrett, Days of Sadness,,Years of Triumph, p. 441. 2Lisle A. Rose, Dubious Victory: The United States and The End of World War 11 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1973), p. 59. 220 ,4. -u 221 Germany surrendered May 7, 1945, and President Truman "3 In the applauded "the abject surrender of the Nazi barbarians. same month, Joseph Pulitzer, editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, addressed the Society for the Prevention of World War III and "urged the shooting of 1,500,000 Nazis." Representative Dewey Short demanded mass executions of the SS men and the OKW (High 4 Command of the Armed Forces). Alfred Grosser said in Germanyrin Our Time, It was common ground that the chief Nazi leaders should be punished; but, after that, the victors took different views of what constituted the essence of Nazism and, therefore, of how best to eradicate it.5 Grosser said the British viewed Nazism as a disease in the body politic and saw a need to eradicate the germs. The French saw Hitler as a direct development from Bismarck and saw a need to destroy Prussian-German unity. The Americans were split between the British and French positions, and the Russians considered Nazism to be a result of Germany's social structure and, above all, the distribution of economic power. American attitudes toward the enemy changed after World War II. Hatred mellowed, but not immediately. In the last year of the war, some ten to fifteen per cent of Americans said the Germans and Japanese populations should be exterminated.6 3Ibid. 4Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 691. 5Alfred Grosser, Germany in Our Time: A Political History of the Postwar Years (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), p. 36. 6 Mueller, War, Presidents and Public Opinion, p. 173. 222 The atomic bombing of Japan met with strong approval. In September, 1945, only 5% of Americans felt the atomic bomb should not have been used, and 23% felt as many atomic bombs as possible should have been quickly used before Japan could surrender.7 A poll was taken in 1943 and again in March, 1946, which asked whether, if the enemy were starving after the war (or at the present time), they should be sold food, given food, or allowed to starve. A substantial minority preferred to see them starve. Attitudes were less harsh in 1946 than in 1943 on the starvation column, but the mellowing was small. The attitude toward Japan was harsher in 1943, but attitudes were substantially more similar in 1946, probably due to the revelations about the German death camps.8 The Nuremberg trials were held from November, 1945, to October, 1946. Few opposed the trials. Robert Hutchins was almost alone among prominant liberals in asking for justice and mercy.9 Three of the plays in this period were produced by the end of 1946: The Assassin, The French Touch, and Temper the Wind. The world situation changed rapidly and attention was diverted from past enemies. One diversion was the atomic age, which began on a New Mexico desert July 16, 1945, and the whole structure of international politics had become obsolescent on August 6, 1945, with the dropping of the first atomic bomb at Hiroshima. Total 7Mueller, War, Presidents and Public Opinion, p. 172. 8Ibid., p. 173. 9Perrett,_Qays of Sadness, Years of Triumph, p. 421. 223 world war had abolished itself as a practical instrument of policy.10 Another diversion was a new enemy. The Soviet Union had been admired as an ally, but the suspicion of Communism had not dimin- ished during the war. "Now that Fascism had been toppled, Communism slipped easily into its place in the popular mind as the menace to 11 the world." The atomic bomb and the Soviet Union were related topics. In Dubious Victory, Lisle A Rose said the atomic bomb created "a sudden imbalance of military power" and had also created "an almost unbridgeable chasm between East and West."12 The cold war became a real war in Korea in June, 1950. And Joseph McCarthy started his campaign against Communism in 1950. The focus of the decade was Communism. There was a successful dramatization of the horrors of Communism early in the decade. It was Sidney Kingsley's adaptation of Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, which opened January 13, 1951, and ran 186 performances. There were only three plays with Nazi characters in the decade: Stalag l7, Fragile Fox, and The Hidden River. The first play treated the subject lightly, and the latter two contained very minor portrayals of Nazis. The sixties were shaken by many events: the continuing reaction to Sputnik, launched in 1957, the civil rights movement, assassinations, a man on the moon, and, of course, the war in 10Manchester, The Glory and the Dream, 1:697-698. nPerrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph, p. 423. 'ZRose, Dubious Victory, pp. 365-368. 224 Vietnam. There was also a degree of renewed interest in Nazism, and at least three events contributed to it. First, there was a Playhouse 90 television play in 1959 13 The suc- called Judgment at Nuremberg, written by Abby Mann. cessful television production was made into a movie in 1961. Maximillian Schell won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a defense attorney in the film. Second, Adolph Eichman was abducted from Argentine in 1961, tried in 1961, and executed in 1962. The event received world-wide attention. Third, a spectacular war crimes trial opened December 20, 1963, in Frankfurt, West Germany, and lasted twenty months. The trial resulted in the conviction of the majority of the twenty-two defendants who had been concerned with the operation of Auschwitz. While there was a degree of renewed interest in Nazism per se, it should be noted that there was a marked change in attitudes toward World War II enemies. Virtually all the negative qualities attributed to the enemy peoples in a 1942 poll were selected far less frequently in the 1960's, and most of the positive qualities gained noticeably in popularity.14 Concommitant with the Cold War, a somewhat reverse pattern occurred with the Russian image. Of particular interest to this study are the following changes toward Germans: 13In the television production, an American judge confronts a German jurist and asks "How in the name of God can you ask me to understand the extermination of men, women, and children in--?" His lips moved soundlessly on the words "gas ovens." “It had been cut at the insistence of Playhouse 90's sponsor, the American Gas Association." Manchester, The Glory and the Dream, 1:728-729. 14Mueller, War, Presidents, and Public Opinion, p. 175. 1242. 12.5.1. 12.9.6. Warlike 67 20 16 Cruel 57 13 10 Treacherous 42 9 7 Arrogant 31 l6 l6 Brave 3O 24 19 There was relatively little change throughout for the words hard- working, intelligent, progressive, and practical.15 There were four plays with Nazis written by Americans on Boradway in the 1960's. The Wall was produced in 1960. Incident at Vichy and Postmark Zero were produced in the 1964 and 1965 seasons. And the final play of the period was Happy Birthday, Wanda June, produced in 1970. In the last half of the decade there was also a considerable number of foreign plays dealing with Nazism, including The Deputy, The Condemned of Altona, The Investigation, and The Man in the Glass Booth. Adolph Hitler had died April 30, 1945, shortly before Germany surrendered. There was something about his death which had diminished Nazism as a subject of dramatic interest. Joachim Fest said in Hitler: Almost without transition, virtually from one moment to the next, Nazism vanished after the death of Hitler and the surrender. It was as if National Socialism had been nothing but the motion, the state of intoxication and the catastrophe it had caused. It is not accidental that in the contemporary accounts dating from the spring of 1945 certain phrases crop up repeatedly--to the effect that a “spell" had been broken, a "phantasmagoria" shattered. Such language borrowed from '51bid., p. 275. the 1 the ' ”mm a 2.1 the ‘a .:~.:v~l V49' 226 in: sphere of magic conveys the peculiarlyfiunreal nature of gime and the abruptness of 1ts end. Nazism and Nazi characters did not vanish in the post-war period, but the subject did not entice many American playwrights. Two plays of this period are stressed, Incident at Vichy because of Arthur Miller's importance, and Stalag 17 because of its popular success. Considerable attention is also given to The Wall because it is the only play dealing with the Warsaw ghetto and also had a moderately successful run. The Assassin The first post-war play with Nazi characters was Ihe_ '8 which opened October 17, 1945. The play Assassin17 by Irwin Shaw was based on the "Darlan Affair"--the assassination of the Commander- in-Chief of the French Navy, Admiral Jean Darlan, on Christmas Eve, 1942. In 1940, Darlan had not supported de Gaulle or Britain, but was a collaborator with the pro-Nazi Vichy Government which, at that time, was, in fact, recognized by the United States. Later, Darlan played both sides and entered into a deal with Eisenhower in which Darlan agreed not to oppose the allied invasion of Africa if the French could retain their control there. The agreement caused a furor in the United States and Britain. Until the Casablanca Conference calling for unconditional Surrender of the '5fest, Hitler, p. 753. 17 18Shaw had treated Nazism symbolically much earlier in The_ Gentle People (1939). Irwin Shaw, The Assassin (New York: Random House, 1946). 227 Axis powers, the Darlan Affair left suspicion that the United tates might enter a policy of appeasement.19 The Assassin had a complex plot. The Americans move into Africa, but the Vichy French under Darlan retain control. A young royalist, Robert De Mauny, meets an Underground group, which includes a Communist and Jews, and is impressed by them. In the meantime, a member of Darlan's staff plans his assassination and enlists De Mauny as the assassin. De Mauny is promised that a dying man will substitute for him when he is to be executed for the deed. However, he is double-crossed and is executed. Much of the play is concerned with the opposition Under- ground, and the characters who can be considered Nazis are not detailed characterizations. Admiral Marcel Vespery (Darlan) is depicted as a pro-Nazi Frenchman willing to kill Frenchmen. He wants to lead France and save the Germans from the Russians. A general asks Vespery whether they should execute one hundred and seventy Resistance prisoners because he is concerned about British and French opinion. Vespery replies, "And don't bother about those jailbirds, we'll kill more than one hundred and seventy-seven Frenchmen before this 20 is over." Shaw's characterizations of Vespery and those around him were well described by Robert Coleman: 1gHoyle, A World in Flames, pp. 167, 172; Arnold-Forster, The World at War, pp. 95, 96, 111. 20Shaw, The Assassin, p. 72. 228 . . Shaw paints him a thorough scoundrel, ambitious and unscrupulous, shrewd and slippery. And the officers im- mediately surrounding him are limned with the same colors. They are as knavish, rascally, double-crossing a lot as ever wore uniforms on stage. Except for his pro-German stance, however, Vespery is not strongly defined as a Nazi. Victor Malassis is a villainous secret policeman who caught the attention of most of the critics. He beats a Jew brutally (off stage) and acts on behalf of the Vichy government, but he is not characterized specifically as a Nazi. One critic said, "Harold Huber, as a wily, scheming, treacherous plain clothes man, is the “22 Another said the portrayal was "a n23 best of the co-players. masterpiece of villainy. . . There is a German officer, Colonel Von Kohl,24 who appears in a scene with the pro-Vichy French generals. He gives a fascist salute and confers with Haynes, an American journalist. He wants to know if the Americans will "make a deal" if they win. Von Kohl is worried because he has "said some harsh things about America, about democracy . . ." but Haynes assures him they'll do "business" with him. Haynes tells Von Kohl to play "the old sea dog," to tell them he's now “for law and order" and that he "knew they were coming 2IRobert Coleman, New York Daily Mirror, 18 October 1945. 22Ward Morehouse, New York Sun, 18 October 1945. 23Robert Coleman, New York Daily Mirror, 18 October 1945. 24Von Kohl was played by William Malten, who had also appeared as a German salesman in Thank You, Svoboda (1944) and as Corporal Schultz in Candle in the Wind (1941). 229 "25 The portrayal is brief, but it does indicate Von all along. Kohl has little desire to die for Nazism, whatever his other unstated beliefs may be. The heroic opposition to the pro-Nazi characters are members of the Underground and include the young royalist, a Communist, and Jews. Their leader is Andre Vauquim (played by Karl Malden), a moderate who believes in neither the Monarchists or the Communists as an answer to Nazism. Vauquim excepted, the group would probably have had mixed appeal as acceptable heroes. Vauquim himself says, "We live in a confused age, and are saved by confused heroes."26 Lewis Nichols in the New York Times said, "For his intention, that of telling a bit of recent history with its political and social ramifications, Mr. Shaw deserves full credit," but he added 27 that it was "not a good play." However, most of the critics felt the play had come too late to have popular appeal. One critic said, "Darlan was assassinated in 1942. A lot of war and water n28 has flowed under the bridge since. Louis Kronenberger also thought the play had lost "any acute timeliness." But he noted that historical perspective could offer the distinct advantage of enlarging the meaning, a challenge which he felt Shaw had not met.29 25Shaw, The Assassin, p. 42. 26Wilella Waldorf, New York Post, 18 October 1945. 27Lewis Nichols, New York Times, 18 October 1945. 28Robert Coleman, New York Daily Mirror, 18 October 1945. 29Louis Kronenberger, £M_(New York), 18 October 1945. 230 Some of the harshest criticism stated that Shaw had "attempted to contrive a Casablanca with political overtones" and that the "scenario sounds more like the balloons in a ten-cent movie comic 30 book than it does, even, a movie." Richard Watts, Jr., offered a comment on the critics' responses to The Assassin. He said the play "was by no means everything to be hoped for from such a skill- ful writer, but it had dignity in several fine scenes." He added: Yet it was set upon by the reviewers as if the author had committed some outrage, one of them even making the remarkable suggestion that he had libeled the Vichyites. I don't blame Mr. Shaw for getting a bit angr in his introduction to the published version of the play.3 Although the play had been produced successfully in London, the New York production ran only 13 performances. The French Touch There was another play with Nazis in the 1945-46 season. 32 by Joseph Fields and It was a comedy called The French Touch Jerome Chodorov, which opened December 8, 1945. A popular Parisian actor, Roublard (Ruby), and his third wife are living in his theatre under the German occupation. Felix Von Brenner, the Nazi Minister of Culture for France, wants Ruby to write and produce a propaganda play showing the French and Germans living together in harmony. Brenner's mistress, Jacqueline, is Ruby's first wife. Ruby decides 30John Chapman, New York News, 18 October 1945. 31Richard Watts, Jr., "Postwar Broadway," American Scholar, October 1946. 32Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov, The French Touch (New York: Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 1973). 231 to do the play with a surprise patriotic ending, after which he would shoot the Commandant of Paris. All three of Ruby's wives end up in the play and create farcical rehearsal scenes. Ruby and Brenner argue over Jacqueline, Ruby recites the secret ending, and shoots Brenner. Brenner's body is hidden and the troupe pre- pares to open the play as they had planned. The audience is left to conjecture that Ruby will proceed to kill the Commandant of Paris. Brenner is the only Nazi in the play who is delineated. He is described as "not the smoothly vicious Gestapo agent--worse, he is a simple, stupidly vicious German civil servant with a 33 However, sentimental and romantic Nazi point of view of Paris." there is little in the play that stresses Brenner's viciousness. He is usually pleasant unless opposed. He responds to several cutting remarks about himself and his mistress, Jacqueline, with such verbal responses as "How dare you!" but not with violence. Nazi menace is indicated when Brenner tells Ruby that if he fails to cooperate, he "will be sent to the fatherland to work with his hands." A short time later Ruby and Jacqueline plot the treasonous performance. Jacqueline tells Ruby he might become a national hero. pry_ Yes! There I am--a hero--kneeling in the cold, gray dawn-- before an empty basket--then the dull thud of my head, filling it up. 33Ibid., p. 10. 232 Jacqueline Nonsense! They won't decapitate you--no matter how much you would like the center of the stage. Ruby They can't do less--not to a man of my reputation. Jacqueline The Nazis save those for important people. . . . No. No! You'd wind up on the outskirts of Warsaw, mixing cement. ‘Rgbr Then 54]] mix cement-~but they won't get a play out of me! When the actors do refuse to perform, they are jailed by Brenner and they change their minds. Ruby asks Brenner what he did to them, and he says "Nothing! . . . They are perfectly fine--." Ruby queries him further about whether they had to be thrown in jail and Brenner says, "No. But it was a nice emphatic touch."35 Later, when Ruby asks an actor what they have done to him, he 36 There is no further clarification says, "Take a guess, you pig!" of what happened. However, the secret persuasion does not seem menacing because while Brenner is called a Nazi, he is really a relatively mild and somewhat humorous stage villain. John Wengraf's performance of Felix von Brenner was noted and praised by most of the critics. One critic commented "Nazi villains have become stock figures in our theatre and Wengraf's characterization is in the accepted tradition, but he reveals 34Ibid., p. 20. 35Ibid., p. 45. 36Ibid., p. 47. v a... : .., ‘b C 0 ‘ h I / [.1 233 himself, as he did in Maxwell Anderson's Candle in the Wind37 as 38 an actor of skill and fluency." There was one other Nazi in the play, a subsidiary character named Schwartz39 who was an aide to Brenner. The character had only several perfunctory lines. The French Touch was panned by most of the critics. Several of the critics noted that the play was "altogether ambiguous"40 "41 One critic elaborated the and tried to tell "several stories. point, . the authors never seemed to make up their minds whether they were writing a comedy poking fun at the theatre and its hams, an old-fashioned French farce full of amor boulevardiers, wives and mistresses, gr an anti-Nazi melodrama complete with guns and the Gestapo.4 Most of the other critics were equally negative and The French Touch closed after 33 performances. Temper the Wind The first portrayals of Nazis in a postwar setting were in 43 Temper the Wind by Edward Mabley and Leonard Mins. The play was 37John Wengraf had played the Nazi Colonel Erfurt in Candle in the Wind (1941). 38Ward Morehouse, New York Sun, 10 December 1945. 39Schwartz was played by William Malten who had previously played German roles in Candle in the Wind (1941), Thank You, Svoboda (1944), and The Assassin (1945). 40Howard Barnes, New York Hera1d-Tribune, 10 December 1945. 4‘Lewis Nichols, New York Times, 10 December 1945. 42Wilella Waldorf, New York Post, 10 December 1945. 43Edward Mobley and Leonard Mins, Temper the Wind, Trans- script, Theatre Collection, New York Public Library. 234 44 An American Lieutenant Colonel, produced December 27, 1946. Richard Woodruff, is the head of the occupational forces in a city in Bavaria. Woodruff had been in the same city in the 1930's when he was a young man. He had a German friend, Kurt Benckendorff, who was killed by the Nazis for opposing them. Woodruff had also befriended Kurt's sister, Elisabeth. Their father, Hugo Beneckendorff, became the chief industrialist in the city and, in the postwar setting, wants to reopen his factory under American sponsorship. He has enlisted the aid of an American businessman named Theodore Bruce, a man who would like to see Germany rearmed against Russia. Elisabeth is now married to Erich Jaeger, who is a very dedicated Nazi. Woodruff persists in attempting to denazify the town. The denazification creates conflicts. Finally, Jaeger, with the financial aid of Benckendorff, creates a riot which results in the death of an anti-Nazi German and an American soldier. The most extreme Nazi in the play is Erich Jaeger. He is a fully committed Nazi and is active in a Nazi organization. Sophie von Gutskow, Benckendorff's sister, is talking with Jaeger. Jaeger says he doesn't like Benckendorff. Jaeger Our Fuehrer was a man of principle. Sophie Oh, spare me that Austrian lunatic! Jaeger (furious) I shall report that statement! 44The play had opened earlier in Newark, New Jersey, under the title Drums of Peace. Rowland Field, Newark EveningyNews, 28 December 1946. 235 some Report? To whom?45 The exchange reveals that Jaeger is living in a world of unreality. His fanatic Nazism is revealed in several other scenes. Woodruff is discussing the reopening of Benckendorff's factory and says that part of the answer lies with Benckendorff: "Until you break with the men who've made Germany a symbol of everything abhorrent--" It is Jaeger who flies into a rage. He calle Woodruff a "Plutodemocratic swine!" and throws his drink at him. Jaeger then happens to observe Woodruff saying goodbye to his wife. He accuses her of "holding hands with the enemy" and he regrets that his two little boys have a "mother who's a collabo— rator." He slaps his wife for saying she wishes she could forget she's a German. And he tells her, "We cut off Olga Bruin's hair two weeks ago for what you are doing." When Jaeger agrees to create a riot for Benckendorff, he tells him, "I'm doing this, not for you, but for the cause." After the riot, when he is being detained by the Americans, he bolts through a French window. Captain Karel Palivec, a Czechoslovakian, gives chase--"A shot is heard, then, after a brief pause, two more." Palivec returns and says, "A reformed Nazi.” Jaeger is the first portrayal of a dedicated Nazi in a postwar setting. He is a villain and is typed as such by Sophie-- "He's out with those other desperadoes, I suppose, dramatizing himself." Other than his reference to the Fuehrer, Jaeger does 45Mabley and Mins, Temper the Wind, Act 1, p. 13a. 236 not reveal his ideology; he functions as a Nazi villain. Brooks Atkinson said, "the fanatical and treacherous hostility of the unreconstructed Nazi" is represented "in a grim character [Jaeger] played with wiry neuroticism by Tonio Selwart."46 Hugo Benckendorff, the industrialist, appears at first not so much as a Nazi as an opportunist. When it suits his needs, he stresses the fact that the Nazis killed his son. He also enlists the aid of Jaeger, his Nazi son-in-law, to create violence, hoping it will cause Woodruff to be dismissed from his position in the town and clear the way for the re-opening of his factory. Woodruff asks Captain Palivec, the Czech officer, what he thinks of Benckendorff. Palivec says that when the German infantry surrendered they all said they were not Nazis, but that a “simple test" was used to determine the truthfulness of their claim: We examined their cartridge belts. If they still had any bullets, we believed them. (Raises thumb.) But if they had fired them all--(Turns thumb down.) My friend, the Benckendorffs of Germany are all out of ammun1t1on. In another scene, Woodruff tells Benckendorff that practically all the executives and foremen still on his payroll were members of the Party. Benckendorff says "I am not a Nazi." Jaeger replies, "No? You cheered our victories while they showed a profit on your ledger!" 46Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 28 December 1946. Tonio Selwart had appeared as Lt. Schoen, the Nazi who converts to an anti-Nazi, in Candle in the Wind (1941). 47 Mabley and Mins, Temper the Wind, Act 2, Sec. 1, p. 13b. 237 Later, however, Benckendorff's sentiments are made clear. Jaeger is wounded and captured following the riot and he reveals Benckendorff's complicity in the riot. Benckendorff explains to Woodruff why he set up the riot: You gave me no other choice. I tried to make you do the thing that would benefit Rietenberg [the city] and Germany. I failed. But sooner or later other Germans will try again-- and they will succeed. Then you will know what it is to govern us by force.48 Benckendorff reveals an element of the authoritarian Nazi character-- his victims have forced him to behave as he does. Another Nazi in the play is Trudi, the young maid in the Benckendorff household. She has few lines, but does express Nazi sentiments. She is admonished for singing the "Horst Wessel" around the house and says she can't help it because, "It reminds me of the nice times I used to have. In the Hitler's Girls, I mean." She goes on to say that she "can't bear to think of the Fuhrer dead." She is distressed and starts to cry and says she hopes he'll come back some day. Another character in the play, Benckendorff's sister Sophie von Gutzkow reveals sentiments which go beyond Nazism. Sophie denigrates Jaeger for being a Nazi and refers to Hitler as "that Austrian lunatic." However, she says the trouble with Hitler was that he "had no iron in him." She would out-Nazi the Nazis. She is a Prussian and wishes she could return to her home in the East as the Poles are being allowed to do. She says, "Poland is a pigsty!" She tells Woodruff that Prussia stood at the gates of 48Ibid., Act 3, p. 2. 0‘ u l 238 Europe for 700 years and protected Germany against the Slavic hordes. She says, "Now you have undone the work of centuries, made the Slavs a power. You Americans have meddled in affairs of which you know nothing." She adds, "You Americans will live to regret this war.“ Blanche Yurka's portrayal of Sophie was noted by the critics. "Blanche Yurka plays [Sophie] with such forcefulness that she becomes a symbol of German autocratic power."49 . The heroes in this play are Lt. Col. Woodruff and an anti- Nazi German. Set in the immediate postwar period, they were very acceptable opponents to Nazism. Woodruff expresses his goal, "No German ever goes to war again--ever. That's our job." Heinrich Lindau, the anti-Nazi German, bravely addresses a meeting of the factory workers and tells them the traitors are out among them and he names the men who had been Nazis. He is killed as he is speaking. Not all the Americans were portrayed as heroic. A critic noted: The American soldiers . . . are portrayed much as our newspapers describe them--young, lost, bored, and tired of living abroad, sitting out a job they do not understand and making no effort to acquaint themselves with the problems nor the people they are sent to help losing the peace through blundering and blindness. . . .50 Brooks Atkinson called Temper the Wind "the most forceful n51 and absorbing topical drama of the season, but the rest of the critics were lukewarm about it. Richard Watts, Jr., said it was 491. R., Christian Science Monitor. 8 December 1945- 50Ibid. 5'Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 28 December 1946. 239 "neither brilliantly dramatized nor remarkably conceived" but added "it is forthright and honest in its proud dramatic journalism."52 Several critics noted the overall similarity of the play to A_§e11 for Adono and made comparisons to it. The authors had included in Temper the Wind such elements as Benckendorff's factory having produced machine tools and the possibility that it might be dismantled for reparations. These plot elements and the characters' attitudes about them are plausibly 53 developed. Some critics found the play lacking in force and the issues not stated clearly enough. This might have been caused by an inherent problem in the subject matter. John Gimbel in IDS. American Occupation of Germany described the U.S. role at that time: Besides wanting to denazify, demilitarize, decartelize, democ- ratize, and reorient Germans and Germany, Americans were also interested in seeing to their own continued security, bringing about the economic rehabilitation of Germany and Europe, and guaranteeing the continuance of free enterprise. They wanted to frustrate socialism, to forestall Communism, to Spare American taxpayers' money, to counteract French plans to dismember Germany, and to contain the Soviet Union in Central Europe. All of these interests . . . assumed a vital place in American policy and practice in Germany.54 The play may also have faced another obstacle--audience indifference. In 1947, Harold Zink said in American Military Government in Germany that a large number of Americans 52Richard Watts, Jr., New York Post, 28 December 1946. 53A thorough background of the activities of the play is provided by John Gimbel, The American Occgpation of Germany: Politics and the Military, 1945-1949 (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1968, chapters 1 and 2, pp. 1-34. 54 Gimbel, American Occupation of Germany, p. xiii. 240 . . . are so tired of war service, war regimentation, war shortages, and war excitement that they seek to forget the German problem and everything else unpleasant. . . . The net result is that there is a wide indifference rather than alert interest in what goes on in Germany.55 Temper the Wind was the only play to portray pro-Nazi Germans in a post-war setting. Gimbel's description of that setting and Zink's comments on the subject's interest suggest the topic may not have been manageable. Temper the Wind closed after 35 per- formances. Stalag 17 It was four years after Temper the Wind before Nazis were again characterized on Broadway. They appeared in a comedy-drama called Stalag 17,56 by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski, which 57 opened May 8, 1951. "Stalag 17" is the name given to a prisoner- of-war camp in Germany: the authors of the play had been shot down behind enemy lines and had spent two years in such a camp near Krems, Austria.58 55Harold Zink, American Military Government in Germany_(New York: The Macmillan Company, 1947). 56Donald Beran and Edmund Trzcinski, Stalag 17 (New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1951). 57A Nazi storm trooper did appear in the background of a memory scene in Sidney Kingsley's dramatization of Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, which opened January, 1951. However, the storm trooper was used solely to establish the locale, a museum in Liepzig, Germgny. Sidney Kingsley, Darkness at Noon (New York: Samuel French, 1952 , p. 21. 58John Chapman, New York Mirror, 9 May 1951. 241 The plot of Stalag l7 concerned the uncovering of a German agent who is planted in a barracks with American prisoners of war. All their private conversations are almost immediately revealed to the Nazis. The situation becomes critical when Dunbar, a new arrival, boasts of having set fire to a German train while being transported to the camp. If the Germans knew of his boast and thought him guilty of it, they would send him to a concentration camp. Throughout the play, the Americans suspect Sefton, a "sullen young man dominated by an animosity toward the world in general and Price in particular." Price, who is well-educated and the executive type, is the Security man of the barracks. At the end, Price is revealed as the spy and the villain of the piece. Sefton and Dunbar attempt an escape which is accomplished by creating a diversion: Price is thrown, screaming, into the compound and is machine-gunned to death by the German guards. While the play had several Nazis in it, the emphasis of the play was on the mystery of the spy. There is a great deal of horseplay and wise-cracking, latrine humor in the play. There are serious elements to the plot, but they are placed in a suspense- filled and, often, hilarious background. The Nazis include the barracks guard named Corporal Schulz, an SS Captain, and two minor guards. Schulz is the most important of the Nazi characters. He is described as bustling "with efficient Teutonic good humor and cheerfulness which almost conceal his innate cruelty and arrogance." Schulz had once lived in New York and owned a luggage shop. He is on very familiar terms with the prisoners. 242 He enjoys bantering with them and accepts their joshing him. They constantly tell him to "Drop dead" and he returns the comment. He also frequently calls out their warning signal "Timber." There is only one scene in which he behaves as a villain. The SS Officer orders him to beat "Hoffy" with his belt to reveal where Dunbar has been hidden. Schulz complies as the scene blacks out. In the next scene he looks at the man and says "in a placating voice, 'What could I do? I am only a Corporal. It was the Captain's orders.”59 The SS Captain appears in only one brief scene. He speaks German, but his orders are translated by Schulz. He is extremely angry and raging in his brief appearance. The prisoners have hidden Dunbar because he was found guilty of burning the train and is to be sent to a concentration camp. The SS Captain threatens to have the men bayonetted if they do not clear the barracks in two minutes. When he begins to question Hoffy, he strikes him with his riding crop. Hoffy will not reveal where Dunbar is hidden and the SS Officer says in German, "Perhaps we can refresh your memory." He then orders Schulz to beat him. While the Nazi characters were not developed, the play did contain comments on Nazism expressed by the comments of the prisoners and the conditions in the camp. At the opening of the play, two of the prisoners says that German civilians are hanging captured airmen. Horney, a prisoner who has spent six months in solitaire in a 59Beran and Trzcinski, Stalag 17, p. 60. 243 rat-filled dungeon, is speechless and expressionless and plays a piccolo from time to time. The barracks has been deprived of sick- call privileges and when Hoffy is severely beaten, he receives no treatment. The catalogue of brutalities would seem to have created an atmosphere for menacing and credible villains, especially in contrast to the very acceptable heroes, but the response of the critics would indicate otherwise. Most of the critics praised the acting of Lothar Rewalt in the role of Schulz, but the compliments did not suggest villainy. Brooks Atkinson referred to the "fatuous German 60 Another noted that Schulz's "proferred friendliness is 61 guard." transparent as glass." The response to the play as a whole also explains the lack of perceived villainy. Richard Watts, Jr., said the playwrights "haven't bothered with any deep or tragic psychological probing into the hearts and minds of men in war, but have confined themselves n62 to telling a good, melodramatic story. . . John Chapman described the play as "a farcical comedy about--of all places--a German prison camp. . . ."63 An article in The New Leader expressed strong disapproval of the portrayal of the camp: 60Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 9 May 1951. 6IOtis L. Guernsey, Jr., New York Hera1d-Tribune, 9 May 1951. 62Richard Watts, Jr., New York Post, 9 May 1951. 63John Chapman, The Best Plays of 1950-51, p. 12. 244 A different pattern in the current attitude toward war divides the emotions in Stalag 17. The enemy's concentration and prisoner-of—war camps of World War II are still by-words of horror. Scarcely a man has come out of them without a story-- and the marks--of torture, of an existence that dulls the Sensibilities and drugs all desire and hope. Yet here is a dramatic picture of Americans in a Nazi prison camp--and it's full of riotous fun! The two authors . . . should know what the life was like. They convey its filth and fever; the fun, I fancy, they discovered after they were out. . . . Stalag 17 is a play worth pondering, but emotionally it is likely to leave the audience little stirred.54 Here, again, the brutalities which occurred on the stage or are referred to by the prisoners did not make much of an impression.65 In fact, the audience was reported to have accepted the play as a comedy more than a melodrama. "They rocked the theatre's rafters 66 Stalag 17 was the second most popular play in this study, running 472 per- with their yaks, and stung their palms applauding." formances, compared to 500 performances for Tomorrow the World. Fragjle Fox There was a brief portrayal of two captured German soldiers in Fragile Fox67 by Norman Brooks which opened October 12, 64The New Leader, 11 June 1951. 65In equating prisoner-of-war camps and concentration camps, the New Leader article Showed the same lack of discernment concerning Nazism as was shown in the response to The Moon Is Down. Also, with- out disregarding the brutalities, starvation, and atrocities that did occur to Americans, it is still generally true that American prisoners were treated comparatively milder than other prisoners, particularly the Russians.’ (Shirer, Rise and Fall, 2:954.) "almost three of the four million Russian prisoners of war had perished by February, 1942." (Rich, Hitler's War Aims, 2:342.) 66Robert Coleman, New York Mirror, 9 May 1951. 67Norman Brooks, Fragile Fox, Typescript, Theatre Collection, New York Public Library. 245 68 1954. The play was reportedly based on an episode the author 69 It takes place during the Battle of the Bulge. An knew about. American company is demoralized because its commanding officer (played by Andrew Duggan) is a drunk and a coward. In the course of the play, the Americans capture two Germans who appear very briefly in two scenes. One of the Germans is loud and short, and the other is tall and furious with the short one. Their speeches are in German, so the audience would only get the gist of the speeches through intonation or cognates. The Short German speaks to the Americans "with ingratiating enthusiasm." He refers to the Americans as "freie Menchen." He tells them, "Der Hitler is ja fertig-un der krieg wird bald zu ende sein" (Hitler is all done and the war will soon be over). He continues, “ipp_ habe einen Onkel in Milwaukee--der heist Karl Schwartz. Karl Schwartz?“ The tall one orders him to shut up and threatens to kill him.70 In a later scene, one of the Americans hits the short German in the stomach "for Joseph." The short German then tells the Americans that the tank outfit in town is $5. "I don't know their unit, but they're SS sonsofbitches. Yesterday, they com- mandered our rations. I hope you blow their heads off."71 68There had been an appearance of an SS trooper in a musical comedy called Shuffle Along, which opened May 8, 1952, and closed after four performances. The Show was an adaptation of a successful World War I musical and the revised version used an all black cast. 69Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 13 October 1954. 70 Brooks, Fragile Fox, Act 2, Sec. 1, pp. 18-19. 7‘1bid., Act 2. sec. 2, p. 28. 246 The two characters are subsidiary and used to provide a stereotyped enemy for background. Their contrasting appearances were undoubtedly meant to be humorous, as was the short one's obsequious cowardice and reference to his uncle in Milwaukee. The villain of the play is the American Officer. The critics did not mention the portrayals of the prisoners. The play received mixed reviews. Variety commented presciently “Familiarity of the subject-matter and the cliche-pattern of certain incidents and dialog [sic], however, militate against its Broadway 1172 chances. . . Fragile Fox closed after 55 performances. It was nearly three years before the next portrayal of a Nazi on Broadway. However, in the interim, the most successful anti-Nazi play of all time was produced--The Diary of Anne Frank, which opened in 1955 and ran 717 performances. Like the highly successful 1941 anti-Nazi play Watch on the Rhine, the play had no Nazis but dealt with the effects of Nazism. The significance of the success of both plays to the plays in this study will be discussed in the concluding chapter. The Hidden River A German General appeared in a brief scene in The Hidden River73 by Ruth and Augustus Goetz. The play, which opened June 23, 1957, was based on a novel by Storm Jameson. It was a split-level 72Variety, 20 October 1954. 73Ruth and Augustus Goetz, The Hidden River (New York: Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 1957). 247 kind of play, partly a mystery about who informed on a Resistance fighter during World War II and partly a moral inquest into French behavior under the Nazis. The play is set in 1950. Two brothers, Francis and Jean (Robert Preston) run the family vineyard. Their parents were killed in the war and they were reared by their uncle, Daniel (Dennis King) and his mistress, Marie (Lili Darvas). Daniel was found guilty of socializing with a German General during the war and has been in prison. Marie's son, Robert, was the head of a Resistance unit and was betrayed to the Nazis, presumably by Daniel. The real traitor is revealed to be one of the brothers, Francis. During the course of the action, Daniel is released from prison, sickly and broken. In a flashback, he converses with his old friend from Heidelberg, General Otto von Kettler.74 Kettler is revealed as a man of culture who is interested in discussing the Renaissance, Goethe, and Erasmus. Daniel requests the help of Kettler and his son is only a social secretary. Kettler What can he do? What can any of us do? People like Helmuth and I have no authority over the police! They're brutish, ugly men who take their commands from brutish, ugly fanatical leaders! Daniel They're your leaders, Otto. Why do you serve them? Kettler It's our country, Daniel. We have an investment of blood and history in it. Just as you have here--Helmuth and I are trying , 74Kettler was played by Tonio Selwart, who had played Nazis 1" Temper the Wind (1946) and Candle in the Wind (1941). 248 to protect our investment--no more than that. Aren't your nephews doing the same thing for yours?75 Kettler says the priest is in custody of the chief of police who is a thick-necked baker and that Daniel can forget the priest. Daniel asks his servant, Amalie, to bring coffee. Kettler calls her a "rude old bitch." He complains that she never looks at him or bows and says, "She ought to be thrashed!" Daniel answers with revulsion, "Oh, Otto! . . . You are a Prussian general!" Daniel starts for Kettler and the vision fades. Later, the audience learns that Kettler's son was really head of the secret police in Paris. The scene is brief, but Kettler does express Nazi traits. He is erudite and urbane, but hypocritical about his rejection of "brutish, ugly men." He defends his support of the Nazis on the basis of Volkisch thought--blood and history. However, he adds that the Germans are as much victims of the situation as the French--the Nazis' trait of seeing themselves as the victims. At the end of the scene his comments about the maid reveal his elitism and a brutish streak. Kettler has less than a dozen speeches, but his portrayal is clearly that of a Nazi. One critic called the scene between Daniel and Kettler "the play's finest sequence.“76 Francis, the brother who collaborated with the Nazis and turned in Marie's son, did so not out of pro-Nazi sympathies, but because the Nazis threatened to destroy the family estate and 75Goetz, The Hidden River, p. 39. 76Rowland Field, Newark Evening News, 24 January 1957. 249 vineyards if he did not cooperate. He turned in Robert "to save what our family built, to save our way of life, the life we're used to."77 Brooks Atkinson said of the play, "the writing is skillful 78 and the performance is superb." However, most other critics gave the play negative reviews and it closed after 61 performances. The Wa11 The Warsaw Ghetto was the setting for the next portrayal 79 of Nazis. The play was Millard Lampell's The Wall. based on John Hersey's novel of the same name. The play was produced 80 October 11, 1960. Lampell, a screen and TV writer, had investi- gated diaries and also interviewed surviving members of the Ghetto resistance in order to immerse himself in the subject. But he said it was "the files of the Nazi commandant charged with levelling 8] that provided the most detailed 82 the Ghetto, SS General Stroop, portrait of the Jewish resistance." The play covers the time span of 1940 to the spring of 1943 in twelve episodic scenes. The large cast included George C. Scott as Dolek Berenson, who is indifferent to events and interested 77Goetz, Hidden River, p. 71. 78 Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 24 January 1957. 79Millard Lampell, The Wall (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961). 80m. 19 October 1950. 8'Condemned to death in Poland and executed in 1951. Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, p. 714. 82Lampell, Introduction to The Wall, p. xiii. 250 only in survival but in the end fights with the resistance and sacrifices himself to allow others to escape. There are three German Nazis in the play--a private, a sergeant, and an Obersturm fuhrer (an SS officer with the equivalent rank of lst Lieutenant in the U. S. Army).83 The latter character 84 There is a fourth character will be referred to as the SS officer. named Stefan who is a Jewish policeman under Nazi jurisdiction. He is intimidated and throughout the play increases his cooperation with the Nazis to insure his own survival. Although he is an unwilling participant, he behaves as a Nazi and is included in this study. Stefan is of primary interest, but the other Nazis are discussed first to provide a background for discussing Stefan. The official Nazis appear in several scenes in the play, but they are subsidiary characters. They are brutal and help to provide the environment of the Ghetto. The Nazis are shown acting violently. Their actions include forcing an old peddler to dance and kneeing another character, but the major effect of violence comes from offstage shootings and screams and from descriptions of Nazi brutality. One character refers to twenty women and children being machine-gunned in retaliation for an attack on a German patrol. There is also a description of a rosy-cheeked eighteeneyear-old 83Heinz HOhne, The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS, trans. Richard Barry(New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1970), p. 652. 84The SS officer was played by Norman Horowitz, who in real life had escaped from a Nazi slave camp. Howard Taubman, New York Times, 12 October 1960. 9‘ pr. 251 German soldier who shoots people for no earthly reason and keeps track in a little notebook. The longest scene with the Nazis is one in which they are checking papers and selecting people for "resettlement." A German private enters, apparently after having just shot someone (off- stage). He rumples a beggar boy's hair and gives sweets to him and other beggar children. The Germans are described as "brisk, effi- cient, almost bored. They are professionals with a small, annoying job to do." During the scene, the SS officer strikes a Jew with his swagger stick and the sergeant slaps a woman, but the terror comes from the selection process itself. There is no ideology expressed by the Nazis. Their actions are those of villainous suppressors. They are contrasted with both innocent victims and, later, with defiant, heroic resistors. How- ever, there are also cowards and collaborators among the Jews. Stefan Mazur (played by Robert Drivas) is the son of Reb Mazur, a rabbi. He becomes a Jewish policeman and tells his girlfriend, Halinka, that he has done so because "The Germans told us we'd be able to, you know, make life a little easier. Protect "85 He doesn't think his father will approve, but our families. Halinka cheers him by admiring his uniform (his own suit with military belt, club and arm band). A week later, Stefan is at a Jewish wedding in the Ghetto and tells two of his friends that he has been rounding up Jews 85Lampell, The Wall, p. 68. 252 although he was promised he would not have to. Two years pass, and Stefan tells his father that he is required to bring four people to the train station each day. If he doesn't, he will have to go himself, and the Nazis have also threatened to take his girlfriend Halinka. Stefan tries to persuade his father to go to the train station, "You will be taken anyway. They'll get you one of these days. You can save me by going a few days sooner." His father leaves and Stefan is left with Symka, the wife of Berson. She has had typhoid and is a fragile invalid. Stefan picks her up and she "giggles coyly" mistaking his action for a sexual advance. He starts toward the door and she says flirtatiously, "Stefan, really you're impossible. Where are we going?" He exits with his fragile burden.86 Walter Kerr said of the scene that "Few of the episodes in this harrowing gallery are potentially more chilling. . . ."87 Stefan is seen next with the Nazis in the roundup of the Jews. The Nazis have selected his father for "resettlement." Stefan's sister pleads with him to interfere, but he turns his back on his father. Moments later, he averts his eyes from his father and continues helping with the roundup. A year later Stefan is walking with Halinka. The German private stops them. Stefan identifies himself and is told Jewish policemen are no longer exempt. He protests that he was promised safety by the SS officer, but he and Halinka are led off for "resettlement.“ 851bid., pp. 109-110. 87Walter Kerr, New York Herald-Tribune, 12 October 1960. l. 11- 253 Stefan claims a decent motive for beginning his aid to the Nazis but he continues cooperating for cowardly reasons. As a complete collaborator, he is a traitor and a villain. He expresses none of the ideology of Nazism but acts as a Nazi. Stefan's character and actions are historically probable. There were about 2,500 Jfidische Ordungsdienst or Jewish police in the Warsaw Ghetto.88 Lucy Dawidowicz in The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945 said the Jewish police had been created to maintain law and order and to enforce German orders. She described their efforts: The diligence with which the Jewish police performed their work was generated by fear and dilated into viciousness. Every policeman's family--wife, children and parents--had been exempted from deportation, but that exemption depended on slavish obedience to German authority.39 In the play, Stefan is ordered to collect four Jews each day, asks his father to go, and actually abducts a family friend. It was credible behavior: Each Jewish policeman was told to bring seven people for deportation each day or face "resettlement" himself. Now every policeman brought whomever he could catch--friends, relatives, and even members of his immediate family.90 There were many other details of the Warsaw Ghetto which were accurately portrayed according to historical accounts.91 The critics seemed to approve the explicit and implicit violence in the play. One said, "Although there are moments that 88Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, p. 310. 89Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews, p. 304. 90Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, p. 320. 9'See Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews, pp. 205-214, 255-260, 305. 254 shock one by their sheer brutality, this is not violence for the 92 Another said the play was "a valid, 93 sake of theatricality." graphic portrayal of the monstrous German savagery." However, the reactions to the play were mixed. The highest praise came from Howard Taubman in the New York Times, who said "The play . . . 94 combines Shattering power with searing compassion." Walter Kerr in the New York Herald-Tribune was the most negative. He said the play contained "the scars of truth, but it is truth that has not been made art." What Taubman referred to admiringly as "a litany" of "sorrows," Kerr described as "the practice of offering one isolated illustration of suffering after another, instead of binding 1195 us fast by a single unfolding emotional line. It is noteworthy that three of the critics referred to The Diary of Anne Frank as a standard of judgment and to make comparisons. The Wall was moderately successful and ran for 167 performances. Three plays which were produced before the next play in this study should be noted. The first, an off-Broadway production called Shadow of Heroes by Robert Ardrey was produced December 5, 1961, and ran 20 performances. It was set in Budapest, 1944-56, and concerned the Hungarian Rebellion but contained Gestapo characters. The second, produced November 11, 1963, was an eight-performance 92Howard Taubman, New York Times, 12 October 1960. gglgriety, 19 October 1960. 94Howard Taubman, New York Times, 12 October 1960. 95Walter Kerr, New York Herald-Tribune, 12 October 1960. 255 production of Bertolt Brecht's Arturo Ui with Christopher Plummer playing the Hitler prototype head gangster. Third was Rolf Hochhuth's successful The Deputy, which was produced February 26, 1964, and ran 316 performances. It dealt with complicity in the extermination of Jews. The ways in which the play was altered for American audiences are explained in Best Plays of 1963-64.96 The play was "picketed by American fascist organizations and vehemently attacked by some Roman Catholics."97 Incident at Vichy Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy98 opened in repertory December 3, 1964, at the Lincoln Center. Miller had based the play on a story told by a friend. Miller's friend had a friend who was picked up by the Vichy police in 1942. He was taken to a room full of men who were awaiting questioning. A door would open and a Vichy policeman would beckon and a suspect would go in. The rumor moved down the line that it was a Gestapo operation. Finally, he was the last one. But the second to the last, a Gentile, came out of the door, gave him his pass, and whispered for him to go. 99 He left and never saw the man again. Miller had attended the war 96Henry Hewes, ed., The Best Plays of 1953-54 (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1964), pp. 249-250. 97Ibid., p. 12. 98Arthur Miller, Incident at Vichy(New York: Viking Press, 1965). 99Arthur Miller, “Our Guilt for the World's Evil," Ner_ York Times, 3 January 1965, sec. 6, p. 10. 256 crimes trials in Frankfort the winter before the play opened. He said, "I had never seen a real live Nazi, and I was curious." Shortly after attending the trials, he completed the final draft of the play in three weeks.100 The play takes place in September, 1942, in Vichy, France. The setting is "a place of detention." Six men and a boy have been picked up off the streets by French detectives. Soon, three others are brought in. Eight of the group are Jews, one is a Gypsy, and one an Austrian Prince. They discuss whether their detention has anything to do with their being Jews. They also talk about rumors of forced labor camps. A cafe owner brings coffee to the police. The cafe owner whispers to one of the men (a former waiter in his cafe) that the suspects will not be taken to work camps but will be taken to Poland and burned in furnaces. He also tells the waiter the officials will examine their penises to see if they have been circumscized. One by one, the men are taken into a room and only the first, Marchand, returns with a pass to leave. The play centers on two of the detained men, Leduc and Von Berg, who are the last to be examined. Von Berg receives a pass, but he sacrifices himself and gives the pass to Leduc. The other characters in the play include French detectives and police and two characters who are Nazis, a German Army Major and Professor Hoffman, a German racial anthropologist. The Major is the third principal character 100Barbara Gelb, "Question: Am I My Brother's Keeper?" New York Times, 29 November 1964, sec. 2, p. 1. 257 (after Leduc and Von Berg) and was played by Hal Holbrook at Lincoln Center. Before turning to the portrayals of the Nazis, the historical context of the play needs to be clarified to explain why the presence of the Nazis and most of the Jews would have been highly improbable in the time and place of the play. After the fall of France in 1940, Germany occupied the northern part of France, including Paris, and Marshall Petain established the government of unoccupied France at Vichy. The Vichy government under Pierre Laval had a reasonable amount of freedom and received the support and recognition of the United States 101 Government. The Germans were little concerned with the internal policies of Vichy, France, "as long as order was maintained and French wealth poured into the German war machine."102 The implementation of anti-Jewish measures in France was complex. Vichy French legislation was applied to occupied as well as unoccupied territory.103 French anti-semitism was culturally based and, as such, seemed lukewarm or even philo-Semetic to the '04 However, in 1940, the Vichy government had defined 105 Germans. Jews in accordance with the Nuremberg principles. Purge and —; 10'Hoyle, A World in Flames, pp. 50-51. 102Robert O. Paxton, Vichy_France: Old Guard and New Order 1940-1944 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), p. 142. ‘ 103 104 105 Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 393. Paxton, Vichy France, p. 183. Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 393. 258 quote systems were set up by the French in 1940, long before the Germans applied pressure to do 50.106 By 1941, there were already a series of camps in unoccupied Vichy and some 20,000 stateless Jews were interned.107 The Vichy policies were directed solely toward non-French Jews. In discussing the source for Incident at Vichy, Miller Y‘eferred to the "relatively milder regime of Marchall Petain" and Said "The racial laws, for one thing, had not been applied by Petain."108 However, as noted above, the laws had been applied to all Jews, but actions were directed solely toward non-French Jews. There were large round-ups of non-French Jews in September, 1942, the time of the play. German figures showed some 18,000 from the occupied zone and 9,000 from the unoccupied zone. However, at 1:hat time, Petain opposed the deportation of French Jews, and Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, backed down.109 The Germans occupied all of France in November, 1942, following the Allied invasion of North Africa. Even total occu- pation did not change the Vichy attitude toward French Jews. "In July-August, 1943, Laval stubbornly refused to issue a proposed law depriving all French Jews who had become citizens since 1933 106Paxton, Vichy France, p. 174. 107Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 402. '08Niller, "Our Guilt for the World's Evil," p. 10. 109Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 410. 259 ()1r their citizenship so that they could be deported, in spite of Ge rman efforts to force its promulgation."no Thus, the accounts of the Vichy regime would indicate that some of the Jews in the play who are presumably French--Marchand, l.ear the brunt of the anti-Semetic campaign in France.”3 In the (ieportation of Jews in September, 1942, the French did all the r~ounding up of Jews, not only in the unoccupied zone, but even in F’aris and the rest of the occupied zone. There is no indication that the SS, the army, or German civilians in any way participated irl the roundup of Jews in Vichy in September, 1942. noPaxton, Vichy France, p. 185. 111 112 Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 407. Paxton, Vichy France, p. 177. 113Rich, Hitler's War Aims, p. 229. 260 Arthur Miller said that "The occasion of the play is the ."114 However, Vichy was not occupied occupation of France. . . until November, 1942. The occupation of the free zone in November, 1942, put an end to the sovereignty of the Vichy government and the Gestapo "did not waste a day before making arrests as it had "115 But even after that, "the con- done in the occupied zone. tinued German dependence upon the French police assured to the French Jews, both native-born and naturalized, a measure of immunity."116 Incident at Vichy is generally accepted as based on fact, but the events are anachronistic and the Nazi characters are improbable in that setting. The point is significant to comments about the Nazis. As noted in the discussion of The Moon Is Down, Nazism was not monolithic. Nazism in France was also different, and the Nazis in the play will be discussed in that light. The German Major is described as "twenty-eight, a wan but well-built man; there is something ill about him. He walks with a slight limp. . . ." The waiter who has been serving him says, "Tell you the truth, he's really not a bad fellow. Regular army see, not one of those SS bums. Got wounded somewhere, so they 117 stuck him back here." The waiter adds, "He even comes at night H4Gelb, "Question: Am I My Brother's Keeper," p. 3. 'ISRobert Aron, The Vichy Regime, 1940-44, trans. Humphrey Hare (London: Putnam, 1958), p. 416. 116 117 Miller, Incident at Vichy, p. 11. Ibid. 261 sometimes, plays a beautiful piano. Gives himself French lessons out of a book. Always has a few nice words to say, too.""8 In his first appearance, the Major expresses discomfort with his work. He wonders aloud why they can't just ask all the men whether or not they are Jews. The professor does ask the men and none answer. The Major then argues that circumcision is not proof of anything, since he himself is circumcised. Professor Hoffman is curt and says, "Major, you have your orders; you are in command of this operation." The Major says his assignment is a mistake and that he has "no experience with things of this kind." The Professor, "his eyes ablaze," says, "Are you refusing this assignment?" The Major registers "the threat he feels" and offers additional excuses. Professor But the Army is not exempt from carrying out the Racial Program. My orders come from the top. You understand me. Major (His resistance seems to fall) I do, yes. Professor Look now, if you wish to be relieved, I can easily phone General von-- Major No--no, that's all right. I . . . I'll be back in a few minutes.11 The Major's fear of being turned in is a commonly accepted belief about the Nazi system. However, it was not universally 118 119 Ibid., p. 12. Ibid., pp. 43-44. 262 true, and especially not true in France, even for the Gestapo in the occupied zone. . . . in Paris it was easier than anywhere else in Europe for a reluctant Gestapo official to practise obstruction and ca'canny. It was known and understood in Berlin that the French required very delicate handling, involving goncessions on the German side unthinkable in Eastern Europe.1 0 Even in the more ideologically rigid SS, the opportunities for evading orders "were both more numerous and more real than those "'2' The Major's concerned are generally prepared to admit today. next scene is his most important one and is predicated on his being in grave peril if he disregards orders. The Major returns high "with drink and a flow of emotion." He surprises Leduc and the young boy trying to escape and warns them against it. He adds, "this is all as inconceivable to me as it is to you." Leduc says he would believe him if the Major shot himself and some of the others. The Major says it would not matter, '22 His answer is one of since they would all be replaced anyway. the more sophisticated rationalizations that were used by Nazis to justify their behavior. The rationalization was that no one man could destroy the Jews, his superiors were doing worse and subordinates would be willing to take his place. The individual was a drop of water in a wave--powerless, replaceable, dispensable.123 120Crankshaw, Gestapo: Instrument of Terror, p. 144. 12‘Hans Buchheim, Anatomy of the ss State, p. 373. Buchheim notes that the belief that an SS man who refused to carry out orders risked being shot out of hand or sent to a concentration camp is part of the SS legend of sternness, p. 381. 122Miller, Incident at Vichy, p. 55. 123Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 661. 263 In one of the highlights of the play, the Major asks Leduc, "Why do you deserve to live more than I do?" Leduc replies that he is better because he could not do what the Major is doing. Leduc then tells the Major he would be loved if he, the Major, sacrificed himself. The Major resolves his ambivalence about his role with a nihilistic and anti-Semitic outburst: There are no persons anymore, don't you see that? There will never be persons again. What do I care if you love me? Are you out of your mind? What am I a dog that I must be loved? You--turning to all of them-~goddamned Jews! Like dogs, Jew-dogs. Look at him-~indicating the Old Jew--with his paws folded. Look what happens when I yell at him. Dog! He doesn't move. Does he move? Do you see him moving? he_ strides to the professor and takes him by the arm. But we move, don't we? We measure your noses, don't we, Herr Professor and we look at your cocks, we keep moving con- tinually.124 The Major is seriously disturbed by what he believes and then turns his anger against the Jews. His speech reflects the Nazi emphasis on self-effacement and the sacrifice of individual self-interest as well as responsibility.125 The Major's speech is remarkably similar to a comment made by the Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg: A human being in himself (an sich) is nothing, he is capable of personality only in so far as he is integrated, mind and sou1,];gto an organic succession of thousands of his race. The Major's speech also reflects the stress on activity in Nazism as opposed to ideology. 124Miller, Incident at Vichy, pp. 56-57. 125Broszat, German National Socialism: 1919-1945, p. 89. 126Alfred Rosenberg quoted in Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenbergrand Nazi Ideology (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1972), p. 147. 264 The Major then explains to Leduc why there are no persons anymore: I'I have you at the end of this revolver--indicates the "127 Professor--he has me--and somebody has somebody else. His rationalization is akin to the most sophisticated one used by the Nazis--the Jungle theory derived from Oswald Spengler: "War is the primeval policy of all things, and . . . in the deepest sense combat ."128 The use of the Major's rationali- and life are identical. . . zations were an added dimension to the portrayal of Nazis. The play ends after Leduc escapes and the Major faces Von Berg: A look of anguish and fury is stiffening in the Major's face; he is closing his fists; they stand there, forever incom re- hensible to one another, looking into each other's eyes. The Major is not on stage long, but there is development in his character. It was described by Edward Murray in Arthur Miller, Dramatist: The Major moves from a distinctly human concern that he be well-thought of through his claim that the evil is incon- ceivable to him, through growing guilt feelings and resultant 127Miller, Incident at Vichy, p. 57. 128Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, pp. 658- 662. Hilberg lists the five rationalizations in ascending order of sophistication as: l. The doctrine of superior orders. 2. Not acting out of personal vindictiveness, simply a duty, etc. 3. One's own action not criminal, next fellow's is. 4. No man alone can destroy the Jews. 5. The Jungle theory--war is the primeval policy of all living things. Used by those who saw through all the other self- deceptions. The Major had used the fourth rationalization earlier. 129 Miller, Incident at Vichy, p. 73. 265 rage against his accusers, to a stance in which he denies freedom of the will and, in the process of renouncing this human faculty, cuts himself off "forever" from comprehending the purposes of a man like Berg.)30 The portrayal of the Major was noted approvingly by most of the critics. One critic described the Major as "a tormented, twisted but valorous Nazi" and praised Holbrook's performance for making us "not only see but feel the furies that lie and writhe inside "131 the Nazi officer. Another said the Major "demonstrates how a latent individual kindness can be systematically blackened into hatred."132 These comments would not indicate a stereotyped Nazi, but he was seen that way by others. Douglas Watts, who felt the play was "claptrap, noted that the "neurotic German" had a "'33 And another critic commented, "Hal Holbrook 134 "dueling scar. is a standard Nazi-with-no-stomach-for-this." The portrayal of the Major does rest heavily on the concept that his orders are a matter of life and death and, as such, is somewhat stereotyped. However, the Nazi's rationalizations for his behavior are insightful.135 130Edward Murray, Arthur Miller,_Dramatist (New York: Frederick Unger Publishing Co., 1967), pp. 170-171. 131 Whitney Bolton, New York Morning Telegraph, 5 December 1964. 132Louis Chapin, Christian Science Monitor, 8 December 1964. 133 134 Douglas Watts, New York Daily News, 4 December 1964. Martin Gottfried, Women's Wear Daily, 4 December 1964. 135Harold Clurman directed the play and in his "Director's Notes" he said the spine of the role of the Major was "To carry out orders." He said when the Major becomes confident he will follow orders, "He very nearly 'glories' in the fact that he shall 266 The other Nazi in the play is a racial anthropologist, Professor Hoffman, who has few lines and is not developed. While there were such German professors, Hoffman's presence in Vichy, like the Major's, was highly unlikely. Hoffman's function in the play is to examine the Jews for facial characteristics and to see if they are circumcised. The character Lebeau says that the police picked him up and measured his nose, and the Major repeats the idea. The probability of these activities occurring was also very low. The Nazis had divided the population into "'Aryans,‘ who were people with no Jewish ancestors, and 'non-Aryans,‘ who were all persons . . . who had at least one Jewish parent or grandparent." The definition was "in no sense based on racial criteria. . . ." The sole criterion of the "racial laws" was the religion of the person's ancestors. "After all, the Nazis were not interested in the 'Jewish nose.’ They were interested in the 'Jewish influence.”136 The Vichy government had used the same criteria for their definition of Jews as the Nazis had (the Nuremberg principles).137 succeed in doing so." Clurman's interpretation is analogous to the lowest level of rationalization of the five levels listed by Hilberg (see page 46). However, as discussed earlier, the Major's lines do indicate the higher, more sophisticated levels of rationalization. (Harold Clurman, "Arthur Miller's Later Plays“ in Arthur Miller: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Robert W. Corrigan (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969), pp. 158-159. 136 Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, p. 45. '37Ibid., p. 393. 267 The Nazis did attempt to identify physical appearances of "races" but succeeded only in determining desirable Nordic features-- 138 If a person could be blue-eyed and blonde and still be a Jew. there is a possibility that Hoffman's activities did occur, the evidence suggests, in any case, they would not have been carried out by a German. In discussing Incident at Vichy, some critics commented on the worthiness of Nazism as a dramatic topic. Richard Watts, Jr., said "the subject of Nazi race savagery in wartime and its implications is not likely to become outdated for years." How- ever, he added that any play dealing with the subject would be hackneyed without a new angle and that Miller did not provide a '39 Martin Gottfried said "it takes no great mind to new angle. point up the horror and simple illogic of the Nazi massacres" nor the "Jewish victim-syndrone" and that it was all "very holy-roller and very, very dull."140 As in earlier periods, the critics discussed the proper time for portraying an historical subject. During World War II, the critics observed that the subject of Nazism was too close at hand. However, Walter Kerr, who disliked Incident at Vichy, said the subject was too close even in 1964: 138Von Maltitz, The Evolution of Hitler's Germahy, p. 56. The Nazis had printed a pamphlet titled "The Subhuman." However, the ideology of race became very confusing and fell into total disarray. Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race, pp. 198-199. '39Richard Watts, Jr., New York Post, 4 December 1964. 140Martin Gottfried, Women's Wear Dailys 4 December 1954- 268 The matter is so recent and so serious, and we are all of us so engaged in it, that we scarcely dare acknowledge our dis- satisfaction with its theatrical cloaking. Conversely, Douglas Watt complained that Incident at Vichy was a wartime drama and that it "might have been a smash hit had it been presented at that time."142 Incident at Vichy ran 99 performances in repertory at the Lincoln Center and was included as one of the ten best plays in The Best Plays of 1964-85'43 Postmark Zero 144 Postmark Zero by Robert Nemiroff was produced November 1, 1965. It was based on the book Last Letters from Stalingrad by Frank Schneider and Charles Gullans and other factual material. The playbill referred to Postmark Zero as "a documentary production." The cast was headed by Vivica Lindfors, John Hefferman and Hardy Krueger, who had been in the German army as a youth.145 The book Last Letters from Stalingrad was a collection of letters to and from German soldiers at Stalingrad. The letters had been intercepted and delivered to a central consorship bureau, '4'Quoted in Sheila Hoftel, Arthur Miller: The Burning Glass (New York: Citadel Press, 1965), pp. 230-231. 142Douglas Watt, New York Daily News, 4 December 1964. 143Otis L. Guernsey, Jr., ed., The Best Plays of 1964-65 (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1965). 144Robert Nemiroff, Postmark Zero, Typescript, Theatre Collection, New York Public Library. 145Richard P. Cooks, Wall Street Journal, 3 November 1965. Another cast member, Curt Lowen, had appeared as an SS Guard in Stalag 17 (1951). 269 signatures were removed, and the letters were submitted to intense analysis to ascertain the morale of the troops. The object was to prove to the world that the iron fighting elan of the German soldier, his faith in the Fuehrer and Fatherland could not be shaken even at Stalingrad.146 Other factual material in the production included quotes from Speeches and orders of Hitler, Goering and Himmler and also German and Russian documents. The production expressed the suffering, terror and hatred in the letters, incidents on the home front, and official positions.147 There is only one letter to or from each soldier, and, therefore, no continuity or development occurrs in any characteri- zation. The letters present a broad and varied picture of the soldiers. One letter affirms a strong belief in anti-Semitism: Jews, Jews and more Jews--it is exactly as the Fuehrer wrote, twenty years ago: "Everywhere the eternal mushroom of humanity!" Yes, liebchen, even here at Stalingrad. The writer then expresses amazement that a Russian Commander of a division is Jewish with the title "Hero of the Soviet Union" '48 In another and that Russian prisoners had no shame about it. letter, an officer confesses that he bears a share of the nation's guilt for its deeds. Another young officer complains bitterly to his father, a general, for believing in Germany's destiny. There are several orders concerning the soldiers. One order says that no officer is allowed to be taken prisoner but 146 147 Nemiroff, Postmark Zero, Act I, p. 33. Ibid., Act I, p. 33. '48Ibid., Act I. p. 43. 270 must shoot himself. The order adds, "However, premature suicide 149 is forbidden. Heil Hitler!" Hitler's voice is heard, Surrender is forbidden. Sixth Army will hold their position to the last man and the last round and by their heroic endurance make an unforgettable contribution toward the establishment of a defensive frpna and the salvation of-the-Western-World! Adolph Hitler. 5 One reviewer commented "The voice of Hitler thunders and screeches above and around them as he insists to the end that Stalingrad is his."'5' Postmark Zero presented the most direct and brutal portrayal of Nazis and Nazism to date. (It preceeded Peter Weiss' The Investi- gahiph_by over a year.) A colonel remainds the Sixth Army of Field Marshall von Reichenau's order of October 10, 1941, regarding atti- tudes to be adopted on the eastern front: The most important object of this campaign against the Jewish- Bolshevik system is the complete . . . extermination of the Asiatic influence in European civilization. In this connection there devolve upon the troops tasks which go beyond the confines of normal duty. . . . To provide the local population and war prisoners with food is unnecessary humanitarianism. . . . The soldier must learn to fully appreciate the necessity for the severe but just retribution that must be meted out to the sub- human species. 52 Himmler is heard telling the SS that if other nations starve to death it is of no consequence. If l0,000 Russian women die digging a tank ditch, he says it matters only insofar as the '491bid., Act II, p. 16. 'SOIbid., Act II, p. 35. 15'Whitney Bolton, New York MorningyTelegrapb. 3 November 1965. 152Nemiroff, Postmark Zero, Act I: P- 12° 271 ditch is completed for Germany. He discusses the extermination of Jews and tells the men how wonderful it is that in spite of the corpses they have seen--a hundred, five hundred, a thousand--they "153 "have remained decent fellows. In other instruction, Himmler orders the kidnapping of 50,000 children ages 10 to 14 for labor in Germany under the official code name "Hay Action."154 The above speeches pale in comparison to the account by a German engineer named Graebe, who was stationed in the Ukraine in 1942. Graebe described the activities of an Einsatzgrhppe (the Einsatzgruppen were the first mobile killing units). Graebe described a killing pit. He said men, women and children were ordered to take off their clothes and that he saw a pile of eight hundred to a thousand pairs of shoes. He continued, Without screaming or weeping, these people undressed, stood around in family groups, kissed each other, said farewells, and waited for the sign from the SS man who stood beside the pit with a whip in hand. During the fifteen minutes I stood near, I heard no complaint or pleas for mercy. . . . An old woman with snow-white hair was hOlding this one-year-old child in her arms and singing and tickling it. The child was cooing with delight. The parents were looking on with tears in their eyes. The father was holding the hand of a boy about ten years old and speaking to him softly; the boy was fighting back tears. The father pointed towards the sky, stroked the boy's head, and seemed to explain something to him. . . . I looked for the man who did the shooting. He was an SS-man who sat at the edge of the narrow end of the pit, his feet dangling into it. He had a tommy gun on his knees and was smoking a cigarette.1 153Ibid., Act II, p. 29. Himmler's full speech can also be found in Anatomy of the SS, "Command and Compliance, Hans Buchheim, pp. 334-335. 154 Ibid., Act II, p. 1. 155Ibid., Act II, p. 29. Graebe's account can also be found in Crankshaw, Gestapo. PP. 177-179. 272 The production ranged from such descriptions to a letter from Frau Stock thanking Maximillian for the "elegant silver" from Krakow and telling him that "Frau Bauer received a terribly handsome sable from her Klanschen, and these days especially, one must do what one can to keep up appearances. A mother, too, must carry on. Heil Hitler." The play ends: First Voice Santayana said it: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it." Second To a city on the Volga came 330,000 men. Third 5,008 returned alive. Fourth 156 Tonight you have heard from some of them. Postmark Zero presented the most detailed account of Nazi racial policies and atrocities of any play in the study. However, the focus was on the thoughts of the doomed German soldiers. The critics generally praised the moral intention of the play. But, Harold Taubman and others said that it was not possible to evoke sympathy for even the "contritest German" because of the "memories of the horrors and crimes the Germans visited on the Russians and "157 all their other victims. Walter Kerr said reading the letters "would surely be moving," and that they would be better on film soundtrack with "graphic counterpoint." He added that the theatre, even with "half-hearted use of film . . . is bound to falter as a '551bid., Act II, p. 36. 157Harold Taubman, New York Times, 2 November 1965. 273 medium for arranging fragments with cummulative force."158 Postmark Zero closed after 8 performances. It was five years before the next portrayal of a Nazi by an American playwright. However, several foreign plays dealing with Nazism were produced in the interim. First was The Condemned of Altona by Jean-Paul Sartre, produced February 3, 1966, which dealt with the degrees of guilt felt by members of a non-Nazi German industrial family for having played along with the Nazis. It ran 46 performances in repertory at the Lincoln Center. An off—Broadway production called The World of Gunter Grass by Dennis Rosa charac- terized the work of the German novelist-poet Gunter Grass and commented on Hitler and his aftermath. It ran 80 performances. Next was Peter Weiss' The Investigation, produced December 31, 1966, which utilized the transcript of the 1963 war crimes trial held in Frankfurt, West Germany. It ran 103 performances. Finally, there was the successful production of Robert Shaw's The Man in the Glass Booth, which opened September 26, 1968, and ran 268 performances. Happy Birthday, Wanda June The final play in the period was Happy Birthday, Wanda June]59 by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Vonnegut was already well-known as a novelist, but this was his first attempt at a play. The play had opened off- Broadway October 7, 1970, and ran 47 performances before it was 158Walter Kerr, New York Herald-Tribune, 2 November 1965. 159Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Happy Birthday, Wanda June (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1970). 274 closed by an Equity strike of off-Broadway productions. It re- opened on Broadway December 22, 1970. The play is a put-down of the Hemingway type of hero. Harold Ryan is a modern Ulysses who returns home after several years in the Amazon jungle to find his wife pursued by suitors and his young son harboring strange ideas. Three of the twelve scenes in the play take place in heaven. There are three ghosts in the heaven scenes: Wanda June, a little girl who was killed on her birthday by an ice cream truck; Mildred, one of Harold's ex-wives, who died of alcoholism; and Major Siegfried Von Konigswald, a Nazi who had been killed by Ryan in World War II. There is much "black humor" in the play, and the Nazi is presented in that manner. Before Von Konigswald appears, Harold Ryan has told his son how he murdered "The Beast of Yugoslavia," Von Konigswald, with piano wire. In the first of two brief scenes, Von Konigswald has a monologue. He identifies himself as The Beast of Yugoslavia “an account of all the people I had tortured and shot--and hanged." He describes how he murdered them--"Bopping, electricity, syringes.‘I And because a train wreck had created a surplus of oranges, they even killed one man with a syringe of orange juice. Von Konigswald comments on Ryan's claim of having killed two hundred men. "I killed a hundred times that many, I bet" and adds, "That's still peanuts, of course, compared to what that crazy Looseleaf did." (Ryan's friend Looseleaf had dropped the bomb on Nagasaki.) Von Konigswald argues that he and Ryan did it "the hard way" and that . 1:3? J85”) Em: l y l“ "1 'V 1" 275 the record books should show that. He says Ryan killed him as revenge for the man he killed with orange juice, and comments: If I'd lived through the war, and they tried me for war crimes and all that, I'd have to tell the court, I guess, "I was only following orders, as a good soldier should. Hitler told me to kill this guy with orange juice.160 ____' In his next scene, Von Konigswald appears with Wanda June and Mildred. He is playing shuffleboard because everyone in heaven does, including Hitler, Einstein, Mozart, Lewis Carroll, Jack the Ripper, Walt Disney, and Jesus Christ. He jokes about the warm-up jackets in heaven and says he's going to get a pink one with a yellow streak up the back with the words, "The Harold Ryan Fan Club."161 Von Konigswald's brutal Nazi traits are not only boldly explicit, they are humorously conveyed and given the sanctity of a Christian heaven. Mass murder, torture and Hitler are all one with Einstein, Mozart and Christ. There is also satire in the SS man's name; the two syllables of Siegfried mean "victory" and "peace." In spite of the seemingly audacious presentation of the SS man, there is a safeness to the portrayal. First, Von Konigswald's victims are neutralized as "people" and "guys" rather than Jews, Poles, or other specific ethnic groups. Second, Vonnegut's label for Von Konigswald, The Beast of Yugoslavia, 160 161 Ibid.. PP. 76-79. Ibid., PP. 136-138. 276 162 and does not have the connotations is historically improbable that other words more readily associated with Nazism do have-- Poland, Auschwitz, Dachau, etc. In 1934, after the first few portrayals of Nazis, Burns Mantle suggested ridicule over melodrama as a better way of attacking Nazism. Vonnegut's portrayal of Von Konigswald does ridicule Nazism, but Von Konigswald himself is also funny. Thus, he is a villain, but a funny villain, and his opposition is Harold Ryan, the play- wright's main target for derision. And, Von Konigswald's friends are his heavenly compatriots. The writer saw the Broadway production of the play and Von Konigswald's scenes seemed fully acceptable to the audience. One reviewer said Louis Turenne "sparks myriad titters" in the role of Von Konigswald.163 Another said he could not under- stand "what that Nazi butcher was doing [in heaven]."164 The play received mixed reactions. Some critics found it disappointing. Clive Barnes said it was not much of a play but that it was "a decently, sometimes indecently, diverting evening."165 '521n 1941, Hitler decided to destroy Yugoslavia and split it up between Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria. The Germans created a new country called Croatia and occupied that area. (Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, pp. 453-454. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews, p. 390.) The 55 was in Croatia and Serbia, both former parts of Yugoslavia. The brutali- ties in these areas, especially to the Jews, were devastating. (Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews, pp. 341-342, Rich, Hitler's War Aims, 2:263-298.) 163Variety, 21 October 1970. 164 Richard Watts, New York Post, 7 November 1970. 165Clive Barnes, New York Times, 3 OCtOPEV 1970- 277 Walter Kerr praised Vonnegut's "imaginative mind" for looking at the "insane world we inhabit" and reporting it in "unmournful numbers that none of the rest of us would ever have used." Kerr considered the play a Punch and Judy show with shortcomings but 166 found "the thwack and the quack irresistible." The play ran a total of 143 performances. Conclusion While there was an overall pattern in the postwar period-- all but one of the plays (Temper the Wind) portrayed military Nazis--the characterizations and the plays were as diverse and varied as the period itself. The Nazis ranged from buffoons (Happy Birthday, Wanda June) to documentary presentations (Postmark Zara), and there was no discernable pattern in the characters them- selves. The presentation of collaborators began in the last period and continued in this period in The Assassin and The Wall. The latter play contained the most unique Nazi, the Jewish policeman. Most of the Nazi characters, as in the preceding period, were very minor characters used primarily as background--The Assassin, Stalag_J7, Fragile Fox, The Hidden River, The Wall, and Happy Birthday, Wanda June. However, even among these plays, there was considerable delineation of Nazi traits in The Hidden River (General Kittler) and The Wall (the Jewish policeman). Although it was relatively brief, the most probing portrayal in the period was the Major in Incident at Vichy. The portrayal of the Major and of the Jewish policeman in The Wall added new dimensions to the stage Nazis. 166Walter Kerr, New York TimeS. 18 October 1970- 278 There was no pattern in the settings for the Nazi character. The military Nazi were portrayed on their own territory as in Stalag 17, in occupied territory (The Assassin, The Hidden River, The Wall, and Incident at Vichy) and in dire, hostile circumstances (Temper the Wind, Fragile Fox, and Postmark Zero). Most of the plays contained villainous Nazis, but, again, they were more diverse than in preceeding period. The range of villains included the most brutal (The Wall, Postmark Zero), erudite and urbane (The Hidden River), ideological (The Assassin, Temper the Wind, Incident at Vichy), and comical (Stalag17, HappyyBirthday, Wanda June). Violence was implied in many of the plays but was portrayed directly in only two of the plays--Stalag l7 and The Wall. One major change in this period was that many of the Nazis' opponents were portrayed as less than admirable or completely disagreeable. This type of opposition appeared in several plays, including Temper the Wind, Fragile Fox, The Hidden River, and The Wall. In his book Broadway, Brooks Atkinson said the 1950-1970 period was difficult to chronicle. He said, "No generalizations '67 It is also true and no rationalizations are completely true." of the portrayals of Nazis in that long post-war span 1945-1970. During the war, the critics had suggested many times that the treat- ment of Nazism would have to wait for the post-war period. However, Arthur Miller was the only notable American playwright who handled the subject. Any impression the Broadway audience had about 167BroOks Atkinson, Broadway (New York: Macmillan Company. 1970), p. 423. 279 dramatized Nazis at the close of this period was probably derived from European playwrights. CHAPTER VII SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION The purpose of this study was to relate the history of the portrayal of Nazi characters on Broadway by American play- wrights from 1933 to 1970. The chapters on the various periods dealt with three questions: (1) A description and analysis of the characterizations in a context of America's cognizance of and relationship to Nazism. (2) An evaluation of the accuracy of the portrayals from historical perspective. (3) Patterns of develop- ments in the characterizations and functions of the Nazi characters. This chapter will summarize the patterns and developments in each period with comments on the trends and shifts that occurred and observations on the degree of success the plays attained. The chapter will end with the implications for further study. The Nazi characterizations in the first period, 1933-1939, varied from storm troopers to judges, but both the portrayals and the plays had similarities. The major traits attributed to the Nazis were anti-Semitism and anti-Communism. The hero-opponents (or victims) were, of course, Jews and Communists. The portrayals of the Nazis were quite accurate and served primarily as a warning against Nazism. Since all the Nazis were portrayed on their home territory (Germany). their opponents were particularly vulnerable 280 281 and the Nazis particularly villainous. Not surprisingly, all of the plays portrayed Nazi violence. While the portrayals of the first period were intended as an alarm against the rise of Nazism, they were not infrequently viewed as alarmist. The characters were relatively unknown quantities to the audiences, and the playwrights were burdened with furnishing the necessary information. The plays as a whole stressed the nature of the SA, Volkisch thoughts, and the goals of National Socialism. Those elements described the story of Nazi Germany, but it seemed unbelievable on the stage. In 1940, Henry R. Luce commented on the failure of Nazi portrayals previous to that time.1 (His comments are especially helpful because they deal with the nature of the villains and heroes in the plays.) Luce said that all the critics had used the same excuse that the real facts about Nazism were so terrific "that not even the most inspired "2 He make-believer could possibly achieve emotional validity. disagreed and said that in almost all the plays "the Nazi characters were credible" and that "Powerful individual Nazis have been got on stage. . . ." "The real difficulty" he said, "has been to get on stage a convincing rebuttal to National Socialism." He explained: Many characters have been created who convincingly reflect an environment of Brutality, Dictatorship, Regimentation and 1Luce was married to Clare Boothe and he wrote an intro- duction to her successful play, Margin for Error, in which he examined the failure of past anti-Nazi plays and the success of his wife's play. Henry R. Luce, Introduction to Margin for Error, by Clare Boothe (New York: Random House, 1940), pp. vii-xx. 21bid., p. xiii. 282 Untruth. But few characters adequately reflect an environment of Freedom and Kindness and Justice and Truth--an environment, at the very least, of faith in the public and private virtues. The difficulty, then, of creating successful anti-Nazi plays "is not with the antagonist of Freedom, but with its champions." The Nazis' opponents in this period were mostly non-American Jews and Communists and, as such, were hardly empathic American heroes-- champions, splendid performers, socially acceptable, and servants of admirable groups. They were, in fact, idealizations of the little-man (fascist-communist heroes). The portrayals of the Nazis in this period were accurate and valid, but the plays did not provide an acceptable dramatic context. One other factor diverted attention from the Nazi portrayals in this period. The major concern of the country was the Depression and it required a villain who could be blamed for the major problems facing the countr --the businessman. In a dissertation titled "The Characterization of the Businessman in American Drama," Elmer Rosenthal Oettinger, Jr., said of the beginning of the decade: But the theatre was only pausing for a wind which blew remnants of the muckraker and Babbit era's distrust of the businessman into gales of new-found scorn and hate. Within two years the greedy, bumbling tycoon in the drama of the 1920's was to become the symbol of Capitalist decadence in the plays of the 1930's, the "enemy“ of the people.4 The portrayals were intense; "The business entrepreneur was myopic, 5 mindless, brutal as never before." The businessman in the films 3Ibid., p. xiv. 4Elmer Rosenthan Oettinger, Jr., "The Characterization of the Businessman in American Drama" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1966), pp. 134-135. 5Ibid., p. 287. 283 of the 1930's also "became a useful villain for the comedies and . . 6 dramas of soc1al consc1ence. . . ." As long as the Depression remained the social setting, the Nazis were upstaged. The plays of the first period were not well received. How- ever, the critics who approved the warnings about Nazism, but not the plays, went out of their way to insist they were not against such plays. The next period, 1939-1941, was the shortest one and contained the fewest plays, but it had more notable playwrights than any other period--C1are Boothe, Robert Sherwood, Elmer Rice, and Maxwell Anderson. The period opened with Clare Boothe's success- ful Margin for Error. Henry R. Luce offered an explanation for the success of the play. He said the satire of the play demonstrated that "Americans were afraid of the kind of thinking where thought is fused with emotion--the only kind of thinking which leads to conclusions and actions."7 Luce noted that the critics and the public preferred ridicule and satire as the only weapon to fight Nazism. However, Clare Boothe had written her play before the 6Leslie Halliwell, The Filmgoer's Companion, 3rd ed. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1970), p. 113. There were no anti-Nazi films in the period. A Belgian anti-Nazi film was offered to New York distributors in 1933, but no one took it. (Abel Green, Show Biz, from Vaude to Video (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1951), p. 472.) An anti-Nazi Russian film of the play Professor Mamlock was shown in 1938 (New York Times, 8 November 1938)} The first anti-Nazi film from Hollywood was Confessions of a Nazi Spy in 1939. (Halliwell, The Filmgoer's Companion, p. 228.) 7 Luce, Introduction, p. ix. 284 invasion of Poland. The rest of the plays in the period were not satires, but serious treatments of the theme. The Nazis were markedly different in the second period. Most of them were officials and diplomats. They were less brutal, more intellectual and more ideological. There was a greater stress on the main ideas of Hitler--the Darwinistic concept of struggle, racial superiority, and the Fuhrerprinzip. Nearly all were placed in settings outside Germany, often in vulnerable situations, and most were in no position to cause violence to others. Their opponents now included Americans, American Jews, and Nazis who became anti-Nazis. They were more heroic and fully acceptable as American heroes. The plays of this period, 1939-1941, are usually considered as interventionist. What is notable is that as the United States moved steadily into an inextricable involvement in the war, the Nazis were made "safer" on the stage. They threatened their op- ponents with their ideology rather than with physical force. Even when they were a physical menace, it was possible to convert them by persuasion. The plays were interventionist, but they posited an ideological conflict. The heroes in these plays defeat the Nazis with words. In Margin for Error, Moe, the Jewish policeman, effortlessly and humorously puts down the Consul's claims for Nazism and remarks against Democracy. At the end of The Man with Blond Hair, the Nazi cries out for ideological salvation. In Flight to the West, Ingraham says "it's not their way of life that will win in the end, but ours" 285 and he later adds, "That's the issue: rational madness against 8 O 0 Even where the Na21s were 1n control, as irrational sanity." in Candle in the Wind, Madelaine tells Colonel Erfurt, "A cold wind of hatred blows at you from every corner of the earth! You have felt that wind before and yOu know what it means. It means 9 you will lose." She has the last word in the play; "In the history of the world, there have been wars between men and beasts. And the "'0 In There Shall Be beasts have always lost, and men have won. No Night, Or. Valkonen does not speak of Nazis. However, he hears the sounds of war and says it is not the death rattle of civili- zation: I believe it is the long deferred death rattle of the primordial beast. We have in us the power to conquer bestiality, not with our muscles and our swords, but with the power of the light that is in our minds.11 Henry R. Luce had complained that Americans did not want "thinking where thought is fused with emotion" because that kind of thinking "leads to conclusions and actions." The plays of this period did lead to conclusions--that one ideology was superior to another--but they were hardly a call to arms. It should be recalled they were written in an atmosphere of intense conflict between isolationists and interventionists. In his preface to There Shall Be No Night, 8Rice, Flight to the West, p. 150. 9Anderson, Candle in the Wind, p. 115. 10Ibid., p. 115. 1'Sherwood, There Shall Be No Night, p. 153. 286 Robert Sherwood, in fear of his self-respect, said, "I was terrified of identifying myself as a 'Warmonger.'" The most successful play in this period dealing with the theme of Nazism did not have Nazi characters in it. It was Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine12 (April 1, 1941) which received the Drama Critics' Circle Award and ran 378 performances. The play and the reactions to it provide an excellent clarification of the receptivity to Nazism in dreams during this period. Watch on the Rhine The success of and the nature of the villainy and heroism in it was discussed by Irwin Shaw in 1946. Shaw said the play succeeded because it avoided criticism through omissions. . . . It was presented at a time when France and England were at war and we were not. Its hero was a German anti-Fascist, ready to give his life for the defeat of the Nazis. Yet . . . no mention was ever made of the fact that two great governments were at war with the German nation. The reason for that may have been that America was severely divided then into anti-war and pro-war parties and Miss Hellman did not want go split her audience up the middle by realistic frankness.) 14 As noted earlier, the play had been praised by the then strongly isolationist Daily Worker, particularly because the play suggests 12See Chapter IV, pp. 33-34. 13Shaw, Preface to The Assassin, pp. xxv-xxvi. Shaw had been bitter about the failure in New York of his play The Assassin which had been "warmly received in London." He is quoted because his use of "villainy" and "heroism" closely follow the methodology of this study. Also, critical responses corroborate his views. 14 See Chapter IV, pp. 33-34. 287 internal revolution in Germany as the answer to Nazism. Shaw also commented that . . . the particular nature of the hero's politics was left vague. The reason for that might be found in the fact that most of the underground opposition to Hitler originated in the German Communist Party and a Communist hero would have forfeited sympathy of the conservative New York audience.15 Shaw described the hero as being flawlessly noble, unhesitatingly brave, a perfect husband and father, forever faithful, warm and understanding, and added that Muller's "place in the audience's heart is triumphantly cemented by the possession of an equally noble and flawless wife and three noble and amusing children."16 And he also observed that the Americans in the play "who were sitting by while the world burned" were "charming and redeemable, and at worst childishly thoughtless." Shaw's obvious distaste for the play makes his comments sound exaggerated, but they accurately describe the very qualities in the play the critics liked. Muller's heroism was praised ex- tensively and the critics did note his "loyal wife and three gallant children."]7 The villain in the play, the Rumanian Count, was described as a "scoundrel," "degraded," "despicable," "venal," and "unscrupulous." And one critic was pleased that the count was "not even a pro-Hitlerite."18 The critics were also pleased that the 15 . Shaw, Preface, p. xxv1. '6Ibid. 17 Richard Watts, Jr., Review of Watch on the Rhine, New York Hera1d-Tribune, 2 April 1941. 288 word "fascism" was used throughout the play rather than "Nazism." The tone of the criticism was that it was the best anti-Nazi play because there was not "a uniform in sight or a 'Heil Hitler' salute in the entire piece."19 Brooks Atkinson said that many playwrights had tried to "create stirring drama out of the barbarism of Nazi despotism" and pointed out how inadequate the stage was for that genuine truth. He felt that "Only 'Watch on the Rhine' measured up to the 20 terrible realities." Louis Kronenberger also praised the play n21 as "the real anti-Nazi play of our times. Watch on the Rhine continued to be praised as one of the best plays inspired by the war.22 The dramatic merit of Watch on the Rhine is not of import here. What is significant is the complementary nature of Irwin Shaw's negative comments and the praise of the critics. The two opposing viewpoints conjoin into the view that the most acceptable Nazism on stage at that time was the least Nazism. Only one critic, John Anderson, had voiced something akin to Shaw's complaint about Watch on the Rhine. Anderson said, "The whole conflict of ideas in the play is, in fact, curiously out of focus, as if Miss Hellman were dealing with the subject at arm's 'gBrooklyn Citizen, 2 April 1941. 20Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 2 March 1942, sec. 8, p. 1 2'Louis Kronenberger, Eh, 2 April 1941. 22 George F. Wicher, "The Twentieth Century" in The Liter- ature of the American People, edited by Arthur Hobson Quinn (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1951). 289 23 The plays with Nazis in this period did have a clear length." focus on the conflict of ideas--Nazi ideology versus Democratic ideals. But most of the Nazis were armed only with their ideology and the playwrights conquered them with their superior ideology. There was however another subject that was "curiously out of focus" in these plays—-the war in Europe--and that subject was kept at arm's length. The portrayals from 1941-1945 were less successful critically and commercially than those of the preceeding period. With few exceptions, the Nazis in this period were also the least defined of any period. Most of them were Nazi occupation troops in various countries and, as perfunctory, generalized villains, served as foils to heroic allies. There was a new Nazi introduced in this period, the col- loborator, who appeared in The Moon Is Down and Common Ground. Ironically, the American collaborator in Common Ground, Ted Williamson, proved to be the most extreme racist in the study and the only character whose racism was clearly a totalizing and reflexive myth, enabling him to substitute a mythical reality for objective reality. If most of the characterizations in the period aroused little interest, the one exception was extraordinar --a twelve-year- old vicious Nazi who attracted audiences for the 500 performances of Tomorrow the World. The play raised the problems of de-Nazification of German youth; victory over the Nazis was already an assumption. 23John Anderson, New York Journal-American, 2 April 1941. 290 Emil Bruckner, the young Nazi, was the fullest character- ization of a Nazi to date, but it is doubtful that that was the play's attraction. Most critics attributed the success of the play to Skippy Homeir's performance of Emil. Another factor which helped the play was the setting--it was the home of an admirable and likeable American family who have a problem--how to convert a Nazi. If Emil Bruckner was a successful villain it was due at least in part because his opposition was also successful. They were more familiar and acceptable than the heroes of the other plays in the period. Insofar as the premise that acceptable villains require acceptable heroes is valid, the wartime portrayals of Nazis had another obstacle. George Jean Nathan wrote in the middle of the war that none of the many war plays "has had a theatrically romantic hero." There were no central figures "to warm the cockles of the romantic heart." He said that war had become steadily less "bril- liant plumes and shining swords and dazzling uniforms and is in- creasingly resolved into machine versus machine." He said the "picturesqueness of war" had vanished and with it the "pictur- 24 These observations coincide with the views esqueness of heroes." of William Manchester and others that the war was grim and simply a business matter to be finished with little fanfare. In the 1933-1939 period the real opponents of Nazis (Jews and Communists) 24George Jean Nathan, "Stage in War and Peace," American Mercury, July 1943, pp. 104-108. 291 were not very effective dramatically, and in this period, the Nazis seemed to lack opponents who could be dramatically formidable. The postwar period, 1945-1970, was the least cohesive period, and no valid generalizations can be made about it. Most Of the portrayals were military personnel but the characterizations ranged from buffoons to documentary presentations. Stalag 17 was the most commercially successful play in the period. However, Incident at Vichy was the most significant because it attempted to probe the moral level of a Nazi. The war and its after-math did not appreciably alter the audience's receptivity to Nazism in drama. The most successful play dealing with Nazism was the award-winning Diary of Anne Frank which was produced in 1955 and ran 717 performances. Like hatph on the Rhine, it had no Nazi characters. The Diary of Anne Frank was highly praised. In a foreword to the play, Brooks Atkinson said None of the documents or statistics related to the abominations of the Nazis is so accusing as this diary. It reminds us that the Nazis murdered not only lives but life. They murdered a radiant part of the future.25 Several years later, Walter Kerr referred to the play in a review for The Wall: It is all there, the record as we know it, the record as we are one and all ashamed of it, the record as it was so magnificently set down once before in "The Diary of Anne Frank."26 25Brooks Atkinson, Foreword to The Diary of Anne Frank by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (New York: Random House, 1965), p. ix. 26Walter Kerr, New York Hera1d-Tribune, 12 October 1960. 292 "The abominations of the Nazis" and "the record as we know it" had been dramatized by the effects of Nazism, not the portrayal of it. As in the discussion of Watch on the Rhine, the merits of The Diary of Anne Frank are not at issue here. But the play, like the earlier one, suggests that the critics and audiences did not prefer direct portrayals of Nazis. The postwar period was the most varied and eclectic one in regard to attitudes, perceptions, and knowledge about Nazism. Attitudes were Shaped from perceptions as diverse as the war crimes trials to the highly popular portrayal of Nazis on the television series Hogan's Heroes. New knowledge about Nazism was developed through the period, not only through events such as the trials, but through scholarship as well. Karl Bracher, a specialist in the Hitler era, said recently, "It took us years to realize that inhuman racism was the very core of Nazi ideology and politics."27 In summing up the entire period, 1933-1970, it should be noted that substantially all of the traits of Nazism discussed in Chapter II were used in the various plays. Nazis were principal characters in Waltz in Goose Step, Margin for Error, The Moon Is Down, Tomorrow the World, and Postmark Zero. However, these plays included few attempts to create high levels of characterization. There were supporting characters in fourteen of the plays and subsidiary characters in the remaining eight. 27Karl Bracher, Newsweek, 26 May 1975, p. 72. 293 Only a few of the plays of the entire study can be considered to have significance: Elmer Rice's Judgment Day was the first attempt to delineate Nazism by a noted playwright; Margin for Error was the first successful play with Nazis in it; Tomorrow the World was the most commercially successful and included a very complete expression of Nazi ideology; Stalag 17 was the most successful play of the postwar period; and Incident at Vichy_was the sole attempt to delineate a Nazi by a major playwright since World War II. The major obstacle to presenting successful Nazi character- izations throughout the study was the critics' apparent belief that Nazism was monolithic and that, therefore, there must be one characterization which would represent the essence of Nazism. The critics and the audiences seemed to want some unattainable stereo- type to resolve the problem of what a stage Nazi should be. ‘Through- out the years the portrayals had been described as untruthful, too brutal, too nice, too serious, too funny, but rarely just right. The critics rejected stereotyped brutal Nazis, but they also derided the Nazis in The Moon Is Down. It is also apparent that Nazism presents a problem as artistic subject matter. Harry Slochower in No Voice Is Wholly hog; (1946) discussed the problems of German writers in exile. He said that upon the initial impact of Nazi terrorism, most of the writers . concentrated on realistic documentation of Nazi bru- tality in the torture houses and concentration camps. The fascist pattern was not so much presented as assailed 294 or caricatured. Many shifted from "art" toward a "call to arms."28 The comment is a fairly close description of the development of the plays in this study from 1933 to 1941. Slochower then analyzed the problem of depicting Nazism beyond that time: "Sympathy" in art must extend to the enemy as well. The adversary has to be a noble opposition if catharsis is to be effected. The dramatic tension and morality of classical literature issued from organic inclusion of the "black" elements. Now, fascism is such barbarism that, by comparison with it, oppressive systems of the past appear almost humane. The fascist scene thus places greatest strain on a writer who would meet the aesthetic requirement of lending distance to his theme, of presenting acts in their human motivation. The ability to handle the theme of Nazism successfully would seem, then, to depend upon sufficient knowledge of the subject, both intellectual and emotional. In regard to intellectual knowledge, as early as 1944 Hannah Arendt, a German-American sociologist, said that the mass extermi- nations were manned neither by fanatics nor by natural murderers nor by sadists. It was manned solely and exclusively by normal human being of the type of Heinrich Himmler. Since that time, an accumulation of data has led most scholars to stress the normalcy of the Nazi era and not view it as an aberration. In regard to emotional knowledge, Peter Phillips, a survivor of a concentration camp, wrote recently about the tragedy 28Slochower, No Voice Is Wholly Lost, p. 75. 29Ibid., p. 76. 30Hannah Arendt quoted in Hohne, The Order of the Death's Head, p. 382. 295 of Nazi Germany. He said, "It was a tragedy because German man was caught in a net which was the product partly of his external circumstances and partly of his human passions." Phillips said that Greek tragedy involved the external forces, but that in Shake- spearean tragedy the passions were more important. He continued, But still, Shakespeare's tragic hero is caught in a net; and his humanity ensnares him further in it, and brings him to his tragic culmination. It was Similar with Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany was no melodrama, no contest of gratuitous villainy with simple truth. Nazi Germany was a tragedy of humanity ensnared, a tragedy inscrutable to those who cannot understand that all Germans are human beings, whether they were Nazi or non-Nazi3 Hitler or Postor Niemoller, SS or concentration camp inmate. Phillips' comment that Nazi Germany was "no contest of gratuitous villany with Simple truth" is a criticism of nearly all the plays dealing with Nazism and implies what such plays might be. Artists are often thought to be more perceptive and, perhaps, more prescient than other members of society. However, it would seem that the artists have lagged behind in illuminating Nazism. It is understandable, since so little was known about Nazism before and during the war, and the research on Nazism continues unabated. Some European dramatists have delved into various aspects of Nazism. But Arthur Miller is the only notable American playwright who has touched the subject. The writer believes that European dramatists will continue their dramatic explorations of Nazism. However, characterizations of Nazis in American drama are likely to remain about the same; 3'Phillips, The Tragedy of Nazi Germahy, pp. 230-231. 296 the American audience is preconditioned to accept the Nazis as villains, serious or comical. Whatever complex, multi-faceted villains appear, they are more likely to be, like the businessman of the thirties, the perceived cause of current problems and not philosophical abstractions about the past. Implications for Further Study Some implications for further study are apparent. Portrayals of Nazis by foreign playwrights run through the entire period. The foreign plays failed in New York in the 1930's, were somewhat more successful during the war, and considerably more successful in the late postwar period. These interpretations of Nazis could be com- pared with the American portrayals. Portrayals of the World War I German enemy could be investi- gated, particularly in the context of the official, vicious anti- German propaganda. There is also, of course, the much broader consideration of the Nazi in American film, which began in 1939. The Nazi had a long life as the "bad guy" in popular movies and TV following World War II. The humorous Nazis in the successful television series Hogan's Heroes suggests the topic of the Nazi as a comical character. Lastly, a more specific study is suggested by the critical response to The Moon Is Down. Were the critics' views of the play influenced by political or other considerations? More important, why have critics even recently viewed the play from such narrow perspective? APPENDICES 297 APPENDIX A PLAYS WITH NAZI CHARACTERS BY AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS 298 APPENDIX A PLAYS WITH NAZI CHARACTERS BY AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS FROM 1933 T0 AUGUST. 1939 Birthright by Richard Maibaum Judgment Day by Elmer Rice Till the Day I Die by Clifford Odets Pins and Needles by Arthur Arent, Marc Blitzstein, Emmanuel Eisenberg, Charles Friedman and David Gregory with music and lyrics by Harold J. Rome Waltz in Goose Step_ by Oliver H. P. Garrett The Brown Danube by Burnet Hershey November 21, 1933 7 performances September 12, 1934 93 performances March 26, 1935 136 performances November 27, 1937 1108 performances November 1, 1938 9 performances May 17. 1939 21 performances FROM SEPTEMBER. 1939 T0 NOVEMBER. 1941 Margin for Error by Claire Boothe There Shall Be No Night by Robert Sherwood Flight to the West by Elmer Rice Candle in the Wind by Maxwell Anderson The Man with Blond Hair by Norman Krasna 299 November 3, 1939 264 performances April 29. 1940 181 performances December 30, 1940 136 performances October 22, 1941 95 performances November 4, 1941 7 performances 300 FROM DECEMBER, 1941 T0 MAY, The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck The Barber Had Two Sons by Thomas Duggan and James Hogan Tomorrow the World by James Gow and Arnold d'Usseau Land of Fame by Albert and Mary Bein based on a story by Charles Paver and Albert Bein Storm Operation by Maxwell Anderson Thank You, Svoboda by H. S. Kraft based on John Pen's novel You Can't Do That to Svoboda The Searching Wind by Lillian Hellman The Day Will Come by Leo Birinski Common Ground by Edward Chodorov FROM MAY, 1945 TO DECEMBER, The Assassin by Irwin Shaw The French Touch by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov Temper the Wind by Edward Mabley and Leonard Mins Stalag 17 by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski Fragile Fox by Norman Brooks 1945 April 7, 1942 71 performances February 1, 1943 24 performances April 14. 1943 500 performances September 21, 1943 6 performances January 11, 1944 23 performances March 1, 1944 6 performances April 12. 1944 318 performances September 7, 1944 20 performances April 25, 1945 61 performances 1970 October 17, 1945 13 performances December 8, 1945 33 performances December 27, 1946 35 performances May 8, 1951 472 performances October 12, 1954 55 performances 301 The Hidden River by Ruth and Augustus Goetz based on the novel by Storm Jameson The Wall by Millard Lampell based on the novel by John Hersey Incident at Vichy by Arthur Miller Postmark Zero by Robert Nemiroff Happy Birthday, Wanda June by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. June 23, 1957 61 performances October 11, 1960 167 performances December 3, 1964 99 performances November 1, 1965 8 performances December 22, 1970 143 performances APPENDIX B THE OFFICIAL PROGRAM OF THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY PROCLAIMED IN 1920 302 APPENDIX B THE OFFICIAL PROGRAM OF THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY PROCLAIMED IN 19201 The program of the German Workers' Party is a limited program. Its leaders have no intention, once its aims have been achieved, of establishing new ones, merely in order to insure the continued existence of the party by the artificial creations of discontent among the masses. 1. We demand, on the basis of the right of national self- determination, the union of all Germans in a Greater Germany. 2. We demand equality for the German nation among other nations, and the revocation of the peace treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain. 3. We demand land (colonies) to feed our people and to settle our excess population. 4. Only a racial comrade can be a citizen. Only a person of German blood, irrespective of religious denomination, can be a racial comrade. No Jew, therefore, can be a racial comrade. 5. Noncitizens shall be able to live in Germany as guests only, and must be placed under alien legislation. 6. We therefore demand that every public office, no matter of what kind, and no matter whether it be national, state, or local office, be held by none but citizens. 1from Remak, The Nazi Years, pp. 28-30. 303 304 We oppose the corrupting parliamentary custom of making party considerations, and not character and ability, the criterion for appointments to official positions. 7. We demand that the state make it its primary duty to provide a livelihood for its citizens. If it should prove impossi- ble to feed the entire population, the members of foreign nations (noncitizens) are to be expelled from Germany. 8. Any further immigration of non-Germans is to be pre- vented. We demand that all non-Germans who entered Germany after August 2, 1914, be forced to leave the Reich without delay. 9. All citizens are to possess equal rights and obligations. 10. It must be the first duty of every citizen to perform mental or physical work. Individual activity must not violate the general interest, but must be exercised within the framework of the community, and for the general good. 11. The abolition of all income unearned by work and trouble. BREAK THE SLAVERY OF INTEREST 12. In view of the tremendous sacrifices of life and proper- ty imposed by any war on the nation, personal gain from the war must be characterized as a crime against the nation. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits. 13. We demand the nationalization of all business enter- prises that have been organized into corporations (trusts). 14. We demand profit-Sharing in large industrial enter- prises. 305 15. We demand the generous development of old age insurance. 16. We demand the creation and support of a healthy middle class, and the immediate socialization of the huge department stores and their lease, at low rates, to small tradesmen. We demand that as far as national, state, or municipal purchases are concerned, the utmost consideration be shown to small tradesmen. 17. We demand a land reform suitable to our national needs, and the creation of a law for the expropriation without compensation of land for communal purposes. We demand the abolition of ground rent, and the prohibition of all Speculation in land. 18. We demand a ruthless battle against those who, by their activities, injure the general good. Common criminals, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished by death, regardless of faith or race. 19. We demand that Roman law, which serves a materialist world order, be replaced by German law. 20. To open the doors of higher education--and thus to leading positions--to every able and hard-working German, the state must provide for a thorough restructuring of our entire educational system. The curricula of all educational institutions are to be brought into line with the requirements of practical life. As soon as the mind begins to develop, the schools must teach civic thought (citizenship classes). We demand the edu- cation, at state expense, of particularly talented children of poor parents, regardless of the latters' class or occupation. 306 21. The state must see to it that national health standards are raised. It must do so by protecting mothers and children, by prohibiting child labor, by promoting physical strength through legislation providing for compulsory gymnastics and sports, and by the greatest possible support for all organizations engaged in the physical training of youth. 22. We demand the abolition of the mercenary army and the creation of a people's army. 23. We demand legal warfare against intentional political lies and their dissemination through the press. To facilitate the creation of a German press, we demand: (a) that all editors of, and contributors to, newspapers that appear in the German language be racial comrades: (b) that no non-German newspaper may appear without the express permission of the government. Such papers may not be printed in the German language; (c) that non-Germans shall be forbidden by law to hold any financial share in a German newspaper, or to influence it in any way. We demand that the penalty for violating such a law Shall be the closing of the newspapers involved, and the immediate expulsion of the non-Germans involved. Newspapers which violate the general good are to be banned. We demand legal warfare against those tendencies in art and liter- ature which exert an undermining influence on our national life, and the suppression of cultural events which violate this demand. 307 24. We demand freedom for all religious denominations, provided they do not endanger the existence of the state, or violate the moral and ethical feelings of the Germanic race. The party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, with- out, however, allying itself to any particular denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a permanent recovery of our people can be achieved only from within, on the basis of THE COMMON INTEREST BEFORE SELF-INTEREST 25. To implement all these points, we demand the creation of a strong central power in Germany. A central political parlia- ment should possess unconditional authority over the entire Reich, and its organization in general. Corporations based on estate and profession should be formed to apply the general legislation passed by that Reich in the various German states. The leaders of the party promise to do everything that is in their power, and if need be, to risk their very lives, to translate this program into action. Munich, February 24, 1920. APPENDIX C PLAYS DEALING WITH AMERICAN FASCISM 308 APPENDIX C PLAYS DEALING WITH AMERICAN FASCISM It Can't Happen Here Sinclair Lewis' novel It Can't Happen Here was dramatized by Lewis himself and John C. Moffitt. The play was produced by the Federal Theatre Project, and it was opened simultaneously in 1 The twenty-one theatres in seventeen states on October 27, 1936. play, like the novel, used aspects of the Hitler regime to delineate a threat of fascism occurring in America. While the Corporative party and its henchmen Corpos parallel the Nazi party and its storm troopers, the lead characters are home-grown fascists. The head of the Corporative party is Berzelius (Buzz) Windrip, and his righthand man is Pastor Paul Peter Prang. "In his vulgarity and flatulence Windrip resembles Huey Long, and Pastor Paul Peter Prang, an early supporter of the Corpos, resembles the 'radio 2 The play has been viewed priest' Father Charles E. Coughlin.“ generally as a ". . . cautionary tale of how fascism might come to America."3 The writer found only one source that viewed the 1Flanagan, Arena, p. 115. 2Goldstein, The Political Stage, p. 271. 3Jay Williams, Stage Left (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974), p. 228. Other writers who classify the play as anti- fascist rather than anti-Nazi include Anita Blok, The Changing World of American Drama (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1939), p. 386; Gagey, Revolution in American Drama, p. 106; Curti, Ihe Growth of American Thought, p. 714; Himelstein, Drama Was a Weapon, pp. 89-99; and Rabkin, Drama and Commitment, p. 106. Two of these writers also refer to Rice's Judgment Day, and both view it as an 309 310 play as ". . . an attempt to awaken the American people to the international danger of Nazism."4 Hallie Flanagan said in Arena that in keeping with Sinclair Lewis' wishes, the promotion for the play out of the Federal Theatre's Washington office gave orders that stated in part: Also forbidden in most positive terms are any references to any foreign power, any policy of a foreign power, the per- sonalities of any foreign power or government; any comparison between the United States and any specific foreign power, system, personality, etc. Our business is with a play of 5 our time and country and our job is wholly a job of theatre. It Can't Happen Here was successful and was produced across the 6 nation for a total of 260 weeks. It is significant that Sinclair Lewis had sold the novel to Hollywood, but it was not made into a movie for fear that it would offend foreign markets. The film industry viewpoint was expressed by Motion Picture Daily which stated that the film was withheld ". . . on grounds that it appeared to contain elements inimical to the public welfare." The item added that "Apparently the authorities of the Works Progress Administration entertain no such scruples as to the public weal and as far as what other nations attack on Nazism: Himelstein, Drama Was a Weapon, p. 192; and Rabkin, Drama and Commitment, p. 251. 4Caspar H. Nannes, Politics in the American Drama (Washing- ton, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1960), p. 140. 5Flanagan, Arena, pp. 120-121. 6Ibid., p. 129. 311 think, it is probably felt that is what the State Department is for."7 American Landscape American Landscape by Elmer Rice was presented December 3, 1938, and ran 43 performances. Rice said it was a ". . . plea for tolerance, for freedom of the mind" and ". . . an affirmation of the American tradition of liberty and of the American Way of Life."8 The play had a minor character who was an American Bundist. The story concerned Captain Frank Dale, age 75, who wants to retire and sell his shoe factory and his estate. The potential buyer of the estate is Klaus Stillgebauer, who is a representative of a German-American Bund. He is stiff and formal and "his perfect English has a markedly continental inflection." He appears only briefly but is identified as pro-Nazi. He tells the Dale family that his organization is ". . . composed of German-Americans of pure Aryan blood . . ." and that they intend to establish ". . . a camp for athletics and the cultivation of bodily forces and beauty." Later there is a description of his group as the one that preaches ". . . the diabolical doctrine of racial and religious intolerance."9 The estate, of course, is not sold to Stillgebauer and his group. 7Motion Picture Daily, 28 October 1936. 8Elmer Rice, "Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Per Elmer Rice," hem York Times, 25 December 1938, sec. 9, p. 3. 9Elmer Rice, American Landscape (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1939). 312 The American Way The American Way by George Kaufman and Moss Hart was a 10 panoramic spectacle with music by Oscar Levant. It was frankly patriotic propaganda and was highly successful. It opened January 21, 1939 and ran 244 performances. The episodic play follows the life of a German immigrant, Martin Gunther, from his arrival in 1896 until his death in 1933. Martin's grandson, Karl, is disillusioned when the depression arrives. He is twenty-one and has never held a job. Against his grandfather's wishes, Karl attends meetings of the local Brownshirts because he says, "We've got different problems now. And the same old system can't meet them any longer." Martin tells him of the evils of a dictatorship, but Karl says "they get results" and that you can't eat freedom when you're hungry. He attends an outdoor meeting to get initiated and Brown Shirts appear--"thirty, forty, a hundred." A leader speaks to them about the need for "spiritual regeneration" and the “coming struggle for the reconstruction of America." Martin interferes with the ceremony, arguing with the leader and trying to persuade Karl not to join. Martin makes an impassioned plea for democracy in America and the leader asks him if he's German. Martin says he is but it doesn't matter and he would rather see his grandson dead then at the meeting. Martin ends, “I am ashamed of that flag-- that pirate flag--f1ies over Germany today! I am--" The leader 10George Kaufman and Moss Hart, Six Plays by Kaufman and Hart (New York: Modern Library, 1942). 313 strikes him with his belt and the rest join in and rain blows un- mercifully. Karl tries to intervene but is held back. The crowd recedes and his grandfather is dead. The play ends with a funeral recession for Martin with "a single voice starting 'The Star Spangled Banner'" and ending with everyone, men, women, and children joining in--"their voices mount to a fervid finish." The portrayal of American Bundists in American Landscape and The American Way came at a time when the American Nazi movement was in sharp decline in the United States. For political purposes, the German government had severed all ties with the Bund in February 1938, although it maintained relationships with numerous other organizations for propaganda purposes. By August 1938, the leaders of the Bund knew the end of their movement was in sight. Unlike other right-wing groups who had always phrased their appeal in terms of Americanism, the Bundists had openly expressed their belief in racial exclusiveness and their acceptance of Hitler as their leader. Because of this, the German edict of 1938 did little to dispel the belief by Americans that Berlin was still behind the Bundists." 11 307, 315. Diamond, The Nazi Movement in the U.S., pp. 293-296, 301, BIBLIOGRAPHY 314 BIBLIOGRAPHY Books Albright, H. 0.; Halstead, William P.; and Mitchell, Lee. Principles of Art. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1968. Anderson, Maxwell. Candle in the Wind. Washington, D.C.: Anderson House, 1941. . Storm Operation. Washington, D.C.: Anderson House, 1944. Aron, Robert. In collaboration with Georgette Elgey. The Vichy Regime, 1940-44. Translated by Humphrey Hare. London: Putnam, 1958. Arnold-Forster, Mark. The World at War. New York: Stein and Day, 1973. Atkinson, Brooks. Broadway. New York: Macmillan Company, 1970. 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Review of Candle in the Wind by Maxwell Anderson. New York Journal-American, 23 October 1941. . Review of Judgment Day by Elmer Rice. New York Evening Journal, 17 September 1934. Review of The Man with Blond Hair by Norman Krasna. hen York Journal-American, 5 November 1941. Review of Save Me the Waltz by Katharine Dayton. hen_ York Journal-American, 1 March 1938. Atkinson, Brooks. New York Times, 19 January 1941, sec. 9, p. l. . Review of The Brown Danube by Burnet Hershey. New York Times, 18 May 1939. . Review of Candle in the Wind by Maxwell Anderson. hen_ York Times, 23 October 1941. Review of Flight to the West by Elmer Rice. New York Times, 31 December 1940. . Review of The Fragile Fox by Norman Brooks. New York Times, 13 October 1954. . Review of The Hidden River by Ruth and Augustus Goetz. New York Times, 24 January 1957. . Review of Juegment Day_by Elmer Rice. New York Times, 13 September 1934. . Review of The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck. New York Times, 8 April 1942. . Review of Stalag 17 by Donald Beran and Edmund Trzcinski. New York Times, 9 May 1951. Review of Temper the Wind by Edward Mabley and Leonard Mins. New York Times, 28 December 1946. . Review of There Shall Be No Night by Robert Sherwood. New York Times, 5 October 1941, sec. 9, p. l. . Review of Till the Day I Die by Clifford Odets. hen. York Times, 27 March 1935. Review of Waltz in Goose Step by Oliver H. P. Garrett. New York Times, 2 November 1938. "Where the Theatre Stands." New York Times, 9 June 1940, sec. 9, p. l. 326 Barnes, Clive. Review of Happy Birthday, Wanda June by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. New York Times, 8 October 1970. Barnes, Howard. Review of The Barber Had Two Sons by Thomas Duggan and James Hogan. New York Herald-Tribune, 3 February 1943. . Review of The French Touch by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov. New York Hera1d-Tribune, 10 December 1945. . Review of Kultur. New York Herald—Tribune, 27 September, 1933. . Review of Tomorrow the World by James Gow and Arnaud d'Usseau. New York Hera1d-Tribune, 15 April 1943. "The Berlin Theatre Has a Boom." New York Times, 7 JUIY 1940. sec. 9, p. l. Bolton, Whitney. Review of Incident at Vichy by Arthur Miller. New York Morning:Telegraph, 5 December 1964. . Review of Postmark Zero by Robert Nemiroff. New York Morning Telegraph, 3 November 1965. Brown, John Mason. Review of Birthright by Richard Maibaum. hen. York Evening Post, 22 November 1933. . Review of The Brown Danube by Burnet Hershey. New York Post, 18 May 1939. . Review of Margin for Error by Clare Boothe. New York Post, 4 November 1939. . Review of Till the Day I Die by Clifford Odets. New York Evening Post, 27 March 1935. Chapin, Louis. Review of Incident at Vichy by Arthur Miller. Christian Science Monitor, 8 December 1964. Chapman, John. Review of The Assassin by Irwin Shaw. New York News, 18 October 1945. . Review of Common Ground by Edward Chodorov. New York News, 26 April 1945. . Review of Stalag 17 by Donald Beran and Edmund Trzcinski. New York Mirror, 9 May 1951. . Review of Thank You, Svoboda by H. S. Kraft. New York Daily News, 2 March 1944. 327 Coleman, Robert. Review of The Assassin by Irwin Shaw. New York Daily Mirror, 18 October 1945. . Review of The Brown Danube by Burnet Hershey. New York Daily Mirror, 19 May 1939. . Review of Stalag 17 by Donald Beran and Edmund Trzcinski. New York Mirror, 9 May 1951. Cooks, Richard P. Review of Common Ground by Edward Chodorov. Wall Street Journal, 26 April 1945. Review of Postmark Zero by Robert Nemiroff. Wall Street Journal, 3 November 1965. Cousins, Norman. Theatre Arts, October 1941. Crowther, Bosley. "For the Offensive." New York Times, 3 June 1945, sec. 2, p. l. New York Times, 14 December 1941, sec. 9, p. 7. Deutsch, Helen. Review of Till the Day I Die by Clifford Odets. New York Herald-Tribune, 28 April 1935. Editorial. Nation, 20 September 1941, p. 241. Editorial. New Republic, 18 May 1942, p. 657. Field, Rowland. Review of The Hidden River by Ruth and Augustus Goetz. Newark Evening News, 24 January 1957. Frakes, M. Christian Century, 24 September 1941, pp. 1172-1173. Freedley, George. Review of The Barber Had Two Sons by Thomas Duggan and James Hogan. New York Morning Telegraph, 3 February 1943. . Review of The Day Will Come by Leo Birinski. New York Morning Telegraph, 9 September 1944. . Review of Tomorrow the World by James Gow and Arnaud d'Usseau. New York MorningyTelegraph, 16 April 1943. . Review of The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck. New York Morning Telegraph, 9 April 1942. Garland, Robert. Review of Birthright by Richard Maibaum. hen_ York World-Telegram, 22 November 1933. . Review of Judgment Day by Elmer Rice. New York World- Telegram, 13 September 1934. 328 Garland, Robert. Review of The Shatter'd Lamp by Leslie Reade. New York World-Telegram, 22 March 1934. Review of Thank You, Svoboda by H. S. Kraft. New York Journal-American, 2 March 1944. Garrett, Oliver H. P. "Why Write an Anti-Nazi Play.“ New York Times, 30 October 1938, Sec. 9, p. 3. Gassner, John. "Stalemate in Theatre." Current History, March 1943, p. 66. Gelb, Barbara. "Question: Am I My Brother's Keeper?" New York Iimee, 29 November 1964, sec. 2, p. l. Gibbs, Woolcott. Review of Land of Fame by Albert and Mary Bein. The New Yorker, 2 October 1943, p. 38. Gildner, Rosamond. "'Legitimate' Hopes," Theatre Arts, October 1944, p. 566. Gottfried, Martin. Review of Incident at Vichy by Arthur Miller. Women's Wear Daily, 4 December 1964. Guernsey, Otis L. Review of Stalag 17 by Donald Beran and Edmund Tracinski. New York Herald-Tribune, 9 May 1951. Hayes, Arthur Garfield. "The Burning of the German Reichstag," Nation, 22 November 1933, pp. 586-589. Hammersmith, Jack. "The Y. 5. Office of War Information (OWI) and the Polish Question, 1943-1945," The Polish Review, 19 (1974), pp. 67-76. Hughes, Charlotte. "Women Playmakers." New York Times, 4 May 1941, sec. 7, p. 10. Isaacs, Edith J. R. "Broadway in Review." Theatre Arts Monthly, November 1933, p. 840. . "Broadway in Review." Theatre Arts Monthly, November 1934. pp. 814-815. . "Broadway in Review." Theatre Arts Monthl , May 1935, pp. 328—331. . "Broadway in Review." Theatre Arts Monthly, January 1939. p. 39. Isaacs, Hermine Rich. "Beauty and the Beast of Berlin." Theatre Arts, May 1943. PP. 283-290. 329 Kerr, Walter. Review of Happy Birthday, Wanda June by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. New York Times, 18 October 1970. . Review of Postmark Zero by Robert Nemiroff. New York Hera1d—Tribune, 2 November 1965. . Review of The Wall by Millard Lampell. New York Herald- Tribune, 12 October 1960. Klapp, Orin E. "American Villain Types." American Sociological Review, 21 (June, 1956), 337-340. Kronenberger, Louis. "The Decline of the Theatre." Commentary, November 1945, p. 48. . Review of The Assassin by Irwin Shaw. PM_(New York), 18 October 1945. . Review of Flight to the West by Elmer Rice. Eh (New York), 31 December 1940. . Review of The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck. EM_(New York), 8 April 1942. Krutch, Joseph Wood. Review of Candle in the Wind by Maxwell Anderson. Nation, 20 September 1941, p. 241. Lockridge, Richard. Review of Birthright by Richard Maibaum. hen_ York Sun, 22 November 1933. . Review of The Brown Danube by Burnet Hershey. New York Em. 18 May 1939. -——— . Review of Margin for Error by Clare Boothe. New York Sen, 4 November 1939. . Review of The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck. New York ém. 8 April 1942. _ MacLeish, Archiabld. "The Irresponsibles." Nation, 18 May 1940, p. 618. "Man of the Year.’I Time Magazine, 2 January 1939, pp. 11-14. Mantle, Burns. New York Daily News, 22 March 1934. New York Daily News, 1 April 1934. Review of The Barber Had Two Sons by Thomas Duggan and James Hogan. New York News, 2 February 1943. 330 Mantle, Burns. Review of The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck. hen York News, 8 April 1942. . Review of Pins and Needles. New York Daily News, 22 March 1934. . Review of Professor Mamlock by Friedrich Wolf. New York Daily News, 14 April 1937. . Review of Races by Ferdinand Bruchner. New York Daily News, 13 May 1935. Review of The Shatter'd Lamp by Leslie Reade. New York Daily News, 22 March 1934. Marshall, Margaret. Review of Land of Fame by Albert and Mary Bein. Nation, 2 October 1943. Miller, Arthur. "Our Guilt for the World's Evil." New York Times, 3 January 1965, sec. 6, p. 10. Morehouse, Ward. Review of The Assassin by Irwin Shaw. New York §nn, 18 October 1945. . Review of The Barber Had Two Sons by Thomas Duggan and James Hogan. New York Sun, 2 February 1943. . Review of The Day Will Come by Leo Birinski. New York Sup. 8 September 1944. . Review of The French Touch by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov. New York Sun, 10 December 1945. . Review of The Searching Wind by Lillian Hellman. hen. York Sun, 13 April 1944. . Review of Thank You, Svoboda by H. S. Kraft. New York §nn, 2 March 1944. Motion Picture Daily, 28 October 1936. New York Times, 10 April 1935. New York Times, 18 November 1935, p. 5. New York Times, 8 November 1938. New York Times, 21 January 1940, p. 27. Nichols, Lewis. New York Times, 3 June 1945, sec. 2, p. l. 331 Nichols, Lewis. "Notes on the War Plays." New York Times, 3 October 1943, sec. 2, p. 1. " . Review of The Assassin by Irwin Shaw. New York Times, 18 October 1945. Review of The French Touch by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov. New York Times, 10 December 1945. . Review of Tomorrow the World by James Gow and Arnaud d'Usseau. New York Times, 15 April 1943. . "Theatre at War." New York Times, 11 March 1944, sec. 2, p. l. Pemberton, Brock. New York Times, 28 December 1941, sec. 9, p. l. . "The Year 1939 on the Stage." New York Times, 31 December 1939, sec. 9, p. l. Pollock, Arthur. Review of The Brown Danube by Burnet Hershey. Brooklyn Daily EagJe, 18 May 1939. . Review of Judgment Day by Elmer Rice. Brook1yn Daily Eagle, 13 September 1934. . 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