Rolf Hochhuth is a German author and playwright. He is best known for his 1963 drama
The DeputyThe Deputy, a Christian tragedy , also known as The Representative, is a controversial 1963 play by Rolf Hochhuth which indicts Pope Pius XII for his failure to take action or speak out against The Holocaust. It has been translated into more than twenty languages...
and remains a controversial figure for his plays and other public comments, such as his insinuation of Pope Pius XII's sympathies for Hitler's extermination of the Jews in the 1963 play
The Deputy and his 2005 defense of
Holocaust denierHolocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
David IrvingDavid John Cawdell Irving is an English writer,best known for his denial of the Holocaust, who specialises in the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany...
.
Youth
Rolf Hochhuth is descended from an old-established
HessianHesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
burgess family. During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he was a member of the
Deutsches Jungvolkthumb|250px|DJ TroopThe Deutsches Jungvolk was the subdivision of the Hitler Youth for boys aged 10 to 14. It reinforced the National Socialist view of Aryan ideals and transmitted the Nazi idea of the Volksgemeinschaft...
. In 1948 he did an apprenticeship as a bookseller. Between 1950 and 1955 he worked in bookshops in Marburg, Kassel and Munich. At the same time he attended university lectures as a guest student and began with early attempts at writing fiction. Between 1955 and 1963 he was a lector at a major West-German publishing house.
The Deputy
Hochhuth's plays include his 1963 drama
Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches TrauerspielThe Deputy, a Christian tragedy , also known as The Representative, is a controversial 1963 play by Rolf Hochhuth which indicts Pope Pius XII for his failure to take action or speak out against The Holocaust. It has been translated into more than twenty languages...
(
The Deputy, a Christian Tragedy, translated by Richard & Clara Winston, 1964), that caused controversy because of its criticism of
Pope Pius XIIThe Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
's role in
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The play was subsequently published in the UK in Robert David MacDonald's translation as
The Representative (1965).
Although the play has never received serious praise as either literature or history, its publisher Ed Keating and journalist Warren Hinckle, who themselves considered it "dramaturgically flawed," organized a committee to defend the play as a matter of free speech. In 2007,
Ion Mihai PacepaIon Mihai Pacepa is the highest-ranking intelligence official ever to have defected from the former Eastern Bloc. He is now a United States citizen, a writer, and a columnist....
, a former Romanian spymaster, alleged that the play was part of a KGB campaign to discredit Pius XII. A leading German newspaper opined "that Hochhuth did not require any KGB assistance for his one-sided presentation of history.
The unedited version of the play is over five hours long and includes the true story of
Kurt GersteinKurt Gerstein was a German SS officer and member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS. He witnessed mass murders in the Nazi extermination camps Belzec and Treblinka...
. Gerstein, a devout Protestant and later a member of the SS, wrote an eyewitness report about the
gas chambersGas Chambers is a fast, hollow and shallow point break type of wave. Being that it is a high performance wave it is well suited for the average to pro level surfer. Gas Chambers is located on the North Shore of Oahu about a 1/4 of a mile north of Ehukai Beach Park and 1/2 a mile west of Sunset...
and, after the war, died as a POW.
The play was first performed in Berlin on 20 February 1963 under the direction of
Erwin PiscatorErwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator was a German theatre director and producer and, with Bertolt Brecht, the foremost exponent of epic theatre, a form that emphasizes the socio-political content of drama, rather than its emotional manipulation of the audience or on the production's formal...
, a onetime collaborator in Soviet theater until having to flee Stalinist violence. It received its first English production in London by the
Royal Shakespeare CompanyThe Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
at the
Aldwych TheatreThe Aldwych Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Aldwych in the City of Westminster. The theatre was listed Grade II on 20 July 1971. Its seating capacity is 1,200.-Origins:...
in 1963 in a translation by
Robert David MacDonaldRobert David MacDonald , was a Scottish playwright, translator and theatre director.-Work as a Theatre Director:...
. It was directed by Clifford Williams with Alan Webb or
Eric PorterEric Richard Porter was an English actor of stage, film and television.-Early life:Porter was born in Shepherd's Bush, London, to Richard John Porter and Phoebe Elizabeth Spall...
as Pius XII,
Alec McCowenAlexander Duncan "Alec" McCowen CBE is an English actor. He is known for his work in numerous film and stage productions. He was awarded the CBE in the 1985 New Year's Honours List.-Personal:...
as Father Fontana and
Ian RichardsonIan William Richardson CBE was a Scottish actor best known for his portrayal of the Machiavellian Tory politician Francis Urquhart in the BBC's House of Cards trilogy. He was also a leading Shakespearean stage actor....
. In the United Kingdom it has since been revived at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, in 1986, and at the
Finborough TheatreThe Finborough Theatre is a fifty seat theatre in the Earls Court area of London, United Kingdom , which presents new British writing, UK and premieres of new plays, primarily from the English speaking world including North America, Canada, Scotland and Ireland, music theatre, and rarely seen...
, London, in 2006.
An abridged version opened on
BroadwayBroadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
on 26 February 1964 at the
Brooks Atkinson TheatreThe Brooks Atkinson Theatre is a Broadway theater located at 256 West 47th Street in Manhattan.Designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp, it was constructed as the Mansfield Theatre by the Chanin brothers in 1926. After 1933, the theatre fell into relative disuse until 1945, when Michael Myerberg...
, with
Emlyn WilliamsGeorge Emlyn Williams, CBE , known as Emlyn Williams, was a Welsh dramatist and actor.-Biography:He was born into a Welsh-speaking, working class family in Mostyn, Flintshire....
as Pius XII and
Jeremy BrettJeremy Brett , born Peter Jeremy William Huggins, was an English actor, most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in four Granada TV series.-Early life:...
as Father Fontana. The play ran for 316 performances.
The Deputy was made into a film
AmenAmen. is a 2002 German, Romanian and French film directed by Costa-Gavras.- Plot :The film Amen. examines the links between the Vatican and Nazi Germany. The central character is Kurt Gerstein , a Waffen-SS officer employed in the SS Hygiene Institute, designing programs for the purification of...
by Costa Gavras in 2002, which focused more on the story of Kurt Gerstein.
Soldiers
Hochhuth's next play,
Soldiers, Necrology on Geneva (1967), was, like his first, a literarily unsuccessful attempt at historical fiction, alleged that
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
was responsible for the death of the Polish Prime Minister, General Władysław Sikorski, in an airplane crash in 1943, groundlessly contradicting the official version of events as an accident, and claiming that General Sikorski had been murdered on Churchill's orders. Unbeknownst to Hochhuth, the pilot of the plane was still alive and he won a libel case that seriously affected the London theater which staged the play.
That aspect of the play has overshadowed Hochhuth's conceit, that the play would contribute to a debate on the ethics of the area bombing of civilian areas by the
Royal Air ForceThe Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
during the Second World War, with particular reference to Operation Gomorrah, the
Royal Air ForceThe Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
raids on
Hamburg-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
in 1943, and culminating in a lengthy and invented debate between
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
and the pacifist
George BellGeorge Kennedy Allen Bell was an Anglican theologian, Dean of Canterbury, Bishop of Chichester, member of the House of Lords and a pioneer of the Ecumenical Movement.-Early career:...
,
Bishop of ChichesterThe Bishop of Chichester is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the Counties of East and West Sussex. The see is in the City of Chichester where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity...
.
The play partially drew on the work of a young British author
David IrvingDavid John Cawdell Irving is an English writer,best known for his denial of the Holocaust, who specialises in the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany...
, who later became notorious as a
Holocaust denierHolocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
. Since that time, Irving and Hochhuth have been close friends.
Controversy arose in Britain in 1967 when the mooted premiere at Britain's
National TheatreThe Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
was cancelled, due to the intervention of the National Theatre board, despite the support for the play of
Laurence OlivierLaurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
, under pressure from
his wifeJoan Ann Plowright, Baroness Olivier, DBE , better known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English actress, whose career has spanned over sixty years. Throughout her career she has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award and has been nominated for an Academy Award, an Emmy, and two BAFTA Awards...
, and
Kenneth TynanKenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
. At the time of the controversy in Britain, Irving was the only historian who gave "unequivocal" support for Hochhuth's thesis, others consulted by Tynan considered it highly improbable. Despite this setback, the play was produced soon after in the West End with
John ColicosJohn Colicos was a Greek-Canadian actor. He was a distinguished stage actor in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.-Career:...
in the cast. The English translation was again by
Robert David MacDonaldRobert David MacDonald , was a Scottish playwright, translator and theatre director.-Work as a Theatre Director:...
. In the UK, the play was seen on tour in the early 1990s and was revived most recently at the
Finborough TheatreThe Finborough Theatre is a fifty seat theatre in the Earls Court area of London, United Kingdom , which presents new British writing, UK and premieres of new plays, primarily from the English speaking world including North America, Canada, Scotland and Ireland, music theatre, and rarely seen...
, London, in 2004.
A Love in Germany and the Filbinger Affaire
In 1978, his novel
A Love in Germany about an affair between a Polish POW and a German woman in
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
stirred up a debate about the past of
Hans FilbingerHans Karl Filbinger was a conservative German politician and a leading member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union in the 1960s and 1970s, serving as the first chairman of the CDU Baden-Württemberg and vice chairman of the federal CDU...
, Minister-President of
Baden-WürttembergBaden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...
who had been a Navy lawyer and judge at the end of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The affair culminated in Filbinger's resignation.
For
A Love in Germany, Hochhuth was awarded the
Geschwister-Scholl-PreisThe Geschwister-Scholl-Preis is a literary prize which was initiated in 1980 by the State Association of Bavaria in the Stock Market Society of the German Book Trade and the city of Munich...
in 1980.
In 1983
Andrzej WajdaAndrzej Wajda is a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he is possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School"...
, the latter Oscar winner, made the story into a film "Miłość w Niemczech".
Alan Turing
His 1987 drama
Alan TuringAlan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS , was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which played a...
featured one of the fathers of modern
computer scienceComputer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
, who had made significant contributions to breaking German ciphers during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The play also covered Turing's homosexuality.
McKinsey controversy
In 2004, he again caused controversy with the play
McKinsey is Coming, which raises the questions of unemployment, social justice and the "right to work". A passage in which he put the chairman of the
Deutsche BankDeutsche Bank AG is a global financial service company with its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. It employs more than 100,000 people in over 70 countries, and has a large presence in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the emerging markets...
in one line with leading businessmen who had been murdered by left-wing terrorists and also with Gessler, the villainous bailiff killed by
William TellWilliam Tell is a folk hero of Switzerland. His legend is recorded in a late 15th century Swiss chronicle....
, was widely seen as advocating, or at least excusing, violence against leading economic figures. Hochhuth vigorously denied this.
Anti-Semitism allegations
In March 2005, Hochhuth became embroiled in controversy when, during an interview with the German weekly
Junge FreiheitThe Junge Freiheit is a German weekly newspaper for politics and culture, that describes itself as liberal-conservative...
, he defended
David IrvingDavid John Cawdell Irving is an English writer,best known for his denial of the Holocaust, who specialises in the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany...
, describing him as a "pioneer of modern history who has written magnificent books" and an "historian to equal someone like
Joachim FestJoachim Clemens Fest was a German historian, journalist, critic and editor, best known for his writings and public commentary on Nazi Germany, including an important biography of Adolf Hitler and books about Albert Speer and the German Resistance...
". When asked about Irving’s statement that "more women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz", Hochhuth dismissed it as provocative black humour.
Paul SpiegelPaul Spiegel was leader of the Zentralrat der Juden in Germany and the main spokesman of the German Jews...
, President of the
Central Jewish Council in GermanyThe Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland is a federation of German Jews organizing many Jewish organisations in Germany. It was founded on July 19, 1950, as a response to the increasing isolation of German Jews by the international Jewish community and increasing interest in Jewish affairs by the ...
, argued that with these statements Hochhuth himself was denying the
HolocaustHolocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
. After weeks of uproar, Hochhuth issued an apology.
In 2008 Irving self-published
Banged Up, an account of his recent imprisonment in Austria, in which he writes "Since January 1965 a close friendship has bonded me with... Rolf Hochhuth" and describes a phone conversation between them in 2005.
Works
Plays
- The Deputy, a Christian Tragedy
The Deputy, a Christian tragedy , also known as The Representative, is a controversial 1963 play by Rolf Hochhuth which indicts Pope Pius XII for his failure to take action or speak out against The Holocaust. It has been translated into more than twenty languages...
(1962)
- Soldiers, Necrology on Geneva (1967)
- Guerrillas (1970)
- The Midwife (1972)
- The Survivor (1981)
- Alan Turing (1987)
- Wessis in Weimar (1993)
- McKinsey is Coming (2004)
Novels
Hochhuth has also collaborated with scripts for cinema and television:
- Berliner Antigone (1968)
- Élo Antigoné (1968)
- Ärztinnen
Woman Doctors is a 1984 German crime film directed by Horst Seemann. It was entered into the 34th Berlin International Film Festival.-Cast:* Judy Winter as Dr. Katia Michelsberg* Inge Keller as Dr. Lydia Kowalenko* Walter Reyer as Dr. Riemenschild...
(1984)
- Effis Nacht (1998)
- A Love in Germany (1983)
External links