Theatre
The Deputy
Der Stellvertreter
Rolf Hochhuth · 1963
Synopsis
In the summer of 1942, at the nunciature in Berlin, the SS officer Kurt Gerstein, who has seen the gas chambers of Belzec and Treblinka in operation, tries to convince the nuncio to protest against the massacre of the Jews of Europe. A young Jesuit, Riccardo Fontana, deeply shaken, promises to alert the pope. In Rome, he pleads with his father, a count close to the Holy See, then before a cardinal who invokes the Church's neutrality in the face of the Soviet threat, while in the autumn of 1943 the deportations of the Jews of Rome begin.
Context
The play was premiered on 20 February 1963 in West Berlin, at the Freie Volksbühne theatre, in a production by Erwin Piscator, and published at the same time by Rowohlt, after the Bertelsmann group had given up printing it. Written in free verse and in five acts, it mixes historical figures, including Kurt Gerstein and Pius XII, with invented characters. It set off in Germany the largest theatrical debate of the post-war period, uproar in several countries and diplomatic repercussions. Costa-Gavras made the film Amen from it in 2002.
Who it is for
A long play, in free verse: the full text would last eight to nine hours, and every staging shortens it.
Prizes and reception
Performed in more than twenty-five countries and translated into some twenty languages; on Broadway, in 1964, it won its producer a Tony.