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An Artistic Mission in Nazi Berlin: The Jewish Kulturbund Theatre as Sanctuary
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
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These remarks made by the actor, Fritz Kortner, stem from a 1932 book in which the leading stage performers of the Weimar Republic portray themselves in photographs and through their own words. In response to the editor's questions, Kortner—among other artists—analyzes his role as an actor within Germany's greater cultural and historical context, linking the crisis in theatre to existent economic and intellectual crises. Given the unstable socio-economic situation at the end of the Weimar Republic, the cultural years ahead looked particularly grim. The actor's commentary reveals the vulnerable situation of German theatre in a country on the brink of dictatorship.
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- Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1994
References
1 Kortner, in Firner's, Walter edited, Wir und das Theater: Ein Schauspielerbildbuch (Munich: Bruckmann Verlag, 1932), 94Google Scholar. Both this translation and all subsequent ones from German are my own unless otherwise noted.
2 Ibid. In his preface, Firner declares: “At a time when the need for theatre is sharply contested and when the future of the stage is referred to with hasty and unproductive pessimism, it seems fair to allow the actors themselves—as theatre representatives—to express their personal points of view” (n.p.). Besides Kortner, such actors as Emil Jannings, Gustaf Gründgens, Conrad Veidt, Elisabeth Bergner, and Käthe Dorsch provided testimony (and glossy self-portraits) to attest to their artistic achievements as national stars.
3 See the unpublished memoirs of the Jewish actor, Kurt Katsch, Zurück ins Ghetto (no date), 191. Katsch (born Isser Katz), describes his life as an actor in Germany both before and after 1933. The memoirs are at the Leo Baeck Institute (doc. ME 419), New York.
4 See Firner, 33 for Bergner's response and 112–113; for Mosheim's words.
5 A version of this paper was presented as part of the 1993 national Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference, Philadelphia.
6 By 1938, the network had expanded to include seventy-six regional divisions of the cultural society, extending throughout the German Reich (including a branch in Vienna). After the German Kulturbünde were disbanded on September 11, 1941, the enterprise continued in occupied Holland as the Joodsche Kulturbund at the Schouwburg. On July 12, 1942, the Amsterdam theatre was converted to a deportation center.
7 See my “Collaboration or Survival, 1933–1938;: Reassessing the Role of The Jüdischer Kulturbund” in Theatre in the Third Reich, The Prewar Years: Essays on Theatre in Nazi Germany. Ed. Gadberry, Glen W.. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, in press)Google Scholar.
8 Katsch, 196–7.
9 Kurt Singer in Die Jüdische Rundschau 8 August 1933, 405. From now on, I will refer to Berlin's Zionist newspaper as JR.
10 This document, which was featured in a 1992 exhibition at Berlin's Akademie der Künste has been reproduced in an essay by Ingrid Schmidt and Helmut Ruppel. See “Eine Schwere Prüfung ist Über Sich” in Geschlossene Vorstellung: Der Jüdische Kulturbund 1933–1941. Ed. der Künste, Akademie (Berlin: Ed. Heinrich, 1992), 44–45Google Scholar;. The exhibition catalog will be referred to from now on as Geschlossene Vorstellung.
11 Bab's entry in the accompaniment to the first issue of the Kulturbund's Monatsblätter, 1 Oct. 1933 is part of the archives at the Akademie der Künste, reproduced in the catalog, Geschlossene Vorstellung, 239–40.
12 Hinkel's, propagandistic article, “Judenreine Theaterpolitik,” appeared in the Göttinger Tageblatt, 18 09 1936Google Scholar. This article is catalogued in the Fritz Wisten archives (FWA) 74/86/Kb 21/73; it also appears as document 51 in Geschlossene Vorstellung, pp. 300–302.
13 Ibid. Hinkel boasts that his superiors used “clever foresight and a great sense of responsibility” in agreeing to his suggestion that a Jewish cultural organization be founded. This quote is interesting in light of Hinkel's collaborative relationship both with the theatre's directors as well as with Nazi officials. Further research on Hinkel's role in Jewish theatre affairs may highlight the complexity of his motives—whether in self-interest or the interest of the German state—for supporting a Jewish theatre. Much of Hinkel's personal and offical correspondence is now accessible to researchers at the Berlin Document Center archives, now under the directorship of the German government.
14 Ibid. As I intimated in the preceding note, the Nazis' motives for supporting the Jewish theatre were not clearcut. While the main objective in 1933 was to simply segregate the races and their cultures within Germany, by the time of the 1936 Olympics and later after the Kristallnacht, Nazi Germany could use the Jewish theatre to show other countries how magnanimous they really were to Jews.
15 The recollection by co-founder Kurt Baumann (1977) is in Richarz, Monika, ed., Jewish Life in Germany: Memoirs from Three Centuries, trans. Rosenfeld, Stella P. and Rosenfeld, Sidney (Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1991), 379Google Scholar.
16 JR 25 July 1933, 365.
17 Katsch, 195. The actor also admits to identifying with Othello whom he played in a 1934 Kulturbund production (198).
18 For background reading related to the German Jewish sense of self and race theory, consult Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1973), Part IGoogle Scholar; Bacharach, Walter Zwi, “Jews in Confrontation with Racist Antisemitism, 1879–1933,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 25 (1980), 197–219CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cochavi, Yehoyakim, “Kultur und Bildungsarbeit der deutschen Juden 1933–1941;: Antwort auf die Verfolgung durch das NS Regime,” Neue Sammlung 26.3 (1986), 396–407Google Scholar; and Efron, John, Defining the Jewish Race: The Self-Perceptions and Responses of Jewish Scientists to Scientific Racism in Europe, 1882–1933 (Yale University Press, forthcoming, 1994)Google Scholar.
19 Referring to German Jews who felt more German than Jewish, Bacharach, 210, points out the “tragical element in the determination of Jews to remain impervious to the fact that völkisch thought and racism were … poised for total war against the Jew, who, in the eyes of the völkisch nationalists personified the anti-German.”
20 See Meyer, Michael A., The German Jews: Some Perspectives on their History (N.Y: Syracuse University Press, 1991), 53Google Scholar.
21 See Stern, Fritz, Dreams and Delusions: The Drama of German History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), 111–112Google Scholar.
22 JR 25 July 1933, 365. The editors were understandably cautious about a premiere performance which might provoke the German authorities.
23 Geisel, Eike in his and & Broder's, H.M. edited, Premiere und Pogrom: Der Jüdische Kulturbund 1933–1941, Texte und Bilder. (Berlin: Siedler Verlag, 1992), 14Google Scholar. Accompanied by several introductory essays by the editors, this newest anthology of texts and photographs related to the Kulturbund features memories of surviving theatre performers and members. It will be referred to from now on as Premiere und Pogrom.
24 Review of Nathan the Wise, JR 4 October 1933, 624.
25 Gronius, Jörg W., “Klarheit, Leichtigkeit, und Melodie: Theater im jüdischen Kulturbund Berlin,” in Geschlossene Vorstellung, 69, cites the disapproval of the Israelitisches Familienblatt (11 11 1933)Google Scholar; the newspaper would have preferred to see the play staged as Lessing meant it to be played with “all around embraces.”
26 Kurt Singer's daughter, Margot Wachsmann-Singer, comments in Premiere und Pogrom, 196: “My father loved German culture … The German Jews of the Weimar Republic were more German than Jewish. They were Germans first and thereby so connected to German culture that nothing in the world could separate them from that culture—not even the Nazis.” And the former actress, Leni Steinberg remembers how she read and recited Goethe for herself when she was alone (Premiere und Pogrom, 236).
27 5 September 1936, Nr. 452/53 (catalogued as doc. 47/2594, Leo Baeck Institute, New York).
28 The conference took place from 5–7 September in Berlin where the speakers represented the major national branches of the centralized Kulturbund theatres. Some of their speeches are documented in the Fritz Wisten archives of the Akademie der Künste. To facilitate easy referral, the documents have been reproduced in Geschlossene Vorstellung, 266–297 and numbered from 36 to 45. For more on the conference and its aims, also see my essay (in press).
29 See Geschlossene Vorstellung, doc. 38, 273–279. Rabbi Joachim Prinz labels the actor as cultural representative in his speech, “Die kulturelle Situation der Juden in Deutschland und das jüdische Theater,” Fritz Wisten Archives 74/86/5032. See also Das Israelitisches Familienblatt, 10 September 1936, Nr. 41.
30 In Premiere und Pogrom, 125, Martin Brandt recalls how he was replaced by another actor for a religious role. Director Wisten's production of The Golem (1937) was reportly beguiling in terms of its production values. Arthur Eloesser attributes to the audience, an “enthusiastic acknowledgment” for the play's mysticism which may, in fact, reflect his own entrancement; see JR 12 Oct. 1937, 3. Not everyone in the Jewish community belonged to the Kulturbund, of course. Some Jews did not like the subscription system, while others preferred to frequent non-Jewish theatres (while they could). There were 17,000 members of the Kulturbund, Berlin, during 1936/37, the year Geisel reports on the Shakespearian success, Premiere und Pogrom, 27.
31 Freeden in Premiere und Pogrom, 262.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid., 266. After the Kristallnacht pogrom, it became clear to many Jews that their situation was precarious. It is interesting to note, that the Gestapo had special orders not to burn the Kulturbund theatre; in fact, Hinkel ordered the theatre to reopen less than two weeks after the mass action against Jews and Jewish institutions. For more on the curious collaboration between the Jewish theatre directors and Hinkel's office, see my forthcoming essay.
34 Alice Levie in Premiere und Pogrom, 158.
35 See the interview with the journalist, Broder, Henryk M., “Selbstbehauptung in der Sackgasse.” Die Berliner Zeitung 27 01 1992. 25Google Scholar.
36 Geisel couches his introductory statements to Premiere und Pogrom in critical terms, 15.
37 The first historian to document the events of the Jewish cultural association theatre was its dramaturg and eye-witness, Herbert Freeden, whose 1964 history, Jüdisches Theater im Nazideutschland (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr) was reprinted in 1985 (Frankfurt/M.: Ullstein). Volker Dahm provides an in-depth account of the Kulturbund activities in his lengthy chapter, Kulturelles und geistiges Leben, Die Juden in Deutschland 1933–1945, ed. Benz, Wolfgang (Munich: Beck, 1989)Google Scholar. In English, Gadberry, Glen W. surveys “Nazi Germany's Jewish Theatre” in Theatre Studies 22 (1980), 15–22Google Scholar in answer to Zortman's, Bruce H., “Theatre in Isolation: The Jüdische Kulturbund of Nazi Germany,” Educational Theatre Journal 24 (1972), 159–168CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
The intriguing relationship between identity and resistance has been examined by Cochavi, 1986; and referred to in Freeden' 1986, “Vom geistigen Widerstand der deutschen Juden: Ein Kapitel jüdischer Selbstbehauptung in den Jahren 1933 bis 1938,” Widerstand und Exil 1933–1945 (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politischen Bildung), 47–59Google Scholar. Freeden later reiterates his notion of a spiritual resistance among Jews vis à vis art in a 1992 essay (“Jüdischer Kulturbund Ohne ‘Jüdische’ Kultur” in Geschlossene Vorstellung, 55–66).
38 Gronius, in Geschlossene Vorstellung, 94, rather forcibly sums up this view which journalists like Broder have also expressed.
39 The two instigators of the exhibition, Broder, Henryk M. and Geisel, Eike tracked down a small group of surviving members of the Kulturbund whom they interviewed on film (1988)Google Scholar. It should be noted that, as a result of this exhibition, the Akademie der Künste now houses several archival collections pertinent to the study of the Kulturbund, including the most recently acquired (postunification) personal collections of former Kulturbund members. Besides the exhibition catalog, Geschlossene Vorstellung, Geisel and Broder have co-edited an anthology based on their film interviews (Premiere und Pogrom).
40 See Dahm, 1989, for example.
41 Cochavi, 400.
42 Ibid., 397. It is curious to note that Cochavi, who emigrated from Germany to Israel, but was never directly associated with the Kulturbund, uses the parenthetical, “German-Jewish,” to refer to the Jewish theatre.
43 Actor Martin Brandt and dramaturg, Herbert Freeden, for example, in Premiere und Pogrom, 125 and 261, respectively.
44 Paula Lindberg-Salomon in Premiere und Pogrom, 177.
45 In Premiere und Pogrom, 82.
46 As quoted in Niroumand, Miriam, “Freiheitshauch und tödliche Illusion,” Die Berliner Zeitung 4/504 1992: 66Google Scholar.
47 Stein, Susanne in Premiere und Pogrom, 109. Stein emigrated to the U.S. in 1938Google Scholar.
48 Besides Susanne Stein, those performers interviewed in Premiere und Pogrom who express this view are Steffi Ronau, 150; Lena Steinberg, 236; shabtai petrushka, 193.
49 This was quoted by Niroumand, 66.
50 Freeden, Premiere und Pogrom, 266.
51 Shabtai Petrushka is a good example of this. As a musician who emigrated to Palestine in 1938, he refers to the Kulturbund as having been a necessary institution that engaged hundreds of Jews, allowing them to keep their “heads above water,” in a financial sense. See Premiere und Pogrom, 193.
52 Brandt in Premiere und Pogrom, 126. Brandt, who played Saladin opposite Katsch in Nathan the Wise, emigrated to the U.S. in 1941 just weeks before the theatre closed; he returned to Berlin in 1965 where he worked in the theatre until his death in 1989.
53 See Premiere und Pogrom, 266.
54 This view is promoted by Freeden throughout his writing, most recently in his essay in Geschlossene Vorstellung, 65–66, and in his recollections in Premiere und Pogrom, 266. The experformers' testimonies also corroborate Freeden's view.