Abstract
In this chapter, I analyse the role of East and West German theatre in the incipient Cold War from 1945 to the mid-1950s. To this end, I propose an expanded model of institutional dramaturgy, whose focus is not on individual theatres and productions, but on a broader matrix of dramaturgical work. This includes arts criticism, cultural policy, dramaturgical and literary societies, and public debates about the role of theatre. As I will argue, this institutional matrix has particular significance for post-war Germany, where its various nodes support competing visions of the post-war state. I make this argument through an analysis of theatre reviews by East and West German critics, focusing on the dramaturgical and socio-cultural figures that permeate these texts. My research concentrates on divided Berlin as a “showcase” for the competition between political and ideological systems. Especially there, post-war theatre criticism has historiographical, dramaturgical and political functions with which it supports the reconstruction of the nation through theatre.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
As Charlotte Canning and others have noted, “the Cold War was defined from the start as theatre”, most notably in Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech from 1946 (Canning 2015, 13f.).
- 2.
Unless otherwise stated, all translations from the German are mine. Paul Rilla’s review was published in the Berliner Zeitung on 6 May 1947.
- 3.
The Elbe line (Elbelinie) refers to the inner German border and, historically, to the division between Prussia in the East and the Western German states. In this sense, it precedes the post-war partition of Germany.
- 4.
JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) directive 1067 was in place until July 1947, when it was replaced by JCS 1779. For the full text of both directives see Department of State (1950, 21–41).
- 5.
The quotes are from Paul Rilla’s review in the Berliner Zeitung (9.9.1945) and Fritz Erpenbeck’s review in the Deutsche Volkszeitung (9.9.1945). The production was very successful with 245 performances, although the directing style was derided as old-fashioned (Weigel 1999, 217).
- 6.
The alleged resistance of the classics against their appropriation by National Socialism is a prevalent narrative in East German discourse as well. In his Nathan review, Erpenbeck writes that National Socialism’s “un-German and anti-German attitudes” stand in contrast “to the tradition of our classical poetry and philosophy. […] Never has historical truth been lied into its opposite as in National Socialism’s insolent invocation of [the] national tradition” of Lessing, Herder, Kant, Schiller and Goethe (Erpenbeck 1980, 24).
- 7.
Luft’s importance as a theatre critic for (primarily) West Berlin cannot be overstated. His weekly 15-minute programme was broadcast for almost the entire existence of the divided Germany, from February 1946 until October 1990. See Kohse (1998).
- 8.
The Hebbel Theatre was located in the American sector, but its manager and artistic director, Karl Heinz Martin was partial to the Socialist cause, in particular the People’s Theatre Movement (Volksbühnenbewegung). In January 1947, Martin (together with Heinz Litten and Alfred Lindemann) received a Soviet licence to begin rebuilding the Volksbühne on Karl-Liebknecht-(now: Rosa-Luxemburg)-Platz. The criticism of the Threepenny Opera, as directed by Martin in August 1945, was an early indication of the complexity of Brecht’s position in East German theatre rather than interzonal competition. On the controversy surrounding the production and on Martin’s contribution to the Volksbühne movement see Pike (1992, 188–195 and 333–356).
- 9.
There were almost fifty West German productions of The Skin of Our Teeth between 1945 and 1961, with a total of 675 performances (Brauneck 2007, 199).
- 10.
The religious framing of this and of Hilpert’s quote on the function of theatre is not unusual for the post-war situation. Jost Hermand distinguishes three types of humanism that gain traction in Germany during the 1940s and 1950s: Pseudo-religious humanism, prevalent in the West, reads National Socialism as a fall from God and calls for an inward-looking return to the human as mirror of the divine. “Goethean (goethezeitliche)” humanism, which is prominent in both parts of Germany, understands Goethe—and with him Weimar Classicism—as embodying the better, more humane Germany, of which National Socialism was a mere perversion. In its dominant West German variant, Existentialist humanism sought shelter and solace through re-establishing a connection to human’s existential “being”, e.g. in nature (Hermand 1986, 63–88).
- 11.
The Hebbel Theatre’s Robbers production was directed by Walter Felsenstein, who founded the Komische Oper in East Berlin in 1947 and whose redefinition of opera as “Musiktheater” (music theatre) gained great influence beyond the borders of the GDR (Felsenstein 1991).
- 12.
Whereas most newspapers during the post-war occupation of Germany were licensed by the different Allied powers (including in the Soviet zone), the Tägliche Rundschau was edited and published directly by the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD). This is also true for the Berliner Zeitung, but only for the first month of its existence (May/June 1945).
References
Balme, Christopher. 2017. Theatrical institutions in motion: Developing theatre in the postcolonial era. Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 31 (2): 125–140.
Balme, Christopher, and Berenika Szymanski-Düll. 2017. Introduction. In Theatre, globalization and the Cold War, ed. Christopher Balme and Berenika Szymanski-Düll, 1–22. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Berlau, Ruth, Bertolt Brecht, and Helene Weigel. 1952. Theaterarbeit: 6 Aufführungen des Berliner Ensembles. Berlin: Henschel.
Bleeker, Maaike. 2023. Doing dramaturgy: Thinking through practice, new dramaturgies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bradley, Laura. 2010. Cooperation and conflict: GDR theatre censorship, 1961–1989. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Brauneck, Manfred. 2007. Die Welt als Bühne: Geschichte des europäischen Theaters, vol. 5. Stuttgart: Metzler.
Bürger, Peter, and Christa Bürger. 1992. The institutions of art. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.
Canning, Charlotte. 2015. On the performance front: US theatre and internationalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Caute, David. 2003. The dancer defects: The struggle for cultural supremacy during the Cold War. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Department of State, ed. 1950. Germany 1947–1949: The story in documents. Washington: US Government Printing Office.
Deutsch-Schreiner, Evelyn. 2018. Reichsdramaturg Rainer Schlösser: Praxis einer beispiellosen Theaterkarriere im ‘Dritten Reich.’ In Theater unter NS-Herrschaft: Theatre under Pressure, ed. Brigitte Dalinger and Veronika Zangl, 217–238. Vienna: Vienna University Press.
Eckersall, Peter. 2006. Towards an expanded dramaturgical practice: A report on ‘the dramaturgy and cultural intervention project.’ Theatre Research International 31 (3): 83–297.
Erpenbeck, Fritz. 1949. Lebendiges Theater: Aufsätze und Kritiken. Berlin: Henschel.
Erpenbeck, Fritz. 1952. Neue Wege. Theater der Zeit 24: 1–3.
Erpenbeck, Fritz. 1955. Woran wir uns halten können. Theater der Zeit 9: 1–3.
Erpenbeck, Fritz. 1980. Nathan der Weise. In Lessing im Spiegel der Theaterkritik 1945–1979, ed. Diedrich Diederichsen and Bärbel Rudin, 185–186. Berlin: Selbstverlag der Gesellschaft für Theatergeschichte.
Erpenbeck, Fritz. 1998. Einige Bemerkungen zu Brechts ‘Mutter Courage’. In Dramaturgie in der DDR (1945–1990), ed. Helmut Kreuzer and Karl-Wilhelm Schmidt, 45–47. Heidelberg: Winter.
Felsenstein, Walter. 1991. The music theatre of Walter Felsenstein: Collected articles, speeches and interviews, trans. and ed. Peter Paul Fuchs. London: Quartet Books.
Foucault, Michel. 2019. The order of discourse. In Archives of infamy: Foucault on state power in the lives of ordinary citizens, ed. Nancy Luxon, 141–174. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Georgelou, Konstantina, Efrosini Protopapa, and Danae Theodoridou. 2017. The practice of dramaturgy: Working on actions in performance. Amsterdam: Valiz.
Girshausen, Theo. 1992. West Germany. In European theatre 1960–1990: Cross-cultural perspectives, ed. Ralph Yarrow, 61–95. London and New York: Routledge.
Gründgens, Gustaf. 1953. Wirklichkeit des Theaters. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Gründgens, Gustaf. 1970. Briefe, Aufsätze, Reden, ed. Rolf Badenhausen and Peter Gründgens-Gorski. München: dtv.
Hermand, Jost. 1986. Kultur im Wiederaufbau: Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1945–1965. München: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung.
Hilpert, Heinz. 1951. Gedanken zum Theater. Göttingen: Hainbund-Verlag.
Ihering, Herbert. 1947. Berliner Dramaturgie. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag.
Kirschstein, Corinna. 2014. Hamlet in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone und in der DDR. In Hamlet Handbuch: Stoffe, Aneignungen, Deutungen, ed. Peter W. Marx, 190–201. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler.
Kohse, Petra. 1998. Gleiche Stelle, gleiche Welle: Friedrich Luft und seine Zeit. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag.
Kraus, Dorothea. 2007. Theater-Proteste: Zur Politisierung von Straße und Bühne in den 1960er Jahren. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus-Verlag.
Lemke, Michael, ed. 2006. Schaufenster der Systemkonkurrenz: Die Region Berlin-Brandenburg im Kalten Krieg. Köln: Böhlau.
Luft, Friedrich. 1948. Was fehlt? In Theaterstadt Berlin: Ein Almanach, ed. Herbert Ihering, 59–65. Berlin: Henschel.
Luft, Friedrich. 1965. Stimme der Kritik: Berliner Theater seit 1945, 3rd rev. and exp. ed. Velber b. Hannover: Friedrich.
McCloskey, Barbara. 2009. Dialectic at a standstill: East German socialist realism in the Stalin era. In Art of two Germanys: Cold War cultures, ed. Stephanie Barron and Sabine Eckmann, 105–116. New York and Los Angeles: Abrams.
Müller, Henning. 1981. Theater der Restauration: Westberliner Bühnen, Kultur und Politik im Kalten Krieg. Berlin: Edition Neue Wege.
Pike, David. 1992. The politics of culture in Soviet-occupied Germany, 1945–1949. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Rilla, Paul. 1978. Theaterkritiken, ed. Liane Pfelling. Berlin: Henschel.
Steinkamp, Maike. 2010. The propagandistic role of modern art in postwar Berlin. In Berlin divided city, 1945–1989, ed. Philip Broadbent and Sabine Hake, 23–33. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Stuber, Petra. 2000. Spielräume und Grenzen: Studien zum DDR-Theater. Berlin: Links.
Thacker, Toby. 2007. Music after Hitler, 1945–1955. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.
Trencsényi, Katalin. 2015. Dramaturgy in the making: A user’s guide for theatre practitioners. London: Bloomsbury.
Weigel, Hans. 1952. Theaterstadt Berlin: Ein Brief aus und an Berlin. Der Monat: Eine internationale Zeitschrift 50: 207–224.
Weigel, Alexander. 1999. Das Deutsche Theater: Eine Geschichte in Bildern, ed. The Deutsche Theater. Berlin: Propyläen.
Vallentin, Maxim. 2000. Einleitende Bemerkungen zur Ausarbeitung von Richtlinien (Theater): Besprechung bei Wilhelm Pieck am 25.9.1944, Hotel Lux, Sitzung mit Schriftstellern über Kulturfragen im neuen Deutschland. In Spielräume und Grenzen: Studien zum DDR-Theater, ed. Petra Stuber, 257–261. Berlin: Links.
Vietta, Egon, ed. 1955. Darmstädter Gespräch: Theater. Darmstadt: Neue Darmstädter Verlagsanstalt.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bachmann, M. (2024). Cold War Theatres: Theatre Criticism and the Institutional Matrix of Dramaturgy in Post-War Germany. In: Heinrich, A., Simke, AC. (eds) Dramaturgies of War. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39318-1_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39318-1_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-39317-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-39318-1
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)