In Which I Discover The Insufficiency Of My Sources

So, I sat down to write my paper, and realized that all the wonderful research I had wasn't actually all that helpful. I have four major sources: an article and a chapter from a book about Nazi Germany, the script to a 17th century German adaptation of the script with some attached commentary, and an article that gives a broad overview of many post-war productions. If I want to write a ten-page paper on this topic, I need to get more information.

Either way, I've managed to throw together three-and-a-half pages. This consists of an introduction, two pages about the Nazis, and one page of poorly-developed, poorly-supported ideas. Hit the jump to keep reading.

Shakespeare plays have been produced in Germany almost since they were written. His plays have always interpreted, translated, and staged according to the values of the time: examining how they were produced through the centuries provides a fascinating cross-section of beliefs, traditions, and cultural values. This can best be demonstrated by examining how Shylock the Jew has been portrayed on the German stage. Germany has a deserved, though perhaps unfair, reputation of anti-Semitism: examining Shylock through the centuries allows us to get a clear and accurate view of Germany's relationship with Jewish culture.

The earliest German production of The Merchant of Venice is, technically speaking, an adaptation. First staged in 1611, Der Jud von Venedig uses several contemporary plays as source material in a complex, often confusing relationship. For example,

Using Shakespeare to argue that the Nazis were anti-Semitic seems obvious to the point of irrelevance. However, a careful examination of Nazi-era productions of The Merchant of Venice provide valuable insights into how the Nazis used Jews in their propaganda campaigns, and, to some extent, how the people themselves felt about the issue.

Nazi-era productions treated Shylock in one of two ways: either as a gross comic stereotype, or as the epitome of the evil, conniving Jew. Both these portrayals persisted throughout the entire Nazi regime, from 1933 to 1944. In either case, the portrayal of the actors were very well received (undoubtedly, at least in part, as a propaganda move). For example, the Shylock in a 1942-1943 production, which staged the play as a commedia dell'arte, was praised for his "powerful linguistic and mimic effects," almost certainly a euphemism for his "exaggerated and distorted characteristics"(Symington 249). It is worth noting that, in this production, actors were placed in the audience to shout at and threaten Shylock whenever he appeared on stage, adding an important element to how the audience perceived this Shylock. (Symington 249). On the other end of the spectrum, a 1943 production in Vienna, the role of Shylock was played by Werner Krauss, who had played nearly every Jewish role in the notoriously anti-Semitic film Jud Süss (Bonnell 172). Kraus apparently drew on every negative stereotype of Eastern European Jews that he could, and, with his portrayal of "the affected way of shuffling along, the hopping and stamping about in a rage, the clawing hand gestures, the raucous or mumbling voice" he effectively portrayed "the pathological picture of the East European racial type in all his external and internal human dirtiness" (Bonnell 172; Symington 250).

Of course, the play also clashed with Nazi doctrine on several points, requiring several alterations to the play itself. Most notably, lines that were "favorable to Shylock or that showed him in a positive light" were "delet[ed] or amend[ed]"--this includes, obviously, Shylock's speech in III.1, but also includes individual lines of dialog, like Launcelot's "most beautiful pagan, most sweet Jew" in II.3 (Symington, 248). Further, Shylock's daughter Jessica, herself a Jew, marries Launcelot, a Christian, in direct opposition to the racial codes in the Nuremburg laws; most productions resolved this issue by making Jessica his foster-daughter or otherwise removing her biological relationship with her father.  

Despite these changes, The Merchant of Venice was staged surprisingly infrequently during the Nazi regime: 1934 saw up to a two-thirds reduction in the number of productions from 1933. This is due to a number of factors, including the above-mentioned alterations to the play, however, author Wilhelm Hortmann offers another unsupported, though still compelling, explanation why (Bonnell 178). Hortman writes that the most "flattering" explanation for the reluctance to stage the play "is that a sense of shame stopped most theater managements from adding insult to injury" (Bonnell 176). Bonnell himself elaborates: "faced with the choice between performing the play as grossly anti-Semitic propaganda or incurring official displeasure, most companies chose the decent, or at any rate more discreet option, of steering clear of such sensitive material" (Bonnell 177). To me, this suggests a touching, if difficult-to-prove, view of German culture. Beginning with Hitler's rise to power in 1933, many Jews, including a number of prominent actors, left the country; later, the remaining Jews (many of whom were undoubtedly involved in the theater at one point or another) were rounded up and sent to death camps (Bonnell 169). Many of these Jews were doubtless close associates and friends of the actors, directors, and producers that remained: it is possible that they chose not to stage The Merchant of Venice, with its often blatant anti-Semitic tone, in memory of those they once knew and loved. If this is true, then this suggests that, even at the height of Nazi power, the German people--or, at least, certain sectors of them--were much less anti-Semitic than has generally been supposed.

Post-war productions have struggled with how to play Shylock. In the decade immediately after the war, Shylock was often portrayed as a noble Jew, "more sinned against than sinning," perhaps as a way of apologizing or making up for the Holocaust (Schülting 68).

Later productions have sought to portray the effects of the Holocaust: for example, a 1968 television production cast a 76 year old as Shylock, in a play largely staged as a light comedy. Shylock, dressed in a prayer-shawl and yarmulke, acts as a "killjoy," his serious tone contrasting with the "sentimental" atmosphere of the rest of the play, "confronting the audience with a past it would rather forget" (Schülting 68). At the end of the play, when his fortune is confiscated and he is forced to convert to Christianity, Shylock "raises his eyes towards heaven in mute despair," draws his prayer-shawl over his head, and leaves the stage by walking down an empty hallway, suggesting the "'disappearance' of the Jews and their absence of the victims of the Shoah in post-war Germany" (Schülting 68).