The investigation

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Staging of the investigation on the Nazi party rally grounds at the State Theater in Nuremberg , June 2009, director: Kathrin Mädler (photographer: Marion Bührle)

The investigation. Oratorio in 11 songs is a play by the playwright Peter Weiss from 1965, which usesthe means of documentary theater to addressthe first Frankfurt Auschwitz trial from 1963 to 1965. It was premiered on October 19, 1965 as part of a Ring premiere at fifteen West and East German theaters and by the Royal Shakespeare Company , London. Weiss himself took part in the Auschwitz trial as a spectator and developed his play from Bernd Naumann's minutes.

The world theater project

Codex Altonensis, Italian manuscript from Dante's Divine Comedy (14th century)

The investigation was to become part of a larger “world theater” project, following the structure of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy . The three-part drama project was supposed to encompass the otherworldly spheres of hell, paradise and the purgatory in between. In reverse of Dante's convictions, the investigation should correspond to the “Paradiso” of the Dante conception and paradise should be the place of despair for those who suffer. The 1964 drama Inferno , which was only published from the estate in 2003, also had the hereafter depicted in the title. Due to the historical significance of the Auschwitz Trial, however, the Divina Commedia Project was postponed and the third part was published separately as The Investigation .

Form, structure and content

An oratorio is a relatively fixed concertante form, usually a multi-part and multi-part dramatic narrative with a religious content, mostly used in Western Europe for the Passion and Christmas story . The contents are therefore traditionally core events of the Christian myth, which ultimately thematize redemption and salvation - in the present oratorio, on the other hand, the breach of civilization of the Holocaust becomes a core event that excludes any salvation.

The eleven “chants” of the investigation, which have both a narrative and dialogical function, summarize the statements against various guards thematically as in chapters; they follow the path of the victims from the ramp on arrival in Auschwitz to the furnace , so that increasingly cruel facets of the anonymous mass extermination are reported. This structure also refers to the depiction of the Christian suffering in stations, for example in Albrecht Dürer's Great Passion in eleven woodcuts.

In contrast to the historical Auschwitz trial, only 18 defendants are on trial. These can be clearly identified by their names and statements. On the other hand, Weiss summarizes the statements of several hundred witnesses in the fictitious, representative, but anonymized witness figures 1-9. Among them, two witnesses stand as helpers from outside the camp on the side of the accused, the other witnesses are former inmates, including two women. The anonymization of the witnesses follows real events, in which the names of the victims in Auschwitz had to give way to a number tattooed on their skin.

Weiss presents the statements of defendants and witnesses, of defense lawyers, prosecutors and judges in such a way that the contradictions between the statements of the perpetrators and the victims run through the entire text and permanently force the audience to make their own judgments without a solid foundation. The open end of the piece corresponds to the author's de-psychologized approach, who wanted to focus on the social responsibility of the individual and his choices, even under the conditions of the dictatorship.

Linguistic form and relief rhetoric

Weiss deliberately dispensed with decorative elements: the stage design should be limited to a sober courtroom and avoid any distraction from the witness reports. The text consists of a clear, manageable sentence structure that has no punctuation and is set like a rhyming epic: only the word counts, through which the viewer communicates life and death in the concentration camp - unadorned material for the judgment of the audience. The story is told objectively, soberly and largely without emotion: although the author calls the oratorio a "drama", because of the emotionalizing material he speaks out against a realistic representation and in favor of a reduction to the concentration of facts - the only emotion mentioned is the repetitive laughter of the defendants and their indignation at the allegations. These alienation effects achieve a more intense dramatic effect on the viewer. The rhythmization of the language in the statements of the figures serves the same purpose. Because of his universalization strategy, the author avoids using the word “Jew” throughout the play and only mentions a racist motive of mass murder at the end; Political and criminal prisoners as well as Soviet prisoners of war are mentioned as special groups in addition to those imprisoned for racial reasons.

The defendants try to deny, trivialize or justify their actions with the following exoneration strategies:

  • Simple denial, complaints about the allegations, the accused are the victims
  • Justification with military duty and maintenance of order
  • Reduction of one's own activity to a partial or micro-function ("I was only there to ... only in some cases ... only as a companion")
  • No way to think about the context of the parts and the purpose of the camp
  • Ignorance (“At best, I only knew from hearsay ...”) or disbelief about what happened later on, or loss of memory
  • Friendship services for the prisoners up to self-harm
  • Exhaustion of all possibilities of rejecting orders
  • "Everyone had the chance to survive"
  • Statute of limitations for crimes and outmoded accusations due to post-war reconstruction

Few of the defendants admit their guilt. Witnesses 1 and 2 also argue mostly apologetically. Peter Weiss thus clarifies the complex of the “second guilt” ( Ralph Giordano ), which Giordano sees in the suppression and denial of the “first guilt”, that is, the crimes committed in the context of National Socialism.

The mass murder in his society

In her thesis of the banality of evil , Hannah Arendt tried to bring the connection between the original society and industrial murder to the concept: a more or less direct participation in mass murder, which was made possible by the extreme increase in the values ​​and behaviors accepted in society . Gaining from the observation of the trial against Adolf Eichmann , she used this individual case for a perspective on the potential cruelty in general.

In the investigation , the formerly politically active Witness 3 explains in Gesang von den Feueröfen III that the mass murder could not have worked without the support of “a thousand official agencies” and “millions of others”, which the defense understands as allegations “against a whole nation” . This witness 3 speaks beforehand in a song about the possibility of survival II of the assigned “roles of the guard” and the prisoners, who can also “make a guard”: “We all knew the society from which the regime had emerged, that society Could produce bearings. The order that applied here was familiar to us in its structure, so we were also able to find our way in its ultimate consequence, in which the exploiter was allowed to develop his rule in a previously unknown degree and the exploited still had to deliver his bone meal. " (All punctuation marks added here.) Witness 3 is concerned with advancing from the moralizing “lofty attitude” to a systemic view of horror. Hannah Arendt's more psychological observation of the individual Eichmann case is extended by Peter Weiss to a critique of capitalism.

effect

The investigation was the most played contemporary play in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1965/66 season with twelve productions. Nonetheless, the theater text, which was published as a complete preprint in August 1965 by the theater magazine Theater heute , already moved in the run-up to two months later following premiere various attacks on himself. Theater critics such as Joachim Kaiser accused Weiss' oratorio of depriving the audience of their fundamental freedom of interpretation. The debate about the admissibility of the aesthetic procedure chosen by Weiss was conducted over weeks in the press, on the radio and in October and November 1965 at three panel discussions in Stuttgart, Munich and East Berlin.

In the discussion about an appropriate staging concept, two productions of the Ring premiere emerged in particular. Erwin Piscator's West Berlin production ( Theater der Freie Volksbühne Berlin , October 19, 1965) corresponded to an identifying approach (the witness bank was an extension of the auditorium). Piscator let the audience look at the process and the accused from the perspective of the survivors. In the Stuttgart production, Peter Palitzsch pursued an anti-identificatory concept with constant role changes of all actors ( Württembergisches Staatstheater , October 23, 1965). Palitzsch presented the role of perpetrator and victim as basically interchangeable. From 1965 to 1967 theaters in Amsterdam, Moscow, New York, Prague, Stockholm and Warsaw included the work in their repertoire.

The international staging practice is characterized by great conceptual diversity between the basic forms of performing play , scenic reading and oratorio-concert performance. After a twelve-year break, The Investigation was shown again for the first time in 1979 in a production that was subsequently authorized by the author at the Schlosstheater zu Moers , which turned into a seedy bar. “A report on the torture methods was thrown into the cloak of a talk show, the investigation of the defendants developed into a question-and-answer game.” The most transparent excuses of the defendants were followed by demonstrative applause (director: Thomas Schulte-Michels ). In 1998 the Berlin concept artist Jochen Gerz staged the investigation as a hands-on game with 500 actors on three Berlin stages. The Congo- based theater company Urwintore, made up of survivors of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, has shown the play in several African and European countries as well as in the United States since 2005 (director: Dorcy Rugamba).

Reception in the context of the German culture of remembrance

Staged reading of the investigation in the Lower Saxony state parliament, 2009
Lazar Backovic: Play about the Auschwitz trial, Spiegel Online, December 18, 2013, recording: dpa
Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

Since the 1990s, the play has assumed great importance in the German culture of remembrance . Excerpts from the play have been presented repeatedly at events on the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism . The investigation has also often been performed in exposed locations outside of state and city theaters, including in judicial centers and district courts, town halls, churches, former prisons, Holocaust memorials and on the Nazi party rally grounds . During the first performance of the Ring in October 1965, The Investigation had already experienced a staged reading in the meeting room of the People's Chamber of the GDR. Following a suggestion by the classical philologist and literary historian Walter Jens , the play was repeatedly the subject of scenic readings in German state parliaments (e.g. Lower Saxony State Parliament, February 11, 2009; Bremen Citizenship, March 10, 2016).

Print editions

  • Peter Weiss: The investigation: oratorio in 11 songs . Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1965.
  • Peter Weiss: The investigation: oratorio in 11 songs . Text edition with a comment by Marita Meyer. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2005.
  • Peter Weiss: The investigation: oratorio in 11 songs . With a DVD of the TV game. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2008 (NDR production 1966, director: Peter Schulze-Rohr ).
  • Peter Weiss: The investigation: oratorio in 11 songs . Text edition with an appendix by Walter Jens and Ernst Schumacher. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2014.

Other issues and media

Radio plays and audio books

  • Peter Weiss: The investigation. Oratorio in 11 songs . Radio play adaptation: Hermann Naber , director: Peter Schulze-Rohr, with Fritz Straßner , Herbert Fleischmann a . v. a. (178 min.). Radio play by HR, BR, DLF, RB, SR, SFB, SWF, NDR, WDR and SRG, first broadcast: October 25, 1965
    • Cassette edition: The Hörverlag 2001
    • CD edition: Der Hörverlag 2007, Award: 4th place hr2 audio book best list April 2001 (CD edition)
  • Peter Weiss: The investigation , composition: Siegfried Matthus , director: Wolfgang Schonendorf , with W. Ortmann, N. Christian, M. Flörchinger u. v. a. (247 min.) GDR radio, first broadcast: October 26, 1965

TV reports and DVD editions

  • The eyewitness . Newsreel No. 44, October 27, 1965. GDR: DEFA studio for newsreels and documentaries, East Berlin. Contribution 3: Ring premiere of Peter Weiss' play.
  • The investigation . Theater recording 1966. GDR. Directors: Lothar Bellag , Ingrid Fausak; based on the play of the same name by Peter Weiss. Television of the GDR, East Berlin; Academy of Arts, East Berlin.
  • The investigation . TV movie 1966. FRG. Director: Peter Schulze-Rohr, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), Hamburg.
  • Premiere 30 years ago: Auschwitz on stage. "The investigation" by Peter Weiss . TV documentary 1995. BRD, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), Cologne.
  • Poetry and Reality. "The investigation" by Peter Weiss . TV documentary 1996. BRD, Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR), Munich. Director: Felix Eue.
  • Auschwitz on the stage. Peter Weiss' "The Investigation" in East and West . Edited by the Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb) in cooperation with the German Broadcasting Archive Potsdam and the Academy of the Arts Berlin using the text quotations from Peter Weiss with the kind permission of Suhrkamp Verlag and the heirs of Peter Weiss. Bonn: bpb 2008 (DVD-ROM, DVD-Video) (with 135 historical sources and a TV recording of the scenic reading in the GDR Volkskammer on October 19, 1965).

Compositions

  • Luigi Nono : La fabbrica illuminata. Ha venido, Canciones para Silvia. Ricorda cosa ti hanno fatto in Auschwitz . Carla Henius, Barbara Miller, Stefania Woytowicz u. a., Mainz: Wergo / SunnyMoon 1992 ( Ricorda cosa from 1966 is based on Nono's ten-part incidental music that accompanied the productions in West Berlin, Essen, Potsdam and Rostock in 1965).
  • Frederic Rzewski : The Triumph of Death . Composition for voices and string quartet (1987/88). World premiere: Yale University , around 1991, German premiere: Kunstfest Weimar , August 30, 2015
  • Luca Brignole: Tra i vivi non posso più stare , for flute, clarinet, drums, alto, bass, violin, viola, cello, double bass (composed in 2012)

literature

  • Robert Cohen : "Identity Politics as Political Aesthetics. Peter Weiss' 'Investigation' in the American Holocaust Discourse." In: 'Nobody testifies for the witness.' Remembrance culture after the Shoah . Ed. Ulrich Baer. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2000, pp. 156-172
  • Rainer Gerlach (ed.): The exchange of letters. Siegfried Unseld - Peter Weiss . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2007
  • Ralph Giordano : The second guilt or the burden of being a German . Cologne 2000
  • Manfred Haiduk : The playwright Peter Weiss . Henschel, Berlin 1977
  • Rolf D. Krause: Fascism as theory and experience. "The investigation" and its author Peter Weiss . Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1982 (European University Theses, Series 1)
  • Marita Meyer: An investigation: questions to Peter Weiss and the literature of the Holocaust . Röhrig, St. Ingbert 2000
  • Erwin Piscator: Foreword to The Deputy . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1963, pp. 7-11; back in dsb., theater, film, politics. Selected Writings. Henschel, Berlin 1980, pp. 411–435 (in detail on his production)
  • Ingeborg Schmitz: Documentary theater with Peter Weiss: from the "investigation" to "Hölderlin" . Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1981
  • Klaus Wannemacher: "Mystical trains of thought were far from him". Erwin Piscator's world premiere of “Investigation” at the Freie Volksbühne. In: Peter Weiss Yearbook for Literature, Art and Politics in the 20th Century . Edited by Michael Hofmann, Martin Rector and Jochen Vogt. Vol. 13. Röhrig, St. Ingbert 2004, pp. 89-102.
  • Christoph Weiß: Auschwitz in the divided world: Peter Weiss and the "investigation" in the Cold War . Röhrig, St. Ingbert 2000

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Weiss: The investigation. Oratorio in 11 songs . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1969.
  2. ↑ Ralph Giordano: The second guilt or From the burden of being German . Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch 2000.
  3. ^ Joachim Kaiser: Against the Theater Auschwitz . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 4./5. September 1965.
  4. ↑ In detail: Christoph Weiß: Auschwitz in the divided world: Peter Weiss and the "investigation" in the Cold War . St. Ingbert: Röhrig 2000. Vol. I, pp. 244-254.
  5. ↑ Klaus Wannemacher: "Mystical trains of thought were far from him". Erwin Piscator's world premiere of “Investigation” at the Freie Volksbühne. In: Peter Weiss Yearbook for Literature, Art and Politics in the 20th Century . Vol. 13. St. Ingbert: Röhrig 2004, pp. 89-102, here p. 99.
  6. ↑ Jochen Vogt: Peter Weiss . Reinbek: Rowohlt 1987 (rowohlts monographs, 376). P. 95.
  7. ↑ Marcel Atze : "The accused laugh". Peter Weiss and his play "The Investigation". In: Auschwitz Trial 4 Ks 2/63 Frankfurt am Main . Edited by Irmtrud Wojak on behalf of the Fritz Bauer Institute. Cologne: Snoeck 2004. pp. 782–807, here p. 806. - For the highly controversial follow-up production at the Freie Volksbühne Berlin in 1980 see: Spiel auf Zeit. Theater of the Freie Volksbühne from 1963 to 1992 . Edited by Hermann Treusch and Rüdiger Mangel. Berlin 1992, pp. 118-120.
  8. ↑ Christel Weiler (ed.): Theater as a public space: The "Berlin investigation" by Jochen Gerz and Esther Shalev-Gerz . Berlin: Theater of the Time 2005.
  9. ↑ To this more detailed Matthias Kontarsky: Trauma Auschwitz. On the processing of what cannot be processed at Peter Weiss, Luigi Nono and Paul Dessau . Saarbrücken: Pfau 2002. - Matteo Nanni: Auschwitz - Adorno and Nono. Philosophical and music-analytical investigations . Freiburg: Rombach 2004.