Professor Bernhardi

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Professor Bernhardi is a drama by Arthur Schnitzler that was successfully premiered (in the presence of the author) on November 28, 1912 in the Kleiner Theater , Berlin , with Bruno Decarli as Bernhardi and Alfred Abel as chaplain. Because of the critical content of the system, performances were banned in the Danube Monarchy until it collapsed in 1918. The play was then performed in 1918 with and with Alfred Bernau at the Deutsches Volkstheater in Vienna.

Cover of the first edition by Arthur Schnitzler's Professor Bernhardi

content

Around 1900 the young Philomena Bejer found herself in critical condition in the "Elisabethinum", a Viennese hospital, following an abortion . The head of the clinic, Professor Bernhardi, who is Jewish or of Jewish origin, forbids a Catholic priest to give her the sacrament of death because the euphoric patient does not know that she is going to die and he wants to spare her the fear of death. During an argument between the two of them, the patient dies when she learns from a nurse that a clergyman is present.

Professor Bernhardi is considering distancing himself from his behavior, but decides against it now that he is increasingly being marginalized by his Christian and non-Jewish colleagues. The matter reached a political dimension when an unnamed parliamentary party took advantage of the incident to put a clerically argued parliamentary question to the Minister of Education.

In addition, Bernhardi had not responded to the "deal" proposed by his deputy and competitor, the German national Ebenwald, to vote for Ebenwald's candidates when filling an institute position instead of the better qualified Jewish doctor Dr. Wenger.

The new Minister of Education, a former colleague, friend and adversary of Bernhardi, basically supports him, but turns against him in answering the parliamentary question. A court case for religious disorder is announced - in agreement between the Minister of Education and the Minister of Justice.

Bernhardi resigns from his position as director before the process begins, but initially wants to remain as head of department in the Elisabethinum.

During the trial, the nurse wrongly stated that Bernhardi had physically attacked the priest. The statements of his colleagues who were present during the incident are ignored because of the alleged Jewish solidarity. Bernhardi was banned from practicing medicine and sentenced to two months in prison.

After the trial, the priest visits Bernhardi and tells him that he has stood by his side during the trial. When Bernhardi asks why he didn't say that earlier, before the conviction, he explains that the interests of the church are in the foreground and that a fiasco in court would have damaged it. When Bernhardi objects that he is first and foremost obliged not to lie, he unsuccessfully demands that he admit that he acted not only out of a medical interest, but also out of hatred of the church.

After the end of his prison sentence, Bernhardi becomes the figurehead of the liberals. It becomes clear that Bernhardi has lost both the rank of professor and the doctorate and thus the right to practice as a doctor due to his conviction.

Bernhardi goes to the Minister of Education, ostensibly to ask for an opportunity to practice his profession. This apparently agrees, but it turns out that he does not intend to help him again to the doctorate. The conversation escalates, the viewer gets the impression that Bernhardi actually came to the Minister of Education in order to confront him with what Bernhardi saw as his low attitude.

characters

  • Professor Bernhardi: Jewish or Jewish-born intellectual. Head of the Elisabethinum with no apparent interest in ideologies or religions. Supposedly free of stock, objective and trying to balance. Agrees in the Elisabethinum to accept and employ the German national professor Ebenwald as head of department.
  • Professor Ebenwald: Vice Director of the Elisabethinum. Becomes leader after Bernhardi's resignation. Ebenwald is basically German national and thus anti-clerical, has a cousin in parliament who presumably belongs to the clerical party. Although many Jews in Austria were also German national, Ebenwald decided to support the clericals and against "the Jew" Bernhardi. His anti-Semitism therefore wins the upper hand over the anti-clericalism of his convictions or, in other words, he makes use of the clericals and their concerns to damage Jews.
  • Professor Flint: kk Minister for Culture and Education, full university professor for medicine and childhood friend of Bernhardi, later his opponent. Flint is free of ideology, so neither German national, clerical or liberal (code word for Jew-friendly), but only committed to his own results, which he tries to achieve with opportunism. Flint is the piece's most exciting personality and symbolizes the moral-free pursuit of results.
  • Oskar Bernhardi: son of Professor Bernhardi. Assistant doctor in the Elisabethinum. The role is largely insignificant in the play, but reminds us that Arthur Schnitzler was also an assistant doctor in his father's clinic. Like Arthur Schnitzler, Oskar Bernhardi is also an artist: while Schnitzler works as a writer, Bernhardi composes a Viennese waltz for the annual Elisabethinum ball.

theme

In extensive dialogues it addresses anti-Semitism , problems of ethics and jurisprudence as well as Catholicism . Primarily, however, it is about navigating between ethics and the feasible. The tensions between Jews and Christian clericals serve the author to colorize the actual goals of action: Should one act individually, correctly and ethically - like Bernhardi - or should one pursue large collective goals. Schnitzler's text speaks for the rejection of collective goals in disregard of personal ethics.

The General Polyclinic in Vienna served Schnitzler as a model for the "Elisabethinum" . Schnitzler - himself a Jew - had worked at the polyclinic as a young doctor; his father Johann Schnitzler ran the hospital until his death in 1893. Flint, the minister for culture and education, has the features of the Viennese mayor Karl Lueger .

The play was banned in Austria until the end of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1918. From the 1930s onwards, the play was hardly performed or not performed at all, especially in Austria and the German Reich, even after 1945 it was seldom performed in the German-speaking area (including Austria and Switzerland). In Vienna it has been interpreted as a metaphor for the downfall of the West since around 1980 , including on the one hand the disintegration of the equally polyglot-liberal, German-national and clerical-shaped Danube monarchy, on the other hand also the strengthening of political anti-Semitism, the breeding ground for Hitlerite sentiments .

literature

  • Jeffrey B. Berlin : Afterword. In: Arthur Schnitzler: Professor Bernhardi and Other Plays . Ariadne Press, Riverside (CA) 1993, ISBN 0-929497-70-8 , pp. 363-379.
  • Werner Wilhelm Schnabel: "Professor Bernhardi" and the Viennese censorship. On the history of the reception of Schnitzler's comedy . In: Yearbook of the German Schiller Society 28 (1984), pp. 349–383.
  • Reinhard Urbach : Afterword, In: Arthur Schnitzler: Professor Bernhardi (edited by Reinhard Urbach). Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 978-3-15-018386-1 , pp. 185-233.

Film adaptations

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Berlin theater premiere of "Professor Bernhardi". In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 17339/1912, November 29, 1912, p. 14, bottom center. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  2. ↑ Berlin Festival. Theatertreffen since 1964. Accessed April 20, 2020 .
  3. ↑ From the schedule of the Schaubühne

Remarks

  1. ↑ On the day of the Berlin premiere, the piece, forbidden without giving reasons, was presented to an audience in the ballroom of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects ( Eschenbachgasse 9, Vienna- Innere Stadt ) in the form of a recitation spoken by Ferdinand Onno (1881–1969) . - Arthur Schnitzler's "Professor Bernhardi". In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 17339/1912, November 29, 1912, p. 13, top right. (Online at ANNO ). .Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp

Web links

  • Arthur Schnitzler: Professor Bernhardi. Comedy in five acts. Fischer, Berlin 1912. - Full text online .
  • On stage. Rating and criticism of Professor Bernhardi by Arthur Schnitzler, Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Berlin, director: Thomas Ostermeier, premiere: December 17, 2016.