Schlageter (acting)

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Schlageter is a play in four acts. It was written between 1929 and 1932 and was the last and most successful piece by the National Socialist writer Hanns Johst .

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The protagonist of the play is Albert Leo Schlageter , a former soldier in the First World War, a free corps fighter in the Baltic States and involved in the reconquest of Riga and the storming of the Annaberg in 1921. As a saboteur against the French occupation of the Ruhr area , he was arrested, brought before a French court and put to death sentenced. Schlageter served as a martyr figure of National Socialism.

In contrast to real life, Johst presents Schlageter as a good student at first, who after the German defeat and his time as a soldier wants to live as a quiet citizen, but for reasons of conscience participates in the resistance against the French occupation. The drama ends with a propaganda scene: when he is executed, Schlageter has his back to the audience, the shots are fired in the direction of the audience.

Performance history

The political drama was premiered on April 20, 1933, the birthday of Adolf Hitler, in the State Theater on Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin in the presence of Hitler and high-ranking representatives of the NSDAP , the Wehrmacht and from art and literature. The “ Völkischer Beobachter ” called the play “the first drama of the German revolution”. The play became a great success for the author, also financially. Within one year he received royalties of around 50,000 Reichsmark . In 1935 Johst was appointed President of the Reich Chamber of Literature .

It was subsequently staged by 115 theaters. 63 productions were made in the 1932/33 season (second part). Schlageter played 34 theaters around April 20, 1933. Another 34 productions followed in the 1933/34 season. The work became school reading.

In the following five years up to March 1939 the play could still be seen in four theaters. Two productions took place in the 1935/36 season and two in 1938/39. According to the files of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda , the piece was temporarily on the index of pieces as anti-French , which could only be performed with special permission, because Hitler wanted to avoid aggressive behavior towards neighboring countries in the 1930s.

reception

Johannes G. Pankau points out in Killy Literature Lexicon that Johst Schlageter's end with the pathetic appeal “Germany !!! Wake up Erflamme !!! ”mythologized into the“ blood sacrifice ”for the German people. Johst's “Prototype of the National Socialist Drama” was celebrated by the National Socialists as the strongest “poetic shaping of the sentiments and attitudes of our new Germany” and performed in more than 1000 German cities in 1933.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Günther Rühle: "Schlageter" by Hanns Johst - a world premiere on Hitler's birthday. In: Theater heute, August / Sept. 2002
  2. ^ Die Zeit, March 11, 2004
  3. ↑ Thomas Eicher, Barbara Panse, Henning Rischbieter: Theater in the "Third Reich". Seelze-Velber 2000, pp. 638–643
  4. ↑ Johannes G. Pankau (editor): Article Johst, Hanns. In: Lexicon of authors and works. Killy Literature Lexicon, CD-ROM Digital Library, Vol. 9, Directmedia, 2nd Edition Berlin 2000, pp. 9564–9569 (9567f.); see. Walther Killy (Ed.): Literature Lexicon. Authors and works in the German language, vol. 6. Gütersloh / Munich, p. 126f.

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