Fury over German stage show musical of Mein Kampf
A STAGE musical of Hitler’s Mein Kampf in Germany has been condemned by Jewish campaigners for “trivialising” Nazism.
The one-man show mixes up-beat pop tunes with the text of the notorious memoir to satirical effect, according to the director.
But the production at a theatre near Munich –– not far from the jail where Hitler wrote his abhorrent book –– has been met with fury among a Jewish community reeling from recent attacks in Germany, including an alleged plot to bomb a synagogue on Yom Kippur.
Adolf Hitler does not appear on stage as a character in the play, which features only a type of narrator and a musician and opened at the Theater an der Rott in Eggenfelden on Friday.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for global social action Rabbi Abraham Cooper told the JC: “Today’s Germany, where Jews are beaten in the street, where 21st century Nazis attack synagogues on Yom Kippur and where Jewish institutions must have armed security as the world approaches the 80th anniversary of Wannsee Conference.
“Is this a great way to celebrate past mass murder of six million Jews and trivialize Hitler’s genocidal bible by using it to sell tickets to a musical?
“Do you know when it will be acceptable for the German nation to sing about Hitler? Never.”
Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in prison having been jailed for an attempted coup in Munich in 1923. Peppered with virulent antisemitism, its pages detail his plans to destroy democracy and conquer the east in a blueprint for the Nazis’ eventual mass murder.
The German state of Bavaria has held the copyright for the book since the war and forbade reprints until 2015. There was deep concern when the ban was lifted.
Dr Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria said: “I urge those responsible to ask themselves if what they are doing is indeed a service to our democratic society, and to act accordingly.
“When I spoke out against any new edition of Mein Kampf several years ago, I did so out of fear of a trivialisation of Hitler’s ideology that would inevitably chip away at the taboo rightly surrounding him in post-war Germany.
“The performance is a stark reminder of how well-founded those fears were.”
Speaking to the JC, director Malte Lachmann defended his show saying: “Everyone knows the title [Mein Kampf], but no one knows what’s in it. That’s not only because it wasn’t allowed to be reprinted until 2015, and because of the inhuman content, but also because it’s incredibly badly written.
“The book is unbearable. That’s precisely why we’re using the means of the musical. We need to move away from this idea of just looking at Hitler like some little figure of evil.
“He was evil, of course. But instead of just bombarding young Germans with all this information which they have received their whole life, and at school, it makes sense to try to reach out to them on their level.
“This is why we use music.It is about allowing people to relax and enjoy music so they can then confront complex questions about values.”
But German author Oliver Berten takes issues with the justification for the show. He said: “The idea of picking up young people who are bored with the historical narrative shaped by the culture of memory is also completely off the mark. Young people will smell a rat, and turn away, disgusted.”
The German criminal code carefully prohibits the promotion of Nazism. The display of swastikas, Nazi death skulls and SS insignia are illegal, as is the Hitler salute. Enforcement is so rigorous that left-wing anti-fascists have been prosecuted for wearing a badge with a crossed-out swastika.
However, the law allows exemptions for the purposes of education, reporting and science, and also art, which enables theatres to use Nazi material and symbols on stage, just so long as they do not endorse Nazi ideology.
The danger is this satirical productdion trivialises the evil of Nazism