Theatre Under the Nazis

Were the young people who worked in the theatres of the Third Reich willing participants in the Nazi propaganda machine or artists independent of official ideology? To what extent did composers like Richard Strauss and Carl Orff follow Nazi dogma? How did famous directors such as Gustaf Gründgens and Jürgen Fehling react to the strictures of teh new regime? Why were Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw among the most performed dramatists of the time? And why did the Nazis sanction Jewish theatre?

This is the first book to appear in English about theatre from the entire Nazi period (1933-45). It is based on detailed statistical analysis, contemporary press reports, research in German archives and interviews with surviving playwrights, actors and musicians. The volume has an extensive bibliography and is fully illustrated. It forms a much needed guide to this neglected area of European culture and will be of interest to historians, Germanists and theatre specialists.

The international contributors are William J. Niven, Glen Gadberry, Erik Levi, Rebecca Rovit, William Abbey and Katharina Havekamp.