-82-

conflict (between good and evil, between "duty" and "inclination,"
etc.) has no more sense. A tragic hero is for him no longer
possible, for the category of individual guilt, which is
included under the concept of tragedy, can no longer be taken
seriously. "To us only comedy," he says, "still speaks. Our
world has led to the grotesque, just as it has led to the atom
bomb."

Similarly as in the novels of Günter Grass, in Dürrenmatt's
dramas too the grotesque appears as that means of depiction which
is actually suited to the true character of the epoch. In his
style Brechtian elements are mixed with tendencies which can be
traced to Nestroy (1801-1862), that genial protagonist of the
popular Viennese comic theater, and others traceable to Wedekind.
Somewhat as with the latter, the world proves to be a combination
of circus, madhouse and panopticon, except that Wedekind's
vitalistic, pan-erotic élan is missing, while the sarcastic
impetus has been heightened into the fiercely monstrous. In
his weaker works, e.g., in "Die Ehe des Herrn Mississippi" (The
Marriage of Mr. Mississippi, 1952) or in "Frank V., Oper einer
A Comedy of a Private Bank, 1959),
Privatbank" (Frank V./Dürrenmatt sometimes lets himself be misled
into playing out purely cabaret effects which rise only slightly
above the level of a high-school lampoon. In his best play to

-83-

date, "Der Besuch der alten Dame" (The Visit, 1956), a study of the destruction of man's moral power of resistance under the force of economic corruption, he achieves the proportions of a grand, generally applicable satire which can be read not only as a parody on the German economic miracle, but also as an unmasking of the moral baseness of mankind in general. Finally in his "Die Physiker" (The Physicists, 1960) he ridicules the world which has allowed the atom bomb to occur to it with a dialectical irony patterned on an old and familiar topos of the medieval philippic: the truly rational ones sit in an asylum, and the supposedly rational ones are insane. His criticism of contemporary humanity is more radical than any political moralism still interested in details. This form of criticism has been defined as "total protest" (Marianne Kesting).

Not until the beginning of the sixties have German authors of the younger generation too succeeded in vigorously gaining a foothold on the stage and in attaining successes which were able as well to arouse the attention of the international theater world. First should be named "Der Stellvertreter" (The Deputy) of Rolf Hochhuth (b. 1932), a drama which charges the Pope of the Second World War, Pius XII, with not having protested earnestly against the annihilation of European Jews for political reasons and thereby

-84-

having become a participant in the guilt for the most heinous
misdeed of the century. The play, which was first staged in
the spring of 1963/ under the direction of Erwin Piscator, is
artistically not very interesting; it moves in the lines of a
naive imitation of Schiller and is, as far as language, staging
and delineation of characters are concerned, most "un-modern."
Nonetheless it has proved itself effective enough on the stage
to interest millions of persons in the polemics of its author,
to set off impassioned discussions not only in Germany, but also
in many other countries/and to cause theater scandals in numerous
cities of the Western world (thus in Vienna, Paris, Basel, Rome
and New York). The dramaturgic energy of Hochhuth's play lies
not in what was once termed the "tragic conflict." It lies so
to speak beyond his unscrupulous patchwork text made up of historical
materials and fictitious elements: namely in the public character
of his critique of an historical figure, in the suggestive
topicality of a political and moral argument which cannot be
deprived entirely of its sense by any counter-argument, however good.
It was his intention above all to set forth documents and to
demonstrate them strikingly by means of the stage, in the process
of which he has not always avoided demagogic tricks as well.

-85-

Hochhuth's immense success has initiated a new chapter in recent theater history, a chapter which could be characterized by the formula "documentary" or "publicistic" theater. The stage is turned to the use of a "tribunal" in a very drastic sense in order to set before the audience contemporary raw material, often in the form of legal proceedings, and thereby to appeal to its conscience, to wake its critical reaction.

By way of example in this connection there can be named two plays of Heinar Kipphart (b. 1922): one concerning the hearings of the famous atomic physicist Oppenheimer before the Personnel Security Board ("In der Sache J. Robert Oppenheimer," *In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1964*) and one dealing with a gruesome episode from the history of the so-called "final solution of the Jewish question" ("Joel Brand," 1965); and in addition the already mentioned shortened version of the minutes from the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials as edited by Peter Weiss (b. 1916) and which played on numerous German stages in the fall of 1965 under the title "Die Ermittlung" (*The Investigation*).

But besides these various types of publicistic theater there was simultaneously a whole series of attempts to reinstate the poetic imagination in its ancestral right and to deal with contemporary problems in the form of conventional pieces for the

-89-

the danger of a degeneration of revolutionary exercise of power
into despotism is recognized. Not until one year after his
Berlin triumph, when he was working on his Auschwitz material,
did the author publicly profess himself a Communist. Now he
believed he had to interpret the horrors of Auschwitz as a
monstrous form of 'capitalism.'

We are at the end of our presentation and have yet spoken
up to now only indirectly and in passing of by far the most
significant personality of the modern German theater, of Bertolt
Brecht. There is hardly a playwright of the middle and younger
generations who would not have been most decisively influenced
by Brecht, no theater critic would have had to come to terms
with the Brechtian theory of the "epic theater," with the idea
of "alienation" and everything having to do with it in terms of
stylistic innovations. And the twenty years of German theater
history which we have had to treat would have come off much
poorer if Brecht's dramatic oeuvre had not been and if the
managers of many West German theaters had not staked their
ambitions on presenting with his masterworks the greatest German
dramatist since Hauptmann. Still we must forego inquiring fully
into this poet. Any attempt to render critical justice to his
artistic achievement would burst the framework of this sketch.

-90-

Moreover, strictly speaking, such an attempt no longer belongs in the thematic sphere of our presentation. All the masterworks of the mature Brecht--from "Mutter Courage" (Mother Courage) to "Der kaukasische Kreidekreis" (The Caucasian Chalk Circle)--came about before 1945, in the years of emigration. What does belong to our theme would in any case be Brecht's activities as director of the "Berlin Ensemble" (founded 1949), i.e., the last seven years of his life. In these years, as adapter and director of his own and others' plays, as writer of "model books," as teacher of actors, as acutely sensitive theoretician and genial practician of the stage, he created that singular theater style which has since become world-famous.

But this last phase of Brecht's activity too belongs only very conditionally to our theme. The style of the Berlin Ensemble, as graceful, as exquisite, as Goldonianly elegant as it might be under the circumstances, has not really been capable of exportation, for to its cultivation belong the working conditions and the ideological climate of a Communist theater management. Wherever Brecht was played on West German stages, he was played differently there; it was surely a different Brecht, too, who was played: a Brecht under the changing aspects of the western concept of freedom: provocator and traitor; a showcase bigwig supported by

-91-

the Ulbricht régime and a political scandal-maker even long after
his death; a poet and ideologist--and indeed as much poet as
ideologist--and yet at his most magnificent precisely where he
portrays man in a condition which is to be comprehended not from
the standpoint of an ideology, least of all that of historical
materialism; and finally: sceptic, enlightener and sly
"dialectician" ad infinitum and to that extent, with all his
rationality, an enemy of all conclusively final cognition. Or,
to say it with his own words from "Der gute Mensch von Sezuan"
(The Good Woman of Sezuan): "We stand here disappointed too,
perplexed, / The curtain's down, but something must come next."

München 13, Agnesstrasse 48, den 25. Januar 66.

JAN 27 1966

Mein lieber Kissinger,

heute Ihre Nachricht vom 21. Januar und das beigefügte
Manuskript der Übersetzung meines Theater-Kapitels. Tausend
Dank. Ich hab es gleich durchgesehen und schicke es Ihnen
hier mit meinen Verbessnungsvorschlägen zurück. Der Übersetzer
hat sich gut gearbeitet, bitte sagen Sie ihm mein Kompli-
ment.

Auf Seite 77 bitte auf keinen Fall vergessen, das
ausführliche Hanns Braun-Zitat, das im Original auf englisch
er scheint, bei der Herstellung des endgültigen Manuskripts
wieder einzufügen.

Sie sprachen in einem Ihrer letzten Briefe davon, dass
Sie mir den von Ihnen korrigierten Text der ersten Teile
noch einmal zur Nachprüfung vorlegen würden. Das ist bisher
nicht geschehen. Glauben Sie, dass noch Zeit ist für eine
solche Prozedur?

Mit herzlichen Grüssen:

Wann wird man wohl zu drucken anfangen?

Manuskript Holthusen - Verbesserungen (Seite 71 - 91)

Seite 71: Numerierung des Kapitels: nicht X, sondern XI. !

Seite 73, letzte Zeile: Them!

Seite 77: das Hanns Braun- Zitat n i c h t v e r g e s s e n !!

Seite 77, Zeile 5 von unten: "our" statt "their"!

Seite 78: erste Zeile: "German" statt "local".

Seite 81; Zeile 5: "dilemmas" ist besser als "doubts and objections".

Seite 81, Zeile 6/5 von unten: "eiserne Ration" (letzte Verpflegungsre-
serve bei Soldaten!) besser mit "iron ration" oder: "emergency
ration" wiedergeben!

Seite 84, Zeile 3: "in Berlin" einfügen!

Seite 86, Zeile 7 von unten: "The son, not the father..."

Seite 86, Zeile 5 von unten: "Hasek"!

Seite 87, Zeile 5: "first performed in Berlin in January 1966"!

Seite 88, Zeile 12: "arrant favorite meeting-place" würde ich vor-
schlagen. Oder, wenn "arrant" nicht passen sollte, das Wort
einfach weglassen. Also: "the favorite meeting-place".

Seite 89, Zeile 6: ist "monstrosity" nicht besser als "monstrous"?

Seite 89, Zeile 12: nach critic: "who" einfügen!

Seite 90, Zeile 8 von unten: "as it sometimes might be" ist besser als
"under the circumstances". Letzteres ist zu definitiv, zu total.

Seite 91, Schluss: bitte v o r der Übersetzung des Zitats aus "The
Good Woman of Setzuan" den deutschen Text einfügen. Das Wort
"offen" sollte nicht unterdrückt werden.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

ROBERT R. BOWIE, Director
ALEX INKELES
HENRY A. KISSINGER
EDWARD S. MASON
THOMAS C. SCHELLING
RAYMOND VERNON

6 DIVINITY AVENUE
CAMBRIDGE 38
MASSACHUSETTS

February 14, 1966

Professor Hans Egon Holthusen
Agnesstrasse 48
Munich 13, Germany

Dear Professor Holthusen:

Under the stimulus of your letter and a production of _Galileo_ which I saw
over the weekend, I propose the following phrase as having the proper
meaning and rhetorical weight: "Brecht's vision of a many-sided reality
ceaselessly unfolding."

On the question of the Enzensberger quotation (p. 56), I concur in
Professor Kissinger's judgment: The point is really much clearer in your
words than in Enzensberger's--so much so that I would apply a perverse
remark by the American film reviewer Pauline Kael: "That is why there are
more poets than critics":

cc: H. Kissinger

cc: H. Krieger

Editor of Publications
Robert Krieger

Completely yours,

more boars than critics": remark by the American film reviewer Pauline Kael: "That is why there are more than in Eisenbergers,---so much so that I would apply a bverse Professor Krieger's judgment: The point is really much clearer in hours On the question of the Eisenbergers quotation (p. 88), I concern in Eisenbergers"

certainly unholding." meaning and rhetorical weight: "Brecht's avion of a many-sided resity over the weekend, I brooke the following phrase so having the brober Under the stimulus of hour letter and a production of Geitler which I saw

Dear Professor Holthuysen:

Munich 13, Germany
Agronatrasse 48
Professor Hans Egon Holthuysen

February 14, 1969

RAYMOND VERNON
THOMAS C. SCHULTZING
EDWARD F. MYERON
HENRY Y. KRISINGER
YFEX IKERLER
ROBERT R. BOWEN, Director

MYERSCHUNGELLS
CYMBINDORF 38
D DIAMOND AVENUE

CENTRAL FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Hans E. Holthusen

München 13, Agnesstrasse 48

den 25. März 1966.

MAR 28 1966

Mein lieber Kissinger,

dies nur, um Ihnen für Ihre Nachricht vom 8. März zu danken und Ihnen für Ihr sabbatical meine freundschaftlich besten Wünsche zu schicken. Wie ich Sie kenne, werden Sie sich nicht dem Müssiggang ergeben, sondern ein neues strategisches oder historisches Meisterwerk in die Welt setzen.

Die Übersetzung meines Beitrags zu Ihrem Deutsch-
land- Opus habe ich inzwischen, so gut es ging, korrigiert;
mit dem editor hatte ich einen ganz lustigen Briefwechsel, der
mich über verschiedene Streichungen etwas hinweggetröstet hat.
Ich hoffe nur, Sie werden Ihre Hand jetzt nicht von dem Unter-
nehmen abziehen, sondern es weiterhin überwachen! Ich hoffe zu
Gott, dass nicht bei der Schlussredaktion noch weitere Kürzun-
gen (oder Veränderungen oder "Adaptionen an der amerikanischen
Lesergeschmack") vorgenommen werden, Gott ja, ich wäre Ihnen
dankbar, wenn Sie mir das versprechen könnten. Wenn glauben Sie,
wird das Buch erscheinen?

Mit herzlichen Grüssen

Answer?

Hans E. Holthusen

den 8. Mai 1967.

München 13, Agnesstrasse 48

Verehrtester,

vielen Dank für Ihren Brief vom 27. März. Ich war sehr froh,
über die Nachricht, dass Sie unverzüglich Massnahmen ergreifen
würden, um die Auszahlung des Honorars für meinen Beitrag zu Ih-
rem Deutschland- Buch zu veranlassen. Nun hab ich leider bisher
vergeblich gewartet: bis heute ist nichts gekommen. Hat es Schwie-
rigkeiten gegeben, Hindernisse? Könnten Sie nicht so freundlich
sein, sich noch einmal um die Sache zu kümmern und dafür zu sor-
gen, dass der Scheck endlich abgeschickt wird? Ich wäre Innen
sehr dankbar.

Es tut mir leid, dass ich Sie mit dieser albernen Geschichte
plagen muss, und ich würde es gewiss nicht tun, wenn es sich ver-
meiden liesse.

Mit herzlichen Grüssen