Awaiting 'The Deputy'

...Hochhuth worked on the play for three years while also being occupied full time as a reader for a German publisher...

...In the United States, Billy Rose was the first to take an option on The Deputy...

...Msgr...

...In what will appear as the introduction to the American edition of the play, Schweitzer writes: "I was an active witness of the failure which took place in those days, and I believe we must concern ourselves with this great problem of the events of history...

...Soon after Der Stellvertreter's appearance, theaters in Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Israel, Scandinavia, Greece, Italy, England, France and the United States announced their intention to produce it, and some have already done so...

...Not only is it an indictment of a historical personality who placed upon himself the great responsibility of silence, it is also a solemn warning to our culture admonishing us to forego our acceptance of inhumanity which leaves us unconcerned...

...Neither Hitler nor Mussolini could have gained power without the positive cooperation of the Papacy...

...This should not embitter us, however, and make us forget the duties that in the near future will fall upon the Germans, as protectors of Rome...

...Hochhuth maintains that from a historical point of view the script is essentially accurate, though he himself is a 32-year-old Protestant who was a youngster when the Nazi atrocities took place...

...In Israel, pressure was used on Habimah, the National Theater, not to stage the play because Israel is striving for better relations with the Vatican...

...In answer to this Hochhuth says: "It is impossible to assume—and no one in the Vatican did...

...If specific gestures or words were not pronounced in certain circumstances, this was not due to fear but to real knowledge of the situations, and the dangers they involved, and the risk of worsening the destiny of the persecuted...

...The failure was that of philosophy, of free thought as well...

...Raimondo Manzini, editor of Osservatore Romano, has written: "The play lacks real knowledge and experience of the Church...

...Hochhuth, who makes his home in Switzerland and will be in New York for the American premiere, when asked what made him write the play, answered: "Well, the subject is simply in the streets of Germany, together with the other two subjects, the reunification of divided Germany and the general problem of the Second World War...

...Jacob Baal-Teshuva, editor of The Mission of Israel and author of Art Treasures of the United Nations, is the executive editor of the monthly journal Jewish World...

...Commonweal, the liberal lay Catholic weekly, has come to Hochhuth's defense...

...His documentation includes a description of Pope Pius XI's encyclical of 1937 entitled "In Burning Concern...

...In London, noisy demonstrations took place near the Aldwych Theater amid threats to the lives of the actors participating in the play...

...Nothing, in fact, but the simple defenders of the spirit, who yet have a right to expect the most from those whose mission it is to represent the spirit...

...For in those days we lived in a time of inhumanity of culture, the beginning of which dates back to Friedrich Nietzsche at the end of the preceding century...

...These quoted such Jewish leaders as Dr...

...Demonstrations and counterdemonstrations have occurred in other cities all over Europe, too...

...It is significant, therefore, that the drama The Deputy has made its appearance...

...Film rights have been bought by French producer Georges de Beauregard...

...A good deal of argument focuses on the possible risks to the Vatican itself if the Pope had come out against the Nazis when Rome was in the hands of the Germans...

...Sadly, Pope Pius refuses to act, claiming that the Church cannot act directly against Hitler's regime, because such a move would strengthen Communism and also endanger the millions of Roman Catholics living in Germany...

...In an unusual letter from Cardinal Montini, published in the Tablet in England on the day he was elected Pope, the Cardinal wrote: "The character given to Pius XII by this play (to judge from the reviews of the press) does not represent the man as he really was, in fact, it entirely misrepresents him...

...Many had tears in their eyes, many could not believe what they had seen or heard...

...Those who after the War came with tears in their eyes to thank him for saving their lives also knew it...

...In the theater in West Berlin where the play was first produced last February by veteran director Erwin Piscator, under its German title of Der Stellvertreter, the opening night audience remained seated in speechless disbelief...

...And there are some who feel it is the most explosive play of the century...

...Hochhuth's drama is not only a historic indictment, but also a clarion call to our time which stagnates in naive inhumanity...

...In front of the fence a macabre debate rages between two men, one an SS doctor whose job is to select each new batch for the gas chambers (a character based on Joseph Mengele, who did in fact perform this task for Hitler), the other Father Fontana, who decides to join the column of Jews marching to their death...

...After all, the failure was not that of the Catholic Church alone but that of the Protestant Church as well...

...America, a weekly Jesuit magazine, has condemned the play...

...The next day, however, a storm broke...

...Only Catholic historians can consult the archives, but even to them there are restrictions: documents until the year 1846 only...

...The Catholic Church bears the greater guilt for it was an organized, supranational power in a position to do something, whereas the Protestant Church was an unorganized, impotent, national power...

...No doubt the occupying forces were able to bring irresistible pressure to bear, no doubt the silence of the Pope and his cardinals was a most terrible duty, the important thing being to avoid even worse misfortunes...

...Forty policemen ejected the demonstrators and the performance continued, but similar incidents occur at each performance...

...Catholic press has begun debating the issue...

...We owe it to ourselves, for our failure made us all participants in the guilt of those days...

...As the play draws to a close...

...A further indication of his attitude toward the Papacy in general may be seen in an obituary he wrote for Der Spiegel, in which he said that "Pope John represented precisely the kind of warmhearted man who would not have kept silent...

...In Basel, Switzerland, 36 persons were arrested by the police after riots near the theater which ended in a great many smashed windows...

...As the first reviews appeared in the German press, the world learned that a new sensational play had appeared, a play that could not help but provoke violent criticism, as well as shame and a sense of guilt...

...Almost immediately following the play's opening, too, leading Catholics began condemning it for what they considered to be its defamation of Pope Pius' memory...

...There is no doubt that Pius XII remained silent," wrote the drama critic of the Kölnische Rundschau, a journal which often speaks for the Christian Democratic party...

...Hochhuth, however, cannot be accused of ignoring general Papal acts against Nazism...

...As Albert Camus said: "Who are we, anyway, that we dare criticize the highest spiritual authority of the Century...

...Let us suppose that Pius XII had done what Hochhuth blames him for not doing, his action would have led to such reappraisals and devastations that Hochhuth would have been able to write another play far more realistic and far more interesting than the one that he has in fact so cleverly but also so ineptly put together...

...Berlin's middle-of-the-road Der Abend wrote: "The playwright is angry...

...In Paris, where the play is now running under the title of Le Vicaire, eggs and tomatoes began pelting the stage when the curtain went up at the premiere...

...We are happy to have the opportunity to state on this day and in this place that there is nothing more unjust than this slight against such a venerated memory...

...Zvi Kolitz, co-producer of the New York production, sums up the play as being about the "crime of indifference...

...Rose answered: "I have six million reasons for it...

...Hochhuth in fact portrays Pius XII as a wise, considerate and gentle as well as firm Pope...

...The Vatican archives were unavailable to him...

...A document made available to me by the U.S...

...The Concordat, in effect, created a modus vivendi between the Vatican and Hitler...

...Thought in our time is still founded in inhumanity...

...It is utterly false to tax Pius with cowardice...

...The play has also been published in England under the title of The Representative, and it is being brought out here later this month by Grove Press...

...It has also caused violence and physical threats to Hochhuth's life...

...And while standing at the Mandelbaum gate in Jerusalem, minutes before departing from Israel during his recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the Pope again deplored the "unjust accusations" against Pius, adding that he "did all he could during World War II for all those who were in need without distinction...

...it is too early to pass judgment on the Pontiff...

...Der Spiegel described the play as "No worse than any other German play by a new author...

...Let some men say what they will, Pius XII's reputation as a true Vicar of Christ, as one who tried, so far as he could, fully and courageously to carry out the mission entrusted to him, will not be affected...

...a vast wire fence, barbs gleaming in the beam of a searchlight, slices across the stage...

...One by one they quietly left the theater...

...Maintenance of the Concordat concluded between the Vatican and Hitler in 1933 is another subject often raised in discussions about the play...

...Not only to defend the Eastern borders, But to assure a balance of power in the world...

...Few modern plays have been as long as The Deputy, which would have required a full seven hours to perform if Piscator had not cut it in half...

...His noble and virile character was capable of taking very firm decisions and of adopting fearlessly positions that entailed considerable risk...

...At this point Pope Pius, having spilled ink on his hand while dictating an article to Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, calls for water to wash the ink away...

...He went on to point out that the play does not attack the Papacy as an institution: "I only criticize one Pope in particular...

...Behind it shuffles a column of newly arrived Jews at Auschwitz, due to be gassed within half an hour...

...To stay on the right path of history we must become aware of the great aberration of those days, and must remain aware of it, so as not to stumble further into inhumanity...

...As for his omitting to take up a position of violent opposition to Hitler in order to save the lives of those millions of Jews slaughtered by the Nazis, an attitude of protest and condemnation such as this young man blames the Pope for not having adopted would have been not only futile but harmful...

...When asked why he wanted to produce it...

...Defending Pius, Dr...

...But it too became guilty, by simply accepting the terrible, inhuman fact of the persecution of the Jews...

...But the big question, and the dilemma it poses, will remain...

...But the international controversy over the play has not stayed within the bounds of discussion...

...The symbolic parallel with Pontius Pilate cannot be missed...

...All of which has prompted the novelist Carl Amery to declare that he "cannot understand why we have a right to criticize such Popes as Gregory XVI or Julius II and not Pius the XII...

...At present he is writing a new play entitled The Employer, a social drama with a German background that is not concerned with Jews in any way, although it has Biblical elements...

...But Habimah announced, shortly after its recent arrival in New York City for a limited engagement, that it will put on the play after returning home...

...I am in a position to assert this because it was my good fortune to be drawn into close contact with Pius XII, serving him day by day, from 1937 when he was Secretary of State, to 1954, throughout, that is, the whole period of the World War...

...The curtain falls as a bulldozer shovels a huge pile of corpses into a pit...

...The history of the world in our time is still inhuman through and through, and we accept this as a matter of course...

...Nachum Goldmann, President of the World Jewish Congress, who praised the Pope's help to the Jews...

...Hochhuth maintains that it was the work of Pius XII at the time that he was Nuncio in Berlin, and that he intended to keep it in force even after Hitler's crimes became known to the world...

...Nevertheless, a crime of such magnitude falls in no small measure to the responsibility of those witnesses who never cried out against it—whatever the reason for their silence...

...Diplomatic activities in defense of those who were persecuted was a constant feature of the Papacy of Pius XII...

...Department of State throws some additional light on the views of the then Cardinal Montini...

...It is all very well to say that he did a lot to help, and he did, but the fact remains that it was his duty to fight, even if it meant danger for the Vatican or the Catholic community...

...According to the Pope's Personal Secretary, Father Robert Leiber, "Pius could only protest in general statements, and never specifically for Jews because so much injustice and cruelty were perpetrated on all sides...

...Hochhuth, who read thousands of documents in preparing the script, was assisted by two historians, Joseph Wolf in Berlin and Leon Poliakoff in Paris...

...The priest then puts a crucial question to the Pope: When, at long last will the Vatican act like that, so that we priests will be able to say without shame that we are servants of the Church...

...Germany must remain strong . . . The young priest Fontana reminds the Pope that the King of Denmark, head of a powerless state, told Hitler that he and every member of the Royal household would wear the Star of David if the Jews of Denmark were forced to do so...

...Hochhuth's Pope is not a Pope but a grotesque expression of anti-Catholic prejudices...

...Said to have been written by Pius XII when he was Vatican Secretary of State, it denounces Nazi crimes...

...he explained, because "neither the Kremlin nor the Vatican open their archives to a stranger...

...Published unabridged along with 60 pages of documentation, it still is a best seller in Germany...

...To this Hochhuth replied: "I am absolutely certain that if the Pope had voiced a strong protest, it would have saved the lives of many Jews...

...In an interview, Hochhuth claimed that his work is not antiCatholic, since its major hero, Father Fontana, is a Catholic, but only a condemnation of the Pope...

...Albert Schweitzer...

...Francois Mauriac, himself a Catholic, observed in support of The Deputy: "We have not yet had the consolation of hearing Simon Peter's successor clearly and sharply condemning, without a trace of tactful circumlocution, the crucifixion of these countless 'brothers of Christ.' One day during the occupation I asked Cardinal Suhard, who worked so hard for them behind the scenes, to 'order us to pray for the Jews' and he threw up his arms...

...The Pope says: Assuredly the terror against the Jews is ugly...

...Those who have come to Hochhuth's defense include Dr...

...Anything further is top secret...

...Montimi, however, stated to me that time may come when, in spite of such a grievous prospect, the Holy Father will feel himself obliged to speak out...

...Thus The Deputy, even before its Broadway opening, has become the most controversial play to be written since the end of World War II...

...Hugh Trevor-Roper, well-known Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, has added his voice by observing that "it was an historical fact that the Papacy as an institution favored the growth of Nazism, seeing it as a counter to Communism, which it regarded as a greater evil...

...Meanwhile, the U.S...

...Italics mine —J...

...It was quickly picked up by Herman Shumlin, the veteran Broadway producer and director, and is scheduled to open on Broadway February 26...

...But what is the gain to art and culture when the theater lends itself to injustice of this sort...

...A Deputy of Christ who sees these things before his eyes and remains silent for reasons of state, who delays even one day, hesitates for even one howto raise his anguished voice in a curse that should shatter every last man on earth: Such a Pope . . . is a criminal...

...It is a letter from Harold Tittnar, assistant to the President's Representative to Pope Pius XII, which was written in 1942 and reads: "The Holy See is still apparently convinced that a forthright denunciation by the Pope of Nazi atrocities, at least insofar as Poland is concerned, would only result in the violent deaths of many more people...

...In Berlin, the Roman Catholic Diocese distributed documents attempting to prove that Pius did his best to save Jews...

...It came also as a sense of guilt toward the Jewish people, after all the Nazi crimes...

...But Hochhuth's central thesis, that Pope Pius never made any public denunciation of the Nazi crimes against the Jews, is not denied by anyone...

...Being under tremendous pressure to abandon the play, although not citing it publicly as his reason, Rose finally gave up his option...

...All this stern talk does not impress the Pope, and the young priest, shocked and shattered, pins the Star of David on his soutane and leaves Rome...

...And Harry Buckwitz, Director of the Frankfurt Theater, called the play a "masterpiece," while August Everding, Director of the Munich Theater, asserted that the "subject has not been mastered, despite some impressive scenes...

...POPE PIUS XII AND THE JEWS Awaiting 'The Deputy' By Jacob Baal-Teshuva As Rolf Hochhuth's controversial play, The Deputy, reaches its climax, a young Jesuit priest named Ricardo Fontana confronts Pope Pius XII to plead with him to denounce the Nazi slaughter of the Jews...

...It is not true to say that his conduct was inspired by a calculating political opportunism...

...In the light of the reception the play has received wherever it has been produced to date, at the very least a verbal storm is likely to greet next week's Broadway opening of The Deputy...

...Alexander Ruestow, the historian, has taken a similar position: "The Church had plenty of diplomatic experience so as to be able to protest without great practical danger to itself...

...either in 1943 or 1959—that Hitler would have made a 'martyr' of the Pope...