1 Cf. Schlegel's “Schrciben von Errichtung eines Theaters in Kopenhagen”; Gellert's “ProComoedia commovente commentatio…”; Löwen's Geschichte des deutschen Theaters and Flugschriften über das Hamburger Nationaltheater; and Lessing's Preface to the Hamburgische Dramaturgie. Many acting companies were opposed to the innovation since a permanent assignment forced the actors to learn more plays for the constantly changing repertory.

2 In Dawidowicz, Lucy S., The War Against the Jews 1933–1945 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975), pp. 65 and 56 respectively.Google Scholar

3 “Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums. 7 April 1933,” in Die nationalsozialistische Revolution 1933, ed. Friedrichs, Axel (Berlin: Junker and Dünnhaupt, 1935), pp. 172–175Google Scholar. A non-Aryan was subsequently defined on 11 April as a person having a non-Aryan, “particularly Jewish,” parent or grandparent. Hindenburg's objections were made in defense of the German army. On 4 April 1933 he wrote Hitler“If [the Jews] were worthy to fight and bleed for Germany [in World War I] then they should also be considered worthy to continue serving the fatherland in their professions” (in Dawidowicz, p. 55).

4 Hinkel, quoted in “Nazis to Control all Cultural Life,” New York Times, 9 April 1933, IV, p. 2, col 8.Google Scholar

5 Quoted in Birchall, Frederick T., “‘Alien Experimental Mania’ in Art Attacked by Nazis,” New York Times, 16 April 1933, IV, p. 2, col. 7.Google Scholar

6 Heiber, Helmut, Goebbels, tr. Dickenson, John K. (New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1972), p. 126.Google Scholar

7 “Culture Chamber Ousts Jews,” New York Times, 4 September 1935, p. 14. col. 2. In 1934, Goebbels objected that some cashiered Jews “again are appearing in German theatres, variety shows and cabarets.” He instructed the state governments to enforce the anti-Jewish arts legislation through their police; in “Nazis Order Jews Ousted from Stage,” New York Times, 6 March 1934, p. 28, col. 3.Google Scholar

8 “Briefwechsel Furtwangler-Goebbels über Kunst and Staat,” Die nationalsozialistische Revolution 1933, pp. 255–258Google Scholar. An English text was published in Birchall, New York Times, 16 April 1933, IV, p. l, col.4ff.Google Scholar

9 Engelbrecht, Kurt in Wulf, Joseph, Theater und Film im Dritten Reich; Eine Dokumentation (Gütersloh: Sigbert Mohn Verlag, 1964), p. 233.Google Scholar

10 Hans Knudsen and Hans Severus Ziegler, respectively, in Wulf, pp. 235 and 234.

11 An attempt to create a true Nazi theatre form was the Thingspiel (literally, “a play of Volk judgment”); the massive, open-air choric form expired by 1937. See Wulf, pp. 163–172, and Eichberg, Henning, Dultz, Michael, Gadberry, Glen, Rühle, Günther, Massenspiele: NS-Thingspiel, Arbeiterweihespiel und olympisches Zeremoniell (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt; Frommann-Holzboog, 1977).Google Scholar

12 Goebbels as reported in the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, in Wulf, p. 233.

13 Freeden, Herbert, Jüdisches Theater in Nazideutschland (Tübingen: J. D. B. Mohr, 1964), p. 41Google Scholar. This work is the most complete document on the history of the Jewish theatre in Nazi Germany; it is augmented by two preliminary studies by Freeden: “A Jewish Theatre Under the Swastika,” year Book I (Publications of the Leo Baeck Institute of Jews from Germany, 1956; rpt. Millwood, NY: Kraus Reprint Co., 1974), pp. 142–162; “Jüdisches Theater im Dritten Reich,” Parlament. Beilage aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 45/63 (6 November 1963), 18–24. Freeden's work is both scholarly secondary material and primary as Freeden (ne Herbert Friedenthal) was an administrator for the Berlin cultural society and provided adaptations for its Jewish theatre. Unless otherwise noted, factual material on the Jewish theatre derives from Freeden's book.

14 Buber in Freeden, p. 39. Buber's philosophy of the ideal “I-Thou” relationship, one of intimacy and openness between man and other “persons, animals, nature and works of an,” is developed in Ich und Du of 1923. He emigrated to Jerusalem in 1938.

15 In Freeden, p. 22; although listed second, the primary aim was to provide work for the “retired” artists.

16 Freeden, pp. 29–30.

17 In Freeden, p. 67.

18 In Freeden, p. 67.

19 Freeden, p. 45.

20 Freeden, p. 48.

21 In Freeden, p. 50.

22 Freeden, p. 40.

23 “Die Veranstaltungen des Reichsverbandes jüdischer Kulturbünde bis auf weiteres verboten,” Völkischer Beobachter, 6 February 1936, p. 2., col. 6.Google Scholar

24 Herman Sinsheimer, rev. Antigone, in the H. A. Condell Microfilm Collection, Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, New York.

25 In Freeden, p. 95.

26 “All Jewish Meetings Forbidden,” London Times, 6 February 1936, p. 14Google Scholar, col. c. The reporter noted the rabid tone in the German press, adding, “but for the fact that the Olympic Games are now in progress in Bavaria, the German Jews might have had to pay immediately for Frankfurter's crime.”

27 In Freeden, p. 85.

28 Benno Cohn, untitled comments in “The Central Jewish Organizations in Berlin During the Pogrom of November 1938 (‘Kristallnacht’),” ed. Ball-Kaduri, K. Y., Yad Washem Studies on the European Jewish Catastrophe and Resistance, 3 (1959). p. 274.Google Scholar

29 Cohn, p. 275.

30 “Das kulturell Leben der Juden in Deutschland,” Völkischer Beobachter, 15 November 1938, p. 2, col. 6Google Scholar: Hinkel said that the government “had protected and furthered a perfectly adequate Jewish cultural life of its own” but “With few exceptions, the world outside had hardly taken notice.”

31 In Birchall, Frederick T., “Reich Puts Laws on Jews in Force; Trade Untouched,” New York Times, 16 November 1935, p. 6, col. 4.Google Scholar

32 “The Jews in Germany,” London Times, 14 November 1938, p. 12. col. b.Google Scholar

33 “Deutschlands Ziel in der Judenfrage: reinliche Scheidung zwischen Deutschen und Juden,” Völkischer Beobachter, 15 November 1938, p. 1, cols. 1–2.Google Scholar

34 In mid-1934, a report by an anonymous SS official urged that “the National Socialists give official preference to those Jewish oganizations that promoted Jewish nationalism and separatism.” Such an approach would emphasize Hitler's notion that German Jews were foreigners in Germany, “subject to the laws of aliens.” Zionists should be encouraged as only they “acknowledged that Jews could not truly be Germans.” That stance was reinforced, again by the SS, on 15 May 1935, when the Schwarze Korps urged that Zionist organizations be favored while hindering assimilationists. See Dawidowicz, pp. 83–87.

35 Cohn in Freeden, p. 64.

36. “Three Jewish Leaders Arrested in Reich,” New York Times, 25 September 1936, p. 15Google Scholar, col. 3. The suggestion apparently came from Hinkel, but it was not adopted or required.

37. Cohn, p. 275.

38. Freeden, pp. 148–149.

39. By 1939 the “total separation of Germans and Jews” as state policy was being replaced by enforced emigration of German Jewry, rendered impoverished by the systematic imposition of fees and fines. The agency to expedite mass emigration was the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Union of the Jews in Germany), charteted 4 July 1939, although already in operation for several months. Modeled on Adolf Eichmann's operation which cleared Vienna of its Jewish population, the organization had the primary task to secure the emigration of all Jews in Germany; secondary aims were the concerns of Jewish education and welfare. Emigration was to be managed by the network of Jewish religious communities, rather than from the net of cultural Blinde as was inaccurately reported at the time (“New Nazi Plan for Jews,” London Times, 7 July 1939, P. 13Google Scholar, col. d). The German press hailed it as a new level of relationship between the Reich and “its uninvited guests” (Heinrich Olms, “Die neue Organization der Juden,” Völkischer Beobachter, 7 July, 1939, p. 1Google Scholar, col. 6).

40 Freeden, p. 157.

41 Rev. in Freeden, p. 163.

42 Established in November 1941 Theresienstadt was to “serve two purposes: first, it would be a detention center where Jews—mainly those with important international connections—could be interned… second, such a camp would serve as a selection or ‘shift’ station from where—without too much public display—those who wouldn't fit the requirements of living in a ‘model camp’ would be shipped to the extermination camps in Eastern Europe.” Tuma, Mirko, “Memories of Theresienstadt,” Performing Arts journal, I, no. 2 (Fall 1976), 13Google Scholar. See Adler, H. G., Theresienstadt 1941–1945; das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft (Tübingen: J. D. B. Mohr, 1955).Google Scholar

43 Freeden, p. 168.

44 Bruce Zortman feels that the “inability” of the Kultutbund to “see beyond its own German identity” was one of the “probable cause[s] for its lack of success in attaining the creative goals it set for itself,” principally in the work of Buber; “Theatre in Isolation: The Jüdischer Kulturbund of Nazi Germany,” Educational Theatre Journal, 24, no. 2 (1972), 167–168Google Scholar. Zortman's essay is derived from Freeden's book. Any work on the subject must take Freeden into account, but the dependance here is heavy and at times deceptive: most of the quotations cited from secondary and primary sources (Adler and Jewish newspapers of the 1930's principally) are to be found in Freeden. The essay merely has the appearance of extensive research. In addition, Professor Zortman inaccurately reports that after Kristallnach: Hinkel ordered substitutions for arrested Kulturbund staff (p. 166), but it is clear from Cohn, p. 274, who is substantiated by Freeden, p. 147, that those arrested were released to resume their Kulturbund activities. Substitutions were unnecessary. Zortman also claims that the performances at Theresienstadt, transit and death camps after 1941 were “the last recorded performances of the Jüdischer Kulturbund, “the last gasp of the organization” (pp. 159, 167). The camp performances were not a continuation of the Kulturbund, dissolved in 1941. The Kulturbund artists, dispersed to the camps of Himmler's network, often joined in performances with artists who had been deported from the rest of occupied Europe. Those performances, surreptitious, tolerated or even ordered by the camp commanders, represent a different and more grotesque phenomenon than the productions of the Kulturbund: see Tuma, Adler and Goldfarb, Alvin, “Theatrical Activities in Nazi Concentration Camps,” Performing Arts Journal, I, no. 2 (Fall 1976), 3–11Google Scholar. The last performances of a Jewish Kulturbund were those of an organization in Amsterdam, formed by Werner Levie in 1940 with the assistance of performers who had emigrated from Germany. Not a part of the German Reichsverband, the organization operated until mass transports from the Netherlands began in 1943 (Freeden, p. 167).

45 Freeden, p. 169.