Rolf Hochhuth

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Rolf Hochhuth (born April 1, 1931 in Eschwege) is a German author and playwright.

Hochhuth is best known for his 1963 drama Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel (The Deputy, a Christian Tragedy), a controversial theater work because of its criticism of Pope Pius XII's role in World War II. Published with the help of Ivan Agayants, and though of little historical value and credibility, it is acknowledged as a work of considerable literary merit by some, while publisher Ed Keating and journalist Warren Hinckle, who organized a committee to defend the play as a matter of free speech, considered it "dramaturgically flawed." (If You Have a Lemon, Make Lemonade, 1974.) [1]. It was first produced in the United Kingdom by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London in 1963, and revived by the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow in 1986. It will receive only its third British production at the Finborough Theatre, London, in August 2006. The play was seen by commentators as an attempt of Hochhuth to transfer the guilt of his own parents to other, more notable, persons, thus trying to acquit his own people and relatives from consent to Nazi crimes.

Hochhuth's next play, Soldiers, Necrology on Geneva (1967) criticizes the Allied bombing campaigns as war crimes and Winston Churchill as a war criminal. It also cast doubts about the official British version that the Polish Prime Minister General Władysław Sikorski's death in an airplane crash in 1943 was an accident, and instead claimed that General Sikorski had been murdered on Churchill's orders. Controversy arose in the UK when the mooted premiere at Britain's National Theatre was cancelled, but the play was produced soon after in the West End. The play heavily relied on the work of the young British historian David Irving, who later became notorious as a holocaust denier. Since that time, Irving and Hochhuth have been close friends and in 2005 Hochhuth drew criticism as he defended his friend against being a holocaust denier, calling the charge "idiotic" and Irving "an honourable man". The play received much critical acclaim when revived at the Finborough Theatre, London, in August 2004.

In 1978 his novel A Love in Germany about an affair between an Polish POW and a German woman in World War II stirred up a debate about the past of Hans Filbinger, minister-president of Baden-Württemberg, who had been a Navy lawyer and judge at the end of World War II and allegedly was responsible for death sentences. This debate resulted in Filbinger's resignation.

His 1987 drama Alan Turing featured one of the fathers of modern computer science, who had made significant contributions to breaking German ciphers during World War II. The play also covered Turing's homosexuality.

In 2004 he again caused controversy with the play McKinsey is Coming, which raises the questions of unemployment, social justice and a "right to work". A passage in which he put the chairman of the Deutsche Bank in one line with leading business men who had been murdered by left-wing terrorists and also with Gessler, the villainous bailiff killed by William Tell. This was widely seen as advocating or at least excusing violence against leading economy figures. Hochhuth vigorously denied this.

Other works include Guerrillas (1970), The Midwife (1972), The Survivor (1981).

The movie Amen, filmed in 2002 by Costa-Gavras, was based upon The Deputy but focused more on the true story of Kurt Gerstein, a devout Protestant and later member of the SS, who wrote an eyewitness report about the gas chambers, and after the war mysteriously died as a POW. [2]

Besides this movie, Hochhuth also collaborated with scripts for cinema and television: