Talk:The Deputy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Conspiracy theory?

The article actually presents a conspiracy theory as fact. I see no proof whatsoever that Erwin Piscator wrote The Deputy. The article suggests it without presenting any evidence, supposedly to defend Pius XII. As far as I know, no German literary critic seriously considers that Piscator acted as ghostwriter for Rolf Hochhuth. Piscator being a "devout communist" and Hochhuth taking a critical stance on the Roman Catholic Church is certainly not enough to present a conspiracy theory as fact. 87.169.43.125 21:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The article never said that Erwin Piscator wrote The Deputy. The article includes recent information that has been written by someone in the know. There are no conspiracy theories involved here. The information you don't like is sourced. Dwain 21:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Which doesn't mean the source is reliable. I think I don't have to tell you that you can find sources for almost every obscure theory on the web. Now these claims made by an intelligence officer sound rather like the plot of a Tom Clancy novel to me. Also I still think that the text in its present form suggests that Piscator was involved in writing the play, because it implies (in a context otherwise inexplicable) that Hochhuth didn't have the ability or the education to be a playwright. The whole article is POV because it cites only critical responses to the play as references, which doesn't reflect the actual response to The Deputy at all. 87.169.66.213 10:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I have been working in the Piscator archives in Carbondale and Berlin etc. for months and personally know Hochhuth from extensive talks in Berlin. There is definitely no point to Pacepas obscure claims and in addition a number of 'facts' on Piscator are strongly misrepresented by Pacepas (Piscator has NOT "founded the Proletarian Theater in Berlin" in 1929. He led a small Berlin company under that name in 1920/21)! You refer to Pacepa's untrustworthy testimony and obviously haven't read any reliable academic source on Piscator let alone undertaken research. Of course Piscator as a leading director of his days has tried to influence Hochhuth's fictional (!) text in fall 1962. But already back then Hochhuth would predominantly react obstinate. Piscator later claimed that Hochhuth's "revised text ... was fundamentally based on the Berlin stage version" (Letter of Piscator to Hochhuth, Aug. 16, 1963). Still Piscator exerted just a minor influence on Hochhuth's since 1962 substantially finalized text. I wonder why you trust - of all people - an ex-communist if you seem to despise them so vitally... Diggindeeper 20:42, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I understand both points of view. However

1) Wikipedia is clear on its strictures against original research[[1]], however frustrating that can seem to those who are working on something ("personally know Hochhuth" writes an editor who has not yet set up a user page)

2) W asks us to base contributions on previously published material

3) The National Review is a substantial and highly respected source - and their article on this play has attracted a lot of attention (indeed it is probably the main reason people, certainly those uninterested in international theatre, will come to The Deputy page in 2007) - so the W argument for comprehensiveness suggests reference should be made to it

I have therefore proposed a compromise, drawn directly from the wording on the Pius XII page

Testbed 05:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)Testbed

There is nothing wrong about a critical approach to Hochhuth's play, and if it may take the form of a conspiracy theory, as long as it is relevant. My objection was that the Wikipedia article doesn't really reflect Hochhuth's standing in German literature. The article before the edit presented Hochhuth as a kind of political hack who tried to whitewash himself of Germany's nazi crimes by blaming the Catholic Church, someone who can be put in the wrong easily and is not to be taken seriously. The article doesn't even contain the fact that Hochhuth disputed the idea he could have been influenced by communist intelligence officers. But whether he is appreciated or not, Hochhuth remains an important German post-war writer, and his play caused a serious debate that shouldn't be ignored by an encyclopedia. I would appreciate an article that reflects these facts in a NPOV manner. (As I am not a native English speaker, I would prefer it to be done by someone who is really fluent in English - and informed on Hochhuth and the controversy in general -, because I believe there are enough German speakers who try to write English articles that are barely understandable on en.wikipedia.org.) --87.169.53.210 20:30, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Misguided attempt at adding "historical background"

Hello User:Testbed, your continued attempts at 'adding historical background' to the article on Hochhuth's play The Deputy [2] with untrustworthy sources bring about no improvement but a degradation of the article. As I have exposed at the page on Rolf Hochhuth the established German conservative (!) press, if willing at all to comment on Pacepa's anachronistic cold-war-style allegations, has strongly challenged the plausibility of Pacepa (Hochhuths Quellen. War der 'Stellvertreter' vom KGB inspiriert?, in: F.A.Z., April 26, 2007). German conservative historians find numerous „inconsistencies“ in Pacepa's central argumentation on Hochhuth's play. I have demonstrated above a number of additional errors of Pacepa's article which can be verified by any number of scholarly publications on German theater history (e.g. John Willett, The Theatre of Erwin Piscator. Half a Century of Politics in the Theatre. London 1978.). WP's guideline of comprehensiveness does hardly suggest to base its articles on feature pages with central investigative errors and biased publications instead of on mainstream scholarly knowledge. --Diggindeeper (talk) 14:04, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I've added the FAZ reference which certainly improves the article: thank you for drawing attention to it, although it was a little hard to discern in all your angry typing (your comments sound a little as if you may get into difficulties with WP:NOR so you might want to read up on this). It is always difficult to contribute to Wikipedia across a langauge barrier so I congratulate you (although I might question en-4). Perhaps you missed the overtones in the word "alleged" which would be clear to most readers. Anyway, this point is much better now: I do not agree with removing sources as respectable as either NR or FAZ.Testbed (talk) 17:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I wonder why noone makes an effort and delves into the readily available research literature on Hochhuth such as Eric Bentley, Lucinda Jane Rennison, Margaret E. Ward etc. Consulting these book publications on Hochhuth would contribute to the substance of the article in a way that polemic press articles rarely can as far as the achievement and validity of Hochhuth's work are concerned. Furthermore, I have trouble understanding your reference to WP:NOR. In his 2007 article on Hochhuth, Pacepa e.g. writes:

"In 1929 [Piscator] had founded the Proletarian Theater in Berlin, then sought political asylum in the Soviet Union when Hitler came to power [...]"

I cited an arbitrary piece of research literature on Piscator (Willett, The Theatre of Erwin Piscator. London 1978) to show that these pieces of information by Pacepa are incorrect. Actually, the research literature on Piscator disproves several of Pacepa's statements. On my part, I wouldn't exactly call published research literature "original research". --Diggindeeper (talk) 16:09, 26 May 2008 (UTC)