Werner Krauss - German Film and Theatre Actor, Nazi Propaganda Collaborator: A Fictional Re-imagining of his Life

240 Pages·2022·7.099 MB·English

by  Gareth Watts

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This book is dedicated to Mum and Dad
Julie and Donald Watts
who have encouraged and supported me in
everything I have ever done
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Copyright © Gareth Watts 2017.
The right of Gareth Watts to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
ISBN 978-1-84519-898-5 (Paper)
ISBN 978-1-78284-465-5 (PDF)
ISBN 978-1-78284-463-1 (EPUB)
ISBN 978-1-78284-464-8 (Kindle)
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by
SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS
PO Box 139, Eastbourne BN24 9BP
and in the United States of America by
SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS
International Specialized Book Services
920 NE 58th Ave #300
Portland, Oregon 97213
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of
criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Watts, Gareth, 1982– author.
Title: Werner Krauss : German film and theatre actor, Nazi propaganda
collaborator : a fictional re-imagining of his life / Gareth Watts.
Description: Portland, OR : Sussex Academic Press, 2017. | Includes
bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017013472 | ISBN 9781845198985 (pbk : alk.
paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Krauss, Werner, 1884–1959—Fiction. | World War,
1939–1945—Collaborationists—Germany—Fiction. | National
socialism—Fiction. | Antisemitism—Fiction. | LCGFT: Biographical
fiction
Classification: LCC PR6073.A8795 W47 2017 | DDC 823/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017013472
Typeset & designed by Sussex Academic Press, Brighton & Eastbourne.
Printed by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall.
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Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction 1
‘Never Felt It Till Now’ 31
A Fictional Re-Imagining of the Life of Werner Krauss
Prologue 33
Part One 35
Part Two 95
Part Three 168
Postscript 220
Source Attribution 224
Bibliography 226
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Acknowledgements
The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the following for
permission to reproduce copyright material:
Excerpts from John London, ‘Non-German Drama in the Third
Reich’, from Theatre Under The Nazis (ed. Jack London),
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), courtesy of
Manchester University Press.
William R. Elwood, ‘Werner Krauss and the Third Reich’, from
Theatre in the Third Reich, The Prewar Years (ed. by Glen W.
Gadberry), (London: Greenwood, 1995); excerpts from pp. 92, p. 94,
p. 95 and p. 96. Permission to reproduce granted via ABC Clio
through Copyright.com.
Material from Werner Krauss, Das Schauspiel Meines Lebens
(Stuttgart: Henry Goverts Verlag, 1958). The Author and Publisher
have made extensive efforts to track down the rights-holder for this
work, but without success.
George Bernard Shaw letters, quoted in Werner Krauss, Das
Schauspiel Meines Lebens. Permission to reproduce granted by the
Estate of George Bernard Shaw.
Excerpts from Hayden White, ‘Figural Realism in Witness Literature’,
from Parallax, vol. 10, no. 1 (London: Taylor & Francis, 2004).
Permission to reproduce granted by Taylor & Francis.
Excerpts from Brian Cheyette, ‘The Uncertain Certainty of Schindler’s
List’, Spielberg’s Holocaust; Critical Perspectives on Schindler’s List
(ed. Yosefa Loshitzky), (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997).
Permission to reproduce granted by Indiana University Press.
The cover illustration, Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, is reproduced
courtesy of Mirnau Stiftung, Wiesbaden, Germany.
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Acknowledgements vii
The publishers apologize for any errors or omissions in the above list
and would be grateful to be notified of any corrections that should be
incorporated in the next edition or reprint of this book.
===❖ ===
Many thanks to everyone at the Department of English and Drama,
Loughborough University. Particular gratitude must go to John
Schad for his role in securing my three-year Departmental
Studentship and Elaine Hobby for offering me (highly enjoyable)
teaching work – crucially, your faith and trust made this project
financially viable. My Directors of Research, Clare Hanson and
Gabriel Egan, gave a timely ‘second opinion’, insight and a welcome
sense of perspective.
As my second Supervisor, Julian Wolfreys guided me through the
final twelve months of this project with lucid insight, encouragement
and timely reassurance. It was a pleasure to work with him during the
testing ‘write-up’ process.
Thank you to my fellow PhD students: James Holden, Gemma
Twitchen, Lindsey Croft, Steph Foster, Jenni Ramone and particularly
Vicky Smith. Thanks also to my Critical Studies students – teaching
really is the best form of learning.
Thanks to the librarians at The Pilkington Library, Loughborough
University, particularly Laurie Salemohamed, and also to those at the
University of Leicester Library. The staff at the film archive at the
Imperial War Museum were warm and accommodating, as were the
staff at The Wiener Library, Devonshire Street, London, who gave me
access to a wealth of crucially important primary source material. Also
thanks to Jo Fox, of the University of Durham, for her informative
email correspondence and to Aaron Hulme, for his help with some of
the more difficult German translation.
Jonathan Taylor is a Supervisor, mentor and friend, whose tireless
support and willingness to help was simply invaluable. Throughout
my MA and PhD projects, his assistance has been thorough and astute.
Finally, special thanks go to Charlotte Watts, without whose love,
patience, smile, jokes and songs, this project would have been impos-
sible.
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Introduction
‘It felt as though writing to satisfy a particular agenda wasn’t
really writing at all – just a series of unconvincing answers to a
set of impossible questions.’1
Shylock, Krauss and the Genesis of ‘Never Felt It Till Now’
The initial idea for this book arose in 2002, as a response to an essay
assignment I was set as an English undergraduate. The essay question
was: ‘Should The Merchant of Venice still be staged in light of the
Holocaust?’ While researching the essay, I turned my attention to
particular productions of the play, intrigued to know if it had ever
actually been staged by the Nazis and, if so, how effective it was as a
propaganda tool.
The Merchant of Venice was shown regularly throughout Nazi-
occupied Europe. In one performance, directed by Paul Rose in 1942,
extras were planted amongst the audience, ‘hurling abuse as soon as
Shylock appeared’.2Another notorious production was staged in 1943
at the Vienna Bergtheater, starring Werner Krauss as Shylock. This
staging was blatant in its intentions, and one contemporary reviewer
claimed that Krauss encapsulated ‘the pathological picture of the
Eastern European racial type in all his internal and external dirtiness,
emphasizing danger through humour’.3Another declared: ‘Words are
inadequate to describe the linguistic and mimic variety of Werner
Krauss’ Shylock [ . . . ] Every fibre of his body seems impregnated with
Jewish blood; he mumbles, slavers, gurgles, grunts and squawks with
alarming authenticity . . . ’4
I was simultaneously appalled and fascinated by these discoveries, for
it seemed that such productions were used to convince the German
theatregoer that the Nazi ‘struggle’ against the Jews was a historic one,
and one tacitly supported by William Shakespeare. Although I appre-
ciated that the Jewish characterisation in The Merchant of Venicewas
inherently problematic, I was nonetheless astonished at just how
blatantly the play was being used by the Nazis in a barbaric propa-