Anti-Semitism on Stage
Controversial Fassbinder Play to Open After 20-Year Delay
Fassbinger's play, "Der Müll, die Stadt und der Tod," has caused a stir within some German-Jewish communities.
Twenty-four years ago, the curtain never quite raised on the Rainer Werner Fassbinder play "Der Müll, die Stadt und der Tod." The Jewish community, flexing its muscles for one of the first times since World War II, blasted the piece for being anti-Semitic and managed to prevent its debut.
But on Thursday night, the play will finally take to the stage for a long delayed opening night in Mülheim's Theater an der Ruhr. And, over two decades later, feelings about the play among Germany's Jews haven't changed.
Michael Rubinstein, managing director of the Jewish Community, Duisburg, Mülheim/Ruhr, Oberhausen, said he hadn't yet seen the piece, which can be translated as "Garbage, the City and Death," but he's read the play.
"This play works with anti-Semitic clichés," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE, adding that it had anti-Semitic overtones 20 years ago and still does today.
'The Play Is Still Anti-Semetic'
Dieter Graumann, vice-president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, called the play "tasteless," adding that its producers are trying to break taboos, and don't understand how this play is offensive to Jewish people. "The play was anti-Semitic and still is anti-Semitic, and that has not changed," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE.
The play, written in 1975 and based on a book by German novelist Gerhard Zwerenz, will be shown alongside two other Fassbinder works, "Nur eine Scheibe Brot" and "Blut am Hals der Katze." It is being directed by Roberto Ciulli. It tells the story of a rich Jewish real estate magnate who buys up properties and sells them at a profit. One particularly controversial line has a competitor complaining "the Jew is sucking us dry, he's drinking our blood and makes us unhappy, because he's Jewish and we are the guilty ones? If he had stayed where he came from or had been gassed, I could sleep better at night."
Many saw the play as an attempt to relativize the crimes of the Nazis and, on opening night, protesters in the audience occupied the stage just after the piece began and prevented its showing. A second attempt to stage the play, in 1998 at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, was called off after the Central Council of Jews in Germany refused to cooperate with the showing. The protest in the media was likewise intense, with SPIEGEL publisher Rudolf Augstein coining the phrase, "Away with the Garbage."
Sold Out
Fassbinder himself, a German director, actor, producer and author prominent in the 1960s and 70s, said in 1976 that the tirades of the anti-Semitic character did not reflect his own views. He passed away in 1982.
Helmut Schäfer, dramatic advisor for the Theater an der Ruhr, told SPIEGEL ONLINE that it is important to note, the play is only one of three Fassbinder plays being staged, and that they all grow from one another. He says that while "Der Müll, die Stadt und der Tod" has anti-Semitic clichés, it is not an anti-Semitic play, rather a "reflection of German reality during that time." All 300 seats for Thursday's showing have been sold, Schäfer added, and he expects a normal show.
Despite his objections to the play, Rubinstein says his organization has no plans to protest its opening. Instead he favors letting the public decide, adding "I am excited to see their reaction."