Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Shylock under the Nazis: Continuation or Reinvention?

While library shelves often groan under weighty volumes about Hitler’s political rule and the Second World War, a closer glance at the years between 1933 and 1945 makes it apparent that there is still a lacuna of academic research on the topic of arts under the Nazis. While some attention may have sporadically been given to German playwrights, actors, and directors, one of the most consistently present playwrights within the theatre staples, has been the one to be relatively widely ignored – his name is William Shakespeare. This lecture gives due and extended attention to Shakespeare performance, and specifically to the 1939 The Merchant of Venice performance in Vienna, examining the ways in which Shylock was portrayed and potentially misused for propagandistic purposes by the regime.

Archival material sourced from the theatre museum in Vienna and the ‘Burgtheater’ will form the base of this research. The question ‘how was Shylock performed under the Nazis?’, will thus be accompanied by ‘to what extent was the play modified?’, and ‘how does the Vienna production differ from previous, celebrated productions?’.

Considering that The Merchant of Venice is a play which, up until today, often upsets audiences, and is repeatedly considered too problematic for the present-day stage, one might assume that a performance analysis of this play under the Nazis might be too crude an endeavour. This lecture, however, aims to demonstrate that no matter how painful or uncomfortable a topic may be, ‘Erinnern macht frei’ - remembrance can set you free (Marko Watt).