Language:
English
Year of publication:
2000
Titel der Quelle:
Rethinking Peter Weiss
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2000) 93-118
Keywords:
Weiss, Peter,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
Abstract:
Discusses Weiss's drama "The Investigation" (1965) as a literary and political watershed. Its notoriety in West Germany gave the lie to claims of Germans that they did not know about the Holocaust until the TV film "Holocaust" of 1979 or even "Schindler's List" of 1992. Compares "The Investigation" with Max Frisch's "Andorra" and Rolf Hochhuth's "The Deputy", concluding that Weiss's work is one of the best stage representations of the Holocaust. The negative reactions in Germany to the play on the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial stemmed from denial of German guilt, including that of industrial profiteers. American reactions reflected a rejection of Weiss's Marxist criticism. One serious fault of the play is its universalism and omission of the Jewish identity of the Nazis' main racial target. Weiss's major success was in forcing his society to confront the Nazi past; after 1965, no one in Germany could pretend not to know about the Holocaust.
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