Colloquia Germanica
cg
0010-1338
Francke Verlag Tübingen
71
2023
551-2
Band 55 Heft 1-2 Harald Höbus ch, Rebeccah Dawson (Hr sg.) C O L L O Q U I A G E R M A N I C A I n t e r n a ti o n a l e Z e it s c h r ift f ü r G e r m a n i s ti k Die Zeitschrift erscheint jährlich in 4 Heften von je etwa 96 Seiten. Abonnementpreis pro Jahrgang: € 138,00 (print)/ € 172,00 (print & online)/ € 142,00 (e-only) Vorzugspreis für private Leser € 101,00 (print); Einzelheft € 45,00 (jeweils zuzüglich Versandkosten). Bestellungen nimmt Ihre Buchhandlung oder der Verlag entgegen: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG, Postfach 25 60, D-72015 Tübingen, Fax +49 (0)7071 97 97 11 · eMail: info@narr.de Aufsätze - in deutscher oder englischer Sprache - bitte einsenden als Anlage zu einer Mail an hhoebu@uky.edu oder bessdawson@uky.edu (Prof. Harald Höbusch oder Prof. Rebeccah Dawson, Division of German Studies, 1055 Patterson Office Tower, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0027, USA). Typoskripte sollten nach den Vorschriften des MLA Style Manual (2008) eingerichtet sein. Sonstige Mitteilungen bitte an hhoebu@uky.edu © 2023 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Alle Rechte vorbehalten/ All Rights Strictly Reserved Druck und Bindung: CPI books GmbH, Leck ISSN 0010-1338 BAND 55 • Heft 1-2 Themenheft: Staging Justice: Trials and the Law on the German Stage Gastherausgeber: Matthew Bell und Daniele Vecchiato Inhalt Staging Justice: Trials and the Law on the German Stage Matthew Bell and Daniele Vecchiato � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 1 Society and the Sources of Legality in Goethe’s Die natürliche Tochter Matthew Bell � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 9 Kleists Käthchen von Heilbronn als Litotes von Goethes Grethchen in Faust. Ein Fragment : Ein Versuch Stefania Sbarra � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 21 Applause from the Jury: Publicness, Orality, Trial by Jury, and the Revolutionary Tribunal in Büchner’s Dantons Tod Sophia Clark � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 35 Displacing Justice? Looking for the Law in Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten Benedict Schofield � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 53 Watching Spectatorship and Judgment: Trial Scenes in Brecht’s Epic Theater Laura Bradley � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 73 On Truth and Politics in German Documentary Theater of the 1960s: Hannah Arendt and Peter Weiss Benjamin Wihstutz � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 89 Lay Judges and Lay Actors: Emancipating the Spectator in Rimini Protokoll’s Zeugen! and Ferdinand von Schirach’s Terror Daniele Vecchiato � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 109 Between Theater and Courtroom: Theatricality, Performativity, and Citational Practices in Milo Rau’s Die Zürcher Prozesse Richard McClelland � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 125 Verzeichnis der Autor: innen � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 143 Staging Justice: Trials and the Law on the German Stage 1 Staging Justice: Trials and the Law on the German Stage Matthew Bell and Daniele Vecchiato King’s College London / Università degli Studi di Padova This special issue of Colloquia Germanica focuses on the representation of justice, trials, and legal processes in German theater and performance from the late eighteenth century to the present day, exploring representative examples of the manifold ways in which literature reflects on the performative nature of justice, especially when it is written to be performed on the stage� Theater plays and legal processes-especially trials-share affinities on many levels� Some of these, like the presence of a live audience and the use of stage props and costumes such as wigs and gowns, may seem obvious, but it is only in recent Law and Literature scholarship that the symmetries between the legal and the theatrical sphere have been systematically addressed and problematized� As Alan Read points out in his insightful volume Theatre & Law from 2016, foremost characteristics of the law include that it “has to be seen to be done” (Read 8) and, just like other forms of performance, it is “constituted through a conscious act of ‘showing doing’ involving some form of agent and some form of audience” (9). Furthermore, both trials and plays occur in a specific time and place, and are therefore characterized by a sense of “present-ness” and “liveness” (14); they both consist of acting and spectating, of language and gestures as well as mental operations, and they are both concerned with processing and understanding human experience (11—12)� Both judicial and theatrical spectacles follow an Aristotelian narrative structure with a beginning, a middle, and an ending, and they operate simultaneously as acts of fiction and reality, with all parties involved having “to agree to the status of the event for it to be viable and function” (13)� From the perspective of literature, the theatricality of the law is fascinating for its ritualized orchestration of roles and activities, for its moments of conflict, suspense, revelation, and for the expectation of a wise and just judgment that can produce a sense of satisfaction similar to that offered by a happy ending. Furthermore, legal judgment can to some extent be compared to the aesthetic judgment expressed by the recipients of a play (see Wihstutz), adding a further layer of complexity in the debate on the exchanges between the legal and the 2 Matthew Bell and Daniele Vecchiato literary system� Finally, legal and theatrical performance often share a common pedagogical or critical function, as they rely on their respective abilities to sensitize the spectators (i�e�, the citizens) to urgent moral questions or to raise their awareness on the mechanisms of justice and, more broadly, of the society they live in� While the rituals and practices of justice have proved immensely productive for the theater space since antiquity, 1 it is only in recent years that concepts such as “performativity” and “theatricality” have been acknowledged as part of legal processes, becoming increasingly prominent in a number of theoretical writings on the law� 2 In general, legal institutions and practices seem to have an ambivalent relation to their pronounced theatrical nature: on the one hand, law uses performative tools to reconstruct (and, to all effects, stage) a past event and judge upon its lawfulness or unlawfulness, as Cornelia Vismann has argued in her seminal work Medien der Rechtsprechung of 2011 (esp� 19—71)� On the other, while investigating the truth through language and performance, the law necessarily resorts to “acts of surrogation and symbolic substitution” (Stone Peters, “Law as Performance” 206) that may confer to that same truth a patina of fictionality. For this reason, the law is also tempted to repudiate its inherent theatricality, in order to assert its legitimacy: Exploiting its performance medium, law may sometimes aspire to the power of theater: its pomp and ceremony, its masquerades, its spectacular effects, its manipulation of the passions, its electric connection to the crowd of spectators� At other times it may revile, rebuke, or disavow its own latent theatricality: enact its opposition to legal histrionics, […] refuse to allow law to become a “circus,” “carnival,” “theater and spectaculum�” (Stone Peters, “Law as Performance” 206—07) That the law seeks to mask its affinity with fiction and performance-an affinity that may be perceived as embarrassing-is not surprising� Even though they represent two of the most salient and engaging aspects of human experience, the legal and the literary spheres tend to remain separated� Of course, law is not literature and literature is not law� Yet there should be a place where they can converse, and where the crossing of disciplinary and epistemological boundaries becomes fruitful. To reflect on the law, its practices, and even its predicaments through the lens of literature, and to stage legal processes in extra-legal contexts allows readers and spectators to gain a more thorough understanding of ethics, politics, and human relations in general� Literature has the potential to train society to acknowledge the law as part of the fabric of a properly functioning polity and to make legal practices intelligible to and palatable for citizens of all backgrounds� Staging Justice: Trials and the Law on the German Stage 3 In the German-speaking lands, reflections on the functioning of the law have repeatedly been integrated into dramatic texts, especially-but not exclusively- through the staging of trial, interrogation, and punishment scenes� Prominent examples include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen (1773), Heinrich von Kleist’s Der zerbrochne Krug (1808), Peter Weiss’ Die Ermittlung (1965), as well as more recent endeavours, such as Andres Veiel’s Der Kick (2006), Ferdinand von Schirach’s Terror (2016), and Milo Rau’s re-enactments� This can partly be explained by the remarkably large presence of legally trained authors (the so-called Dichterjuristen ) 3 in German literary history, but also by an intense theoretical reflection on the connection between the aesthetic and political roles of theater. This reflection was arguably inaugurated by Friedrich Schiller’s concept of the “Gerichtsbarkeit der Bühne” ( NA 20, 92) within his theorization of theater as a moral institution ( Was kann eine gute stehende Schaubühne eigentlich wirken? , 1784), and continued-though with radically different premises-in Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator’s early twentieth-century idea of a “politisches Theater,” an idea that was highly influential throughout the twentieth century and is still echoed in today’s demand of German theater for political and social relevance (see Brauneck)� By discussing and analyzing the multiple ways in which representative plays have encouraged reflections on legal processes and the institution of law on the German-language stage, this special issue of Colloquia Germanica sets out to examine how literary discourses on justice have evolved in different historical and epistemological contexts. In particular, it seeks to define and assess how law is interpreted and applied in the texts, how the relations between law, society and power are outlined, and to what extent the staging of trials serves as a dramaturgic tool to comment on (and possibly criticize) contemporary legal and judicial practices� Adding to the dynamic conversation about the interactions between the literary and the legal sphere in the Germanophone context 4 and building on the performative turn in recent Law and Literature scholarship, the collected contributions offer in-depth textual analyses of exemplary courtroom dramas in historical and comparative perspective� They also address more general aspects, such as the (a)symmetries between the dramatic urgency of legal processes and performance, the role of the spectator, the relations between fiction and reality, and the strategies with which authors and theater practitioners foster a reflection on societal issues and current political debates� The papers, which cover both canonical and lesser-studied authors and works, are organized in chronological order, thus offering a coherent picture of the development of legal discourses in German drama from the Age of Goethe 4 Matthew Bell and Daniele Vecchiato to the twenty-first century. The first two contributions focus on prominent dramas of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, a time characterized by the extensive exploration of legal themes in literature (see Zeuch; Bell/ Vecchiato)� Matthew Bell analyzes Goethe’s play Die natürliche Tochter (1803) from a legal perspective, contextualizing it within French inheritance law before and during the French Revolution and Goethe’s own proto-conservative idea of the law� Stefania Sbarra explores Kleist’s representation of guilt, innocence, and rehabilitation in Das Käthchen von Heilbronn (1810) and attempts an intertextual comparison with Goethe’s Faust. Ein Fragment (1790), in which questions of judgment and punishment are illustrated by the so-called ‘Gretchen tragedy�’ The following two articles examine prominent dramas of the nineteenth century� Sophia Clark addresses questions of publicness and orality by investigating the different forms and functions of the stage direction of “applause” in the trial scenes of Georg Büchner’s Dantons Tod (1835), one of the last important plays before what Helmut Schanze has termed the “Lücke des Dramas von Hebbel bis Hauptmann” (Schanze 1)� Deconstructing the narrative of the supposed gap in dramatic production in the second half of the nineteenth century, Ben Schofield explores the legal and political significance of Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten (1852), indicating a shift in the representation of justice and morality from the courtroom to new settings of public and social debate-in Freytag’s case, the press� The fifth and sixth contributions explore two defining milestones of German theater of the twentieth century, namely the theory and practice of Brecht’s epic theater and the documentary plays of the 1960s. Laura Bradley offers a survey of how justice-or rather injustice-is shown in Brecht’s trial scenes throughout his oeuvre, and focuses especially on the role of the audience and its critical activation in Die Maßnahme (1930)� Benjamin Wihstutz describes the switch from fiction to historical depth and documentation in the genre of courtroom drama in the 1960s, focusing in particular on Peter Weiss’ concept of documentary theater and relating Die Ermittlung both to Hannah Arendt’s notion of truth and judgment and to today’s debates on memory culture� The last two contributions are devoted to contemporary (post-2000) plays and performances, offering fresh insights into the newest developments in the presentation of legal questions in German-speaking theater� Daniele Vecchiato investigates the role of the spectator in two plays that expressly thematize the theatricality of legal processes, namely the controversial courtroom drama Terror by Ferdinand von Schirach, and Rimini Protokoll’s Zeugen! Ein Strafkammerspiel (2004), which brought experts of justice from the Berlin-Moabit criminal court onto the stage. Richard McClelland finally explores the theatricality and performativity of the law as well as the relationship between fiction and reality Staging Justice: Trials and the Law on the German Stage 5 in Milo Rau’s play Die Zürcher Prozesse (2013), which interrogates the limits of free speech and the role of the press in contemporary Switzerland� This issue brings together both established and emerging voices from an unusually broad range of disciplines, including German Studies, Law and Literature, and Theater and Performance Studies� It employs a correspondingly wide variety of critical approaches that testify to the productiveness of interdisciplinary and comparative cultural studies� It presents and assesses some of the most recent developments in the field of German Law and Literature. In particular, it draws attention to the importance of the political contexts of legal debates and the political meanings of theatrical interventions concerning the law� Another key focus is the active role of audiences, both as participants in actual theatrical productions and as portrayed on the stage� It considers the universal nature of the questions and challenges posed by the texts examined here-which are indeed historically situated, and yet have the power of intersecting contemporary debates� Finally, it investigates dramas that have not previously been studied from the perspective of the law, including both contemporary works and plays from the nineteenth century. In doing so, it substantially broadens the field of Law and Literature in German Studies� 5 Notes 1 The representation of trials and legal questions has a remarkable and well-studied tradition in the history of drama, from Aeschylus to Shakespeare, to modern and contemporary forms of courtroom or investigative plays� 2 On this aspect, see Stone Peters, “Legal Performance�” For further contributions on the performative aspects of the law, see Goodrich and, for a German perspective, Münkler and Schwarte� 3 The term Dichterjurist was first introduced in the 1950s by German legal historian Eugen Wohlhaupter� In recent years, it has become of common use in literary studies as well (see Weber and Nilges, among others)� 4 Cf� among others Ziolkowski and Beebee� See also the activities of the recently instituted Sonderforschungsbereich “Recht und Literatur” (SFB 1385) at the University of Münster and especially its subproject “Schau-Prozesse� Inszenierungen des Rechts als soziale Praxis,” which focuses on the role of theatrical production for the construction of legal, political, and social meaning� 5 With the exception of Stefania Sbarra’s and Sophia Clark’s contributions, the papers were first presented and discussed at the international conference Staging Justice. Trials and the Law on the German Stage , held at King’s 6 Matthew Bell and Daniele Vecchiato College London in November 2019� The conference and the present publication were conceived in the framework of the research project VehmeLit - Legal Cultures and Literary Trials in the Age of Goethe , which was carried out between 2018 and 2019 at the Department of German at King’s College London� The project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No� 744413� Works Cited Beebee, Thomas O� Citation and Precedent: Conjunctions and Disjunctions of German Law and Literature � New York: Continuum, 2012� Bell, Matthew, and Daniele Vecchiato, eds� “Legal Cultures in the Age of Goethe�” Special Issue of Law and Literature 34�2 (2022)� Brauneck, Manfred� Die Deutschen und ihr Theater. Kleine Geschichte der “moralischen Anstalt” oder: Ist das Theater überfordert? Bielefeld: transcript, 2018� Goodrich, Peter� “Specters of Law: Why the History of the Legal Spectacle Has Not Been Written�” U.C. Irvine Law Review 1�3 (2011): 773—81� Münkler, Laura� “Inszenierung von Recht als Wirksamkeitsbedingung� Warum und wie Recht inszenieren? ” Inszenierung von Recht. Funktionen - Modi - Interaktionen � Ed� Laura Münkler and Julia Stenzel� Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2019� 19—40� Nilges, Yvonne, ed� Dichterjuristen. Studien zur Poesie des Rechts vom 16. bis 21. Jahrhundert � Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2014� Piscator, Erwin� Das politische Theater � Berlin: Schultz, 1929� Read, Alan� Theatre and Law � London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015� Schanze, Helmut� Drama im bürgerlichen Realismus (1850-1890): Theorie und Praxis. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1973� Schiller, Friedrich� Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe � Ed� Julius Petersen, Hermann Schneider et al� Weimar: Böhlau, 1953-� Schwarte, Ludger� “Legitimation durch Inszenierung? Ästhetische, mediale und politische Bedingungen der Rechtsprechung�” Inszenierung von Recht. Funktionen - Modi - Interaktionen � Ed� Laura Münkler and Julia Stenzel� Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2019� 125—45� Stone Peters, Julie� “Legal Performance Good and Bad�” Law, Culture and the Humanities 4 (2008): 179—200� ---� “Law as Performance� Historical Interpretation, Objects, Lexicons, and Other Methodological Problems�” New Directions in Law and Literature � Ed� Elizabeth S� Anker and Bernadette Meyler� Oxford: Oxford UP, 2017� 193—209� Vismann, Cornelia� Medien der Rechtsprechung � Ed� Alexandra Kemmerer and Markus Krajewski� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 2011� Staging Justice: Trials and the Law on the German Stage 7 Wihstutz, Benjamin� “Gerichtsbarkeit: Über politisches und ästhetisches Urteilen im Theater�” Recht fühlen � Ed� Sigrid Köhler, Sabine Müller-Mall, Florian Schmidt and Sandra Schnädelbach� Paderborn: Fink, 2017� 81—93� Weber, Hermann, ed� Dichter als Juristen. Recht, Literatur und Kunst in der Neuen Juristischen Wochenschrift � Berlin: Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, 2004� Wohlhaupter, Eugen� Dichterjuristen � Ed� Horst G� Seifert� 3 vols� Tübingen: Mohr, 1953-1957� Zeuch, Ulrike� “Recht und Literatur um 1800 im Kontext des law and literature movement �” Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur 31�1 (2006): 77—84� Ziolkowski, Theodore� The Mirror of Justice. Literary Reflections of Legal Crises � Princeton: Princeton UP, 1997� Society and the Sources of Legality in Goethe’s Die natürliche Tochter 9 Society and the Sources of Legality in Goethe’s Die natürliche Tochter Matthew Bell King’s College London Abstract: This paper presents a reading of Goethe’s problematic play Die natürliche Tochter (1803) in terms of the law-the specific ways in which French inheritance law treated illegitimate children before and during the Revolution, the legal status of the lettres de cachet, and the more general and ideological terms in which Goethe conceived of the law� Goethe’s source material was the memoirs of Stéphanie Louise de Bourbon-Conti� The most striking change Goethe made to the source material was to recast the husband forced upon her as a respectable bourgeois lawyer, and not a greedy minor royal official as he is in the memoirs. This shift and the play’s ending- in which the heroine Eugenie marries the lawyer and thus renounces her claims to high aristocratic lineage-have given rise to a tradition of reading the play as a celebration of the bourgeois legal sphere� This paper argues that the play is only weakly committed to bourgeois notions of legality and that ultimately it favours a proto-conservative theory of the law and legitimacy� Keywords: Johann Wolfgang Goethe, French Revolution, law, illegitimacy, conservatism, justice on stage This article aims to provide a commentary on some overlooked legal issues in Goethe’s play Die natürliche Tochter , 1 which relate to French inheritance law before and during the Revolution and the debate concerning the royal arrest warrants known as lettres de cachet � 2 The article will argue that Goethe’s interest in the subject matter of the play stemmed in large part from his long-standing concern with the political question of where the law comes from and how it is justified. It may seem obvious to say that for Goethe the law was an expression of social forces: for Goethe, laws are made and enforced by social actors in particular social contexts; the law certainly does not derive from the popular will, as argued by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or from the natural rights posited by Hugo 10 Matthew Bell Grotius, Samuel Pufendorf and many eighteenth-century jurists� However, the social constitution of the law was important for Goethe in a peculiar ideological sense� While scholarship has rightly been concerned with the play as a vehicle for Goethe’s thinking about the French Revolution and as a reflection of his anti-revolutionary politics, it has not fully recognized the elements of the political ideology that underpin that attitude, in particular Goethe’s views on the sources of legality and what role the law plays in good government� In examining the social constitution of the law and its political meaning, the article will also seek to shed some legal light on the ending of the play, with its ostensible alliance of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, as interpreted by Nicholas Boyle (see Boyle 784)� Die natürliche Tochter shows the law in action and reflects on its operations in two salient ways. The first is the infamous lettre de cachet , the legal instrument that condemns the heroine Eugenie to exile. The second is the figure of her husband-to-be, the Gerichtsrat , or Parlamentsrat as he is also titled in Goethe’s notes for the unwritten second and third plays in the trilogy� As has been documented by Bernhard Böschenstein, the play draws extensively on one main source, the Historical Memoirs of Stéphanie Louise de Bourbon-Conti (1798), which Schiller lent Goethe in 1799� In one crucial respect, Goethe diverges sharply from his source: Goethe makes Eugenie’s husband-to-be a well-respected legal officer. In Stéphanie’s memoirs, by contrast, the husband forced on her is a minor official of the crown, and Stéphanie portrays him as ill-mannered and avaricious (see Böschenstein 335). By contrast, Goethe’s Gerichtsrat is an officer, though not a judge of course, of one of France’s thirteen provincial appeal courts, and he is reputed to be of good character. It is significant that Goethe chooses to make him a legal officer. First, this associates the husband-to-be with that class of bourgeois regional lawyers and officials that played such an important role in the Legislative Assembly elected in September 1791, marking the beginning of the second and more radical phase of the Revolution� Second, it means that the discussions between Eugenie and her husband-to-be about their marriage can be informed by a sound knowledge of the law and its shortcomings� Third, it gives extra weight to the Gerichtsrat’s view of the legality of the lettre de cachet � The different characters’ reactions to the lettre de cachet are an important part of the action of Acts IV and V of Die natürliche Tochter , and they reveal how social class affects responses to questions of law and legality. The lettre is shown to three characters in turn: the Gerichtsrat, the provincial Governor and the Abbess of a local convent. The trio of characters obviously represents a social configuration, albeit one that is susceptible of different readings. They could represent the three powerful branches of the French state: the law, the administration, and the church� Alternatively, they might represent the three estates: the third estate, the nobility Society and the Sources of Legality in Goethe’s Die natürliche Tochter 11 and the clergy� Nicholas Boyle argues that the Governor and Abbess are both too worldly and self-seeking to help Eugenie (see Boyle 778—79), but it seems more important that both are aristocrats� The Abbess comes from a “hohes Haus” (l� 2518)� The Governor is described as “ein edler junger Mann” (l� 2416)-whether “edel” here denotes moral or social nobility or both, the Governor is certainly an aristocrat, as the role of provincial governor in the French state was the preserve of the aristocracy (see Black 116)� By contrast the Gerichtsrat is a bourgeois, and what nobility he possesses is purely of behaviour and spirit, not social class: he is a man “der Allen edel, zuverlässig gilt” (l. 1733). This difference in social class best explains the three characters’ different reactions to the lettre de cachet � The Governor quickly reads the lettre and gives it back with a hasty farewell: “So kann ich freilich nur beglückte Fahrt, / Ergebung ins Geschick und Hoffnung wünschen” (ll. 2487—2488)� The Abbess’s response to it is not much more forthcoming: Ich muß dich tadeln, daß du wissentlich So manch vergeblich Wort mit angehört� Ich beuge vor der höhern Hand mich tief, Die hier zu walten scheint� (ll� 2564—2567) The Governor’s and Abbess’s responses are far shorter than the Gerichtsrat’s� Whereas he expresses a strong revulsion to the lettre at some length, they accept it quickly and unquestioningly� Rather than waiting to hear an answer to their reading of the lettre , the Governor and Abbess leave the stage immediately, as if they have been spooked by it. They may find the lettre de cachet disturbing, but they also know that it is part of the system of royal power and prerogative by dint of birthright from which they, as aristocrats, benefit. The Governor’s response to the lettre is unenlightening, but his words before he reads it are striking for the negative view he presents of the law in operation� Eugenie explains her situation: she is illegitimate, and her brother wants her out of the way� Though sympathetic to her plight, the Governor stresses the complex obstacles that stand in the way of his helping her: Um Gut und Erbe wird sogleich ein Streit, Um die Person, ob sie die rechte sei, Gehässig aufgeregt, und wenn Verwandte Ums Mein und Dein gefühllos hadern, trifft Den Fremden, der sich eingemischt, der Haß Von beiden Teilen, und nicht selten gar, Weil ihm der strengere Beweis nicht glückt, Steht er zuletzt auch vor Gericht beschämt� (ll� 2466—2473) 12 Matthew Bell What might at first sight appear to be Eugenie’s rights as a natural person-that is to say, an actual human person, as distinct from a juridical person such as a corporate body-in fact boil down to rights over property, or so the Governor avers� Put simply, inheritance is a matter of property law, not human rights� This is where the misery of the law begins� Legal disputes over property arouse strong feelings, hatred even� Paradoxically, however, because the dispute is ultimately about money, and not about a natural person’s rights, human feelings are disregarded� Worse still, any neutral parties making evidential depositions to a court, such as proofs of identity, may find themselves subject to legal challenge. As a result, the law is usually powerless to resolve such cases� Accordingly, the Governor, though professionally tasked with enforcing the outcomes of legal cases, has a very low opinion of the law’s efficacy. The Governor’s position on these matters might seem overly pessimistic or merely evasive-in particular his insistence that cases in inheritance law are usually not resolved smoothly, but instead descend into bitter and unfeeling disputes about property law� However, his argument is borne out by the facts of pre-Revolution French inheritance laws� Before the Revolution, inheritance law was defined largely in terms of the social rules governing the ownership of property: different laws applied to aristocrats, commoners, and serfs, to natives and foreigners, to clergy and laypeople, according to their rights to own property under the law (see Szramkiewicz 60—62)� The revolutionary assertion of basic human rights changed all this� In November 1793, in “a remarkable innovation considering the prejudices of the age” (Tackett 313), the Law of Brumaire Year II gave inheritance rights to illegitimate children� 3 And in January 1794, the Law of Nivôse Year II decreed that all persons, including those born out of wedlock, be treated equally for the purposes of inheritance, with no precedence for men above women or for older above younger siblings (see Szramkiewicz 88—89)� As a result of these two laws, inheritance law became less a matter of socially differentiated property rights and more a matter of fundamental human rights, the rights of a natural person� Notwithstanding his pessimism then, the Governor’s reading of pre-Revolution law is plausible, and it has already been supported by the Gerichtsrat’s admission in Act IV that he has tried hard but not achieved that much: he laments that “Nicht mein Verdienst, nur mein Bemühen war / Vielleicht zu preisen” (ll� 1740—1741)� Presumably he is haunted by a sense of failure because his power to effect change through the law is so limited� Thus both the Governor and the Gerichtsrat agree that the operation of the law is unsatisfactory� Things do indeed look bleak for Eugenie� Society and the Sources of Legality in Goethe’s Die natürliche Tochter 13 As for the lettre de cachet , the Gerichtsrat draws a distinction between two spheres of legality-a distinction which is of great importance for the action of Act V: Nicht ist von Recht, noch von Gericht die Rede; Hier ist Gewalt! entsetzliche Gewalt, Selbst wenn sie klug, selbst wenn sie weise handelt� (ll� 1747—1749) On the one hand, the law, “Recht” operates through the institutions of justice, “Gericht�” On the other hand, the lettre represents a horrific abuse of power: “entsetzliche Gewalt�” As suggested above, the Gerichtsrat embodies a particular phase of the Revolution, when the Legislative Assembly sought to enforce the equality that had been established in constitutional principle by the Constituent Assembly on 3 September 1791� The Legislative Assembly’s most radical policies were the abolition of the monarchy and the civil constitution of the clergy� It might be objected that the play is almost entirely free of such historical specifics. The events of Stéphanie Louise de Bourbon-Conti’s Historical Memoirs that Goethe dramatized took place in 1773, but Goethe makes no explicit reference to any easily pinpointed historical events; the reader is never even told that the country in which the events happen is France� Yet the Gerichtsrat’s appalled reaction to the lettre does appeal to specific and well-known arguments made before and during the Revolution� The lettres de cachet came to be identified with the ancien régime monarchy and were a key prerogative of the crown� They were unchallengeable in law and were thus an expression of the absolutist principle that the king, in intervening directly in his subjects’ lives, might disregard or even contradict the law� The principle was expressed in the Latin formula rex solutus est a legibus : the king is exempt from the laws� Lettres de cachet were abolished by a decree of the Constituent Assembly on 16 March 1790, though the debate about them went back to the 1770s� A notable landmark was a remonstrance of August 1770 by Malesherbes, the President of the Court of Aids� Malesherbes pointed out the abuse of letters by those other than the monarch� For instance, individuals might request lettres de cachet from the monarch in order to have a wayward child imprisoned so that it could not fritter away a family’s fortune� The letters could, moreover, be issued by designated ministers of the crown without the crown’s knowledge� This was the crux of Malesherbes’s remonstrance: there were lettres de cachet in operation about which the king knew nothing and which therefore did not express the royal will in all its majestic wisdom (see Kelly 497)� By contrast, the Comte de Mirabeau, in his best-selling radical essay of 1782, On Lettres de Cachet and State Prisons , made no distinction between legitimate royal letters and illegitimate letters applied for by individuals: for Mirabeau all lettres de cachet were abuses 14 Matthew Bell of power� It is worth noting that Goethe’s play does not tell us how the lettre de cachet came into being-whether it was a result of the king’s changing his mind about recognizing Eugenie, perhaps under pressure from a faction at court, or it was a letter produced without the king’s knowledge by one of his ministers, in misuse of royal power� The play therefore does not exclude the possibility that this lettre de cachet belongs to the spurious type criticized by Malesherbes� The Gerichtsrat, however, makes a quite different point, and one much closer to Mirabeau’s radical essay� The power expressed in the letter is or should be illegal, he says, regardless of whether it was an expression of the king’s wise and beneficent will or not: “Hier ist Gewalt! entsetzliche Gewalt, / Selbst wenn sie klug, selbst wenn sie weise handelt” (ll� 1748—1749)� The Gerichtsrat’s objection to the lettre is clearly based on an argument that the crown must be subject to the law� The violation of the law takes us to the heart of the play’s representation of the sources of legality� Repeatedly and in a variety of ways, the play suggests that the ultimate sources of the law and the justification of legality are inaccessible� The language of fate is ubiquitous: the words Schicksal and Geschick together occur thirty times� Power is referred to in vague and abstract language, again suggestive of mystery: “das Waltende,” “ein Herrschendes�” Vague indications are given of remote or inaccessible sources of power: “die höhere Hand,” “höhere Regionen,” “Unbekannt […] die Mächte.” Power is simply power, undefined and ominous: “die Obermacht,” “die Allgewalt,” “allgewältig” (see Reinhardt 256)� For the Gerichtsrat, this represents a systemic problem: “Des Übels Quelle findest du nicht aus, / Und aufgefunden fließt sie ewig fort” (ll. 1927—1928). It is impossible to identify the source of the lettre , but even if it were possible, so the Gerichtsrat claims, the abuse of power would not stop because it is part of the very fabric of the ancien régime -the principle that rex solutus est a legibus � By contrast to the Gerichtsrat’s radical opposition, and in a strange paradox, Eugenie maintains her strong allegiance to the crown to the very end, despite the fact that the legal instrument that threatens to destroy her is an expression of the crown’s sovereign power, indeed perhaps even its purest expression� The play’s aristocratic supporters of the ancien régime , including the Governor and Abbess as well as Eugenie herself, are in a perplexing situation� They recognize and refuse to criticize the legality of the lettre de cachet , and yet they can say nothing meaningful about the sources of its legality� This brings Eugenie into direct confrontation with her supposed savior, the Gerichtsrat� He quite rightly claims to represent the law and to be able to use it to limit abuses� Yet his power is strictly circumscribed� He is, one might say, a typical representative of the ancien régime bourgeoisie, a class full of intellectual optimism but prevented by its non-aristocratic status from achieving its aspirations� The Gerichtsrat’s Society and the Sources of Legality in Goethe’s Die natürliche Tochter 15 only option is to accept the limitations on his own power and the unintelligibility of the ultimate sources of royal power: G erichtsrat Ein mächtig ungeheurer Talisman Liegt in den Händen deiner Führerin� e uGenie Was ist Gesetz und Ordnung? Können sie Der Unschuld Kindertage nicht beschützen? Wer seid denn ihr, die ihr, mit leerem Stolz, Durchs Recht Gewalt zu bänd’gen euch berühmt? G erichtsrat In abgeschloss’nen Kreisen lenken wir, Gesetzlich streng, das in der Mittelhöhe Des Lebens wiederkehrend Schwebende� Was droben sich in ungemess’nen Räumen, Gewaltig seltsam, hin und her bewegt, Belebt und tötet, ohne Rat und Urteil, Das wird nach anderm Maß, nach andrer Zahl Vielleicht berechnet, bleibt uns rätselhaft� (ll� 2003—2016) The law that the Gerichtsrat represents only has power in the middle station (“Mittelhöhe”) of life, which would appear to designate bourgeois civil society� Within this domain the law can regulate uncertainty (“des Lebens wiederkehrend Schwebende”) with full rigor (“gesetzlich streng”)� But at the higher levels of society other rules seem to apply, rules that cannot be measured by normal standards, rules that deal out life and death arbitrarily, for instance by means of lettres de cachet � In passing we can note a parallel with Goethe’s “Märchen,” another reflection on the Revolution, in which the Princess Lily, who in one of her manifestations represents the French crown through its symbol, the fleur de lis , lives with a paradoxical curse and blessing: any living being she touches dies, but her touch can also bring the dead back to life, and she has absolutely no choice in the matter� As the Gerichtsrat states of the lettre de cachet , it “belebt und tötet, ohne Rat und Urteil” (l� 2014)� The Princess Lily’s touch can thus be read as her own magical lettre de cachet -a irrational and arbitrary power over life and death� Eugenie and the Gerichtsrat represent a conflict between his well-regulated bourgeois sphere and her royal sphere that is impenetrable and gifted with great but ambivalent powers� But the contrast between the bourgeois and royal spheres does not in fact play out quite so clearly in favor of the bourgeoisie� Eugenie asks the Gerichtsrat how, and specifically by what power of his social standing, he could protect her against the lettre de cachet � His answer, unsurprisingly, is a legal one: 16 Matthew Bell e uGenie Bist du in deinem Hause Fürst? G erichtsrat Ich bin’s! Und jeder ist’s, der Gute wie der Böse� Reicht eine Macht denn wohl in jenes Haus, Wo der Tyrann die holde Gattin kränkt, Wenn er, nach eignem Sinn, verworren handelt; Durch Launen, Worte, Taten, jede Lust, Mit Schadenfreude, sinnreich untergräbt? Wer trocknet ihre Tränen? Welch Gesetz, Welch Tribunal erreicht den Schuldigen? Er triumphiert, und schweigende Geduld Senkt nach und nach, verzweifelnd, sie ins Grab� Notwendigkeit, Gesetz, Gewohnheit gaben Dem Mann so große Rechte; sie vertrauten Auf seine Kraft, auf seinen Biedersinn� - Nicht Heldenfaust, nicht Heldenstamm, Geliebte, Verehrte Fremde, weiß ich dir zu bieten! Allein des Bürgers hohen Sicherstand� Und bist du mein, was kann dich mehr berühren? Auf ewig bist du mein, versorgt, beschützt� Der König fordre dich von mir zurück; Als Gatte kann ich mit dem König rechten� (ll� 2189—2208) In arguing for a bourgeois, domestic form of law that is impervious to the power of the crown, the Gerichtsrat exposes a paradox in his own thinking� He starts by arguing that a woman has no recourse to law for bad treatment by her husband� This is the principle that at the point of marriage a woman’s legal status is entirely subsumed under her husband’s, so that for instance a wife may not take legal action without her husband’s permission (see Tunc 1066—67)� As a wife has no independent legal existence, she cannot be targeted by the crown� However, the Gerichtsrat’s argument turns out to have an unintended consequence that works against him� Eugenie fully understands his exposition of the subsumption of a wife’s rights under her husband’s and is alarmed by it, because it threatens to make her merely his “creature,” his chattel or possession: “Ich fühle mich als dein Geschöpf und kann / Dir leider, wie du wünschest, nicht gehören” (ll. 2218—2219). So, whilst the Gerichtsrat might offer her protection from the crown, in her eyes he can do so only by replacing the crown’s tyranny with his own, which will leave her no better off than before. The law of bourgeois civil society cannot solve her predicament because it fails to grant autonomy to wives� Society and the Sources of Legality in Goethe’s Die natürliche Tochter 17 When Eugenie does eventually accept the Gerichtsrat’s offer of marriage, she does so on her own terms� She will not consummate the marriage, thus rejecting a central pillar of the institution of marriage� She will go into hiding at the Gerichtsrat’s rural estate, so removing herself from bourgeois civil society and the operation of its laws. In response to her demands, at first he seems to acknowledge his powerlessness as an officer of the law: “In diesem wicht’gen Fall was soll ich sagen? ” (l� 2931)� Thinking his way through the conundrum, he arrives at a reversal of the model of female dependence he had set out in Act IV� Whereas in law the husband is the master in his own home, or the “Fürst” as Eugenie puts it in her aristocratic way, the Gerichtsrat now promises to be subject to her: “Deinetwillen / Wünsch’ ich zu leben, du gebietest mir” (ll. 2940—2941). Thus, the final compact between bourgeoisie and aristocracy by no means represents Eugenie (or even Goethe) accepting the claims of the bourgeoisie as preeminent, as is argued by Boyle (783—84)� On the contrary, the Gerichtsrat may be the superior partner de jure , but Eugenie is the superior partner de facto , as if the bourgeoisie were still bound by the law but the aristocracy not so� Moreover, the terms she sets for the marriage threaten to undermine its very basis; their marriage is the hollow shell of legality, emptied of any human sentiment� While it remains unconsummated, the marriage is exposed to the risk of legal annulment, but because Eugenie will hide incognito at the Gerichtsrat’s country estate, she will be beyond the reach of the law and therefore safe from the threat of annulment, in practice at least� In securing these terms, she carves out a space of self-determination outside the laws that govern marriage in bourgeois civil society� The language of the play invites the reader to think of the compact between bourgeoisie and aristocracy as a partnership of equals, in which both will practice renunciation, for instance in Eugenie’s final proposal to the Gerichtsrat: “Nun sei’s gefragt: Vermagst du, hohen Muts, / Entsagung der Entsagenden zu weihen? ” (ll� 2887—2888)� The compact between bourgeoisie and aristocracy also seems to confirm a worry voiced by the King in Act I, namely that the ancien régime ’s traditional social hierarchy is dissolving, with the aristocracy increasingly taking on bourgeois forms of life and the bourgeoisie aspiring to aristocratic power: “O diese Zeit hat fürchterliche Zeichen, / Das Niedre schwillt, das Hohe senkt sich nieder” (ll� 361—362)� However, this rhetoric of equality and balance is by no means the whole picture, and whatever the play does, it does not signify Eugenie’s (or Goethe’s) “transfer of allegiance” from the nobility to the middle-class (Boyle 784)� The Gerichtsrat accepts Eugenie’s terms without any negotiation, without asking for any concessions of his own� He is as submissive towards the nobility as Wilhelm in Books VII and VIII of Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre , in which Wilhelm meekly accepts Lothario and the other members of the Tower Society as his superiors� It seems that the Gerichtsrat 18 Matthew Bell accepts Eugenie on such unfavorable terms in part because of her beauty and aristocratic lineage, which combine to make her a goddess in his eyes� In part it is his fateful acknowledgement that his decision whether to propose to her was not amenable to everyday rationality-the kind of rationality that governs the operation of the law in bourgeois society� This irrationality guided his original decision to propose to her in Act IV scene I: Was geschehen soll, Es wird geschehn! In ganz gemeinen Dingen Hängt viel von Wahl und Wollen ab; das Höchste, Was uns begegnet, kommt wer weiß woher� (ll� 1860—1863) 4 Decisions of this higher kind are simply inexplicable� Two aspects of this passage deserve comment� First, it is a signature of Goethe’s thinking that there are sources of meaning and action that are unintelligible and inaccessible to reason, to our “Wahl und Wollen�” This notion appears in several areas of Goethe’s thought� His theory of nature supposes that there is a source of life that is hidden from human perception� 5 In poetics, genius is an unconscious and impenetrable source of creativity� 6 In politics, momentous decisions often come about spontaneously, and not by reason� 7 Second, it is surely no coincidence that the Gerichtsrat’s distinction between “ganz gemeine Dinge” and “das Höchste, / Was uns begegnet” echoes the organization of the social world of the play into two separate spheres: the spheres of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy, and the corresponding legal domains of civil society and the absolute royal power of rex solutus a legibus � Both legal and social hierarchies are expressed in the language of “das Große” or “das Hohe” on the one hand and “das Niedre” on the other� 8 In accepting a decision-making role for the higher and the non-rational, the Gerichtsrat is also, by metaphorical extension, accepting a role for the aristocracy and for absolute royal power� Goethe’s own prosaic view of the question of ultimate legality was formed during his doctoral studies in Strasbourg, and he maintained the same view throughout his life� The only real source of legality was secular and military power, 9 and all legislative power was vested in a state’s ruler: “omnis legislatio ad Principem pertinet” (“all legislation is the domain of the prince”, MA i/ 2, 555)� 10 He was, of course, deeply skeptical about the law as a branch of academic study and as a practice� His experience of administering the Duchy of Sachsen-Weimar taught him that the power of the executive was much more important to the health of a polity than was the quality of its laws� His own views were very much aligned with the words he gave to the wise and well-read Baroness in the frame narrative of the Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten : “denn so komme auch in einem Society and the Sources of Legality in Goethe’s Die natürliche Tochter 19 Reiche alles auf die exekutive Gewalt an; die gesetzgebende möge so vernünftig sein, als sie wolle, es helfe dem Staate nichts, wenn die ausführende nicht mächtig sei” (MA IV/ 1, 516)� Whilst Die natürliche Tochter does give space to the Gerichtsrat’s radical critique of lettres de cachet , its imagery and its strange conclusion lend stronger support to an aristocratic, top-down worldview, in which a mysterious royal sovereignty is the ultimate source of all legality� Notes 1 Where possible, Goethe’s works are cited from Sämtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens (“Münchner Ausgabe”), in the form: MA with volume and page numbers� Line numbers are given for longer poems and verse dramas� Texts not in MA are cited from Goethes Werke im Auftrage der Großherzogin Sophie von Sachsen (“Weimarer Ausgabe”), in the form: WA with section, volume and page numbers� References to Die natürliche Tochter are from MA VI/ 1, 241—326, with line numbers only� 2 Lettres de cachet served a number of purposes, of which arrest and imprisonment were the most controversial� 3 The rights were circumscribed. The offspring of adulterous unions could only inherit at one third the rate of other children, and illegitimate children could only inherit if they were recognised by their father� No legal challenge to recognition was allowed� See Darrow 112� 4 The Monk offers a similar response when Eugenie asks him to decide whether she should accept the Gerichtsrat’s proposal: “e uGenie Was sagt nun dir das Herz? verstummt es noch? / M önch Es schweige, bis der prüfende Verstand / Sich als ohnmächtig selbst bekennen muß” (ll� 2724—2726)� 5 See for instance the references to a mysterious source of all life in the Urfaust (MA I/ 2, 136, l. 103), and the unfinished “Prometheus” drama (MA I/ 1, 674, ll� 200, 206—209)� 6 See for instance Goethe to Schiller, 3-4 April 1801 (WA IV, xv, 212), and Goethe’s conversation with Dorothea Veit, October 1794 (Grumach and Grumach IV, 103)� 7 See for instance Friederike’s threat to the Amtmann in Die Aufgeregten , Act IV, scene viii (MA IV/ 1, 177—78), and the conversation between Goethe and Gore in Belagerung von Mainz (MA XIV, 546—49)� 8 For instance, ll� 82, 361, 2069, 2300� 9 See the passage in Dichtung und Wahrheit on Goethe’s (non-extant) doctoral dissertation “De legislatoribus” (MA XVI, 506)� 10 On the dissertation in the wider context of the young Goethe’s politics, see Wilson 196� 20 Matthew Bell Works Cited Black, Jeremy� Eighteenth-Century Europe, 1700 - 89. New York: Macmillan, 1990� Böschenstein, Bernhard� “Die Bedeutung der Quelle für Goethes ‘Natürliche Tochter’�” Goethe: Die natürliche Tochter. Mit den Memoiren der Stéphanie Louise de Bourbon-Conti und drei Studien von Bernhard Böschenstein � Ed� Bernhard Böschenstein� Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1990� 317—45� Boyle, Nicholas� Goethe: The Poet and the Age. Vol. 2: Revolution and Renunciation, 1790 - 1803 � Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000� Darrow, Margaret H� Revolution in the House: Family, Class and Inheritance in Southern France, 1775-1825 � Princeton: Princeton UP, 1989� Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von� Goethes Werk im Auftrage der Großherzogin Sophie von Sachsen (“Weimarer Ausgabe”)� Ed� Erich Schmidt et al� 146 vols� Weimar: Böhlau, 1887-1919� ---� Sämtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens (“Münchner Ausgabe”)� Ed� Karl Richter et al� 20 vols� Munich: Hanser, 1985-1998� Grumach, Ernst, and Renate Grumach, eds� Goethe: Begegnungen und Gespräche � 14 vols� Berlin: De Gruyter, 1965-� Kelly, George A� “The Political Thought of Lamoignon de Malesherbes�” Political Theory 7 (1979): 485—508� Reinhardt, Hartmut� Die kleine und die große Welt. Vom Schäferspiel zur kritischen Analyse der Moderne: Goethes dramatisches Werk � Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2008� Szramkiewicz, Romuald� Histoire du droit français de la famille � Paris: Dalloz, 1995� Tackett, Timothy� The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution � Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2015� Tunc, André� “Husband and Wife under French Law: Past, Present, Future�” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 104 (1956): 1064—79� Wilson, W� Daniel� “Young Goethe’s Political Fantasies�” Literature of the Sturm und Drang � Ed� David Hill� Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2003� 187—216� Kleists Käthchen von Heilbronn als Litotes von Goethes Grethchen in Faust. Ein Fragment: Ein Versuch Stefania Sbarra Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia Abstract: Starting from the eighteenth-century discourse inaugurated by Leibniz’s Theodizee on evil and its consequences for the idea of human guilt and responsibility, the article provides a reading of Kleist’s drama Das Käthchen von Heilbronn (1808) as a response to Goethe’s Faust. Ein Fragment (1790)� It points out some parallels between Gretchen and Käthchen and their opposite fates in the trial they have to face before God and the humans, concluding that Kleist’s drama is conceived as a sort of litotes of Goethe’s Fragment � Keywords: Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Heinrich von Kleist, German classical theater, Faust, Das Käthchen von Heilbronn, justice on stage Vor etwa vierzig Jahren hat Odo Marquard anlässlich der wachsenden Priorität aller Legitimations- und Rechtfertigungsfragen die noch heute sehr gültige These einer Tribunalisierung und Übertribunalisierung des menschlichen Lebens aufgestellt, die philosophisch mit Kant und sozial mit der Französischen Revolution beginnt� Dass der Rechtfertigungsdruck des modernen Menschen seit dem deutschen Idealismus eine nie dagewesene Virulenz zeigt, gehe einher mit einem Wandel des theologischen Diskurses im 18� Jahrhundert� Leibniz’ Theodizee von 1710 sei “die erste Philosophie, deren Pensum ein Rechtshandel, ein Prozess ist: der Prozess Mensch gegen Gott in Dingen Übel der Welt : si Deus, unde malum? Der Mensch ist der Ankläger, Gott der Angeklagte” (Marquard 81)� Bekanntlich beantworte Leibniz diese Frage in seiner Theodizee als Anwalt Gottes mit dem Begriff der besten aller möglichen Welten. 1 Diese Option ist jedoch nicht in der Lage, Gott endgültig und vollständig von der im Diskurs der Theodizee implizierten Anklage zu entbinden und seine Güte und Gerechtigkeit unumstritten zu retten� Um Gott endgültig zu entlasten, muss die gesamte 22 Stefania Sbarra Verantwortung für das Böse in der Welt allein dem Menschen anvertraut werden: Marquard zufolge verbreite sich diese Idee gleich nach dem Erdbeben von Lissabon (1755) und habe schließlich die Entstehung der Geschichtsphilosophie zur Folge� In diesem Zusammenhang lohnt es sich, eine längere Passage aus Marquards Beobachtungen zu zitieren: Die Theodizee gelingt nicht dort, wo - wie bei Leibniz - Gott durch das Schöpfungs-prinzip “der Zweck heiligt die Mittel” entlastet, sondern erst dort, wo Gott von diesem Prinzip entlastet wird� Wo dieses Prinzip gleichwohl unangefochten Prinzip der Schöpfung bleibt, muss das schließlich folgende Konsequenz haben: Gott muss - zugunsten seiner Güte - aus der Rolle des Schöpfers befreit, ihm muss - zur Rettung seiner Güte - sein Nichtsein erlaubt oder gar nahegelegt werden� Diese Konsequenz - den Schluss von der Güte Gottes auf seine Nichtexistenz - zieht die moderne (der Tendenz nach revolutionäre) Geschichtsphilosophie (die nicht zufällig unmittelbar nach 1755 entstand), indem sie - zu Gottes Rechtfertigung - statt Gottes den Menschen zum Schöpfer ausruft und die Wirklichkeit fortan als eine Schöpfung begreift, die man dem Menschen zutrauen kann: als Geschichte� Die moderne Geschichtsphilosophie ist die Radikalisierung der Theodizee durch den Freispruch Gottes wegen der erwiesensten jeder möglichen Unschuld: der Unschuld wegen Nichtexistenz� Durch diesen Atheismus ad maiorem Dei gloriam wird der Mensch der Erbe der Funktionen Gottes: nicht nur seiner Funktion als Schöpfer, sondern - ebendarum - auch […] seiner Funktion als Angeklagter der Theodizee� Danach gilt durch die Geschichtsphilosophie folgendes: Das Pensum der Philosophie bleibt ein Prozess, der Mensch bleibt der absolute Ankläger, aber eines hat sich geändert: Statt Gottes wird nunmehr - in der gleichen Sache: in Dingen Übel in der Welt - zum absoluten Angeklagten der Mensch� (Marquard 81-82) In diesem Säkularisierungsprozess verschwindet aber mit dem Rechtfertigungsbedürfnis Gottes gegenüber dem Bösen auch seine Gnade, die den Zustand des christlichen Sünders erträglich und lebenswert machte, da Christi Tod und Auferstehung die Aussicht auf Erlösung von allen Sünden boten� Dass der moderne Mensch fortan “als Dauerangeklagter eines Dauerprozesses vor einem Dauertribunal, dessen Ankläger und Richter der Mensch ist” (Marquard 82) steht, zeige außerdem die Sprache der Französischen Revolution, wie Marquard in Anlehnung an Hans-Ulrich Gumbrechts rhetorischer Analyse der Parlamentsdiskussionen in Paris beteuert, in denen die Frage nach Legitimation und Rechtfertigung ein wiederkehrendes Motiv ist (vgl� Gumbrecht)� Niemand hat in der Goethezeit mit der Radikalität Heinrich von Kleists den Rechtfertigungsdruck für den modernen Menschen und die Tribunalisierung der Lebenswirklichkeit ins Zentrum seines Schaffens gestellt: Nicht nur Rechtfertigungskrisen, Prozesse und Fragen bestimmen das Handeln ( Der zerbrochne Krug , Das Kleists Käthchen von Heilbronn als Litotes von Goethes Grethchen in Faust. Ein Fragment 23 Käthchen von Heilbronn , Der Prinz von Homburg , Michael Kohlhaas , Der Zweikampf ), auch die radikale Infragestellung von Identität, Zurechnungsfähigkeit und Vernunft drängt seine Heldinnen und Helden in eine rational nicht mehr zu bewältigende Legitimitätskrise und damit zumindest in eine für immer gebrochene Identität, an den Rand des Wahnsinns oder in dessen Abgrund (am auffälligsten in Amphitryon , Über das Marionettentheater , Die Marquise von O… und Penthesilea )� Zahlreiche literatur-, rechts- und medienwissenschaftliche Beiträge konzentrieren sich auf die Darstellung des Rechts in Kleists Werken und beleuchten die metaphysischen und historisch-juristischen Implikationen dieses Themenkomplexes von Gerechtigkeit, Legitimation und Rechtfertigung� 2 Ob die Literaturwissenschaft nun den Fokus auf Kleists konkretes Interesse für eine Reform des Rechtswesens im Preußen des frühen 19� Jahrhunderts legt oder die prekäre metaphysische Befindlichkeit des unter Legitimationsdruck geratenen Menschen hervorhebt, so bleibt doch die Interpretation einer Konvergenz dieser beiden Schriftebenen in Kleists Schriften auf hermeneutischer Ebene unerschöpflich. In diesem Beitrag wird der Versuch unternommen, diese Konstellation um ein weiteres Element zu ergänzen, das mit Rezeption und Intertextualität bei Kleist zusammenhängt, mit Fokus auf das Ritterschauspiel Das Käthchen von Heilbronn und dessen mögliche Bezüge auf Goethes Faust. Ein Fragment � Kleists Stück, so die These, ist eine Antwort auf Goethes 1790 erschienenes Fragment� Dieses entsteht zu einer Zeit, in der das Problem der Reform der Justizpraxis auf der Tagesordnung steht und die von der “Umstellung vom ausschließlich schriftlich geführten Aktenprozess auf eine mündliche und öffentliche Verfahrensform markiert ist” (Wittmann 21)� Liest man das Stück vor dem Hintergrund von Kleists Bewunderung für Goethe als literarische Leitfigur seiner Zeit, aber auch von seinem inzwischen teilweise als Rezeptionsmythos erkannten “Kampf mit Goethe” (Mommsen; Hamacher 217-18), so kann man die Vermutung anstellen, dass er mit Käthchen von Heilbronn einen in Goethes Fragment abgebrochenen Diskurs wieder aufgegriffen und dadurch die Rechtfertigungs- und Legitimationsfrage des modernen Menschen als zentrales Motiv seines Schreibens in einer impliziten Auseinandersetzung mit dem Fauststoff entwickelt hat. Klaus Müller- Salget hat bereits auf die Szene Wald und Höhle im Faust als mögliche Folie für eine zentrale Szene des Ritterschauspiels hingewiesen und einen intertextuellen Bezug identifiziert, in dem die monologische Struktur der Aussage der männlichen Helden sowie das den Schauplatz beschreibende Wortpaar “Wald” und “Höhle” eine Schlüsselrolle spielen: Die Szene Wald vor der Höhle des heimlichen Gerichts am Anfang des II� Akts, in der der Graf wortreich und schwülstig seine Liebe zum Käthchen bekennt und sich gleich 24 Stefania Sbarra anschließend auf seine Standesehre besinnt, kann wohl als Travestie auf die Szene “Wald und Höhle« in Goethes Faust gelesen werden� (Müller-Salget 129) Was bei Müller-Salget mit aller Wahrscheinlichkeit implizit vorausgesetzt ist, möchte ich hier betonen: Kleist erinnert sich höchstwahrscheinlich an das Fragment , denn der erste Teil der Tragödie erscheint 1808 zur Ostermesse Mitte April und Das Käthchen von Heilbronn fast zeitgleich als Fragment im im Juni gedruckten April-Mai-Heft des Phöbus � Für die im Folgenden vorgeschlagene Interpretation von Kleists Stück ist besonders relevant, dass das Goethe-Fragment mit der Szene Dom endet: Hier wird Grethchen 3 vom bösen Geist verfolgt, die Zeilen des Dies Irae erklingen und ein schreckliches Jüngstes Gericht wird verkündet� Es stellt sich die Frage, ob der Einfluss des Fragments auf Kleists Werk nicht auf die Szene Wald vor der Höhle des heimlichen Gerichts beschränkt ist und ob die Ausgangssituation im Käthchen von Heilbronn gerade deshalb ein Gerichtsverfahren ist, weil Goethes Fragment als quasi-Prozess endet, wo die Verse des Dies Irae das schrecklichste Jüngste Gericht hervorrufen� 4 Für eine weitere, über die Szene Wald und Höhle hinausgehende Spur des Fragments in Kleists Text könnte auch die mit “Käthchen” verwandte Schreibweise des Namens “Grethchen” von 1790 sprechen, die erst im Faust. Der Tragödie erster Teil mit “Gretchen” ersetzt wird, und mehr noch die Verwendung des Diminutivs und der in beiden Werken vorkommende Wechsel von Name und Diminutiv (Grethchen/ Margarethe; Käthchen/ Katharina)� Vor diesem Hintergrund entpuppen sich die beiden 15-jährigen Mädchen, die unter unterschiedlichen, wenn nicht sogar gegensätzlichen Umständen vor Gericht kamen, als komplementäre Figuren desselben juristischen Diskurses, der die Schriftsteller herausfordert, ein tribunalisiertes Leben zu inszenieren, in dem die Liebe im Mittelpunkt der Anklage steht� Es erübrigt sich zu sagen, dass Rechtsfragen dem Jurastudenten in Leipzig (1765-1768) und Straßburg (1770-1771) und dem von 1771 bis 1775 praktizierenden Advokaten Goethe alles andere als fremd waren, wie die Literaturwissenschaft schon lange dargelegt hat, und dass er mit der langen Arbeit an der in der Leipziger Komödie mit dem beredten Titel Die Mitschuldigen (1769) erstmals erwähnten Faustfigur (vgl. Baioni 96) nicht zuletzt auf die Legitimationskrise des modernen Menschen reagiert, wie sie Marquard zusammenfasst� Im Hinblick auf die Neubewertung des Fauststoffs nach “der ersten aufklärerischen Demontage des für überholt erklärten Mythos”, insbesondere durch Gottsched, verweist Mathias Mayer auf den verlorenen Text von Lessings Faust und betont, Lessing habe “den protestantischen Warncharakter der Historia in eine Rettungsmöglichkeit” umgedacht (Mayer 147)� Bietet schon die herkömmliche Gelehrtentragödie ein sehr produktives Reservoir an Motiven der Schuld und Sühne, die im ausgehenden 18� Jahrhundert einer neuen, den wissbegierigen Re- Kleists Käthchen von Heilbronn als Litotes von Goethes Grethchen in Faust. Ein Fragment 25 naissancemenschen und Wissenschaftler entlastenden Perspektivierung harren, so ist es im Fall Goethes die Gretchentragödie, die die Tribunalisierung menschlichen Lebens von vornherein plastisch ins Zentrum der dramatischen Handlung rückt: Zum ersten Mal tritt mit Grethchen eine klar umrissene weibliche Figur im Zusammenhang mit dem Fauststoff in Erscheinung, die das Rechtfertigungsproblem in höchster Dramatik übernimmt� An der jungen Frau wird zunächst das Problem der Strafe und des Urteils veranschaulicht und im Zusammenhang mit dem Thema der Liebe dargestellt� Es sei nur kurz erwähnt, dass Goethe zum Zeitpunkt seiner ursprünglichen Arbeit am Fauststoff Anfang der 1770er Jahre ein junger Jurist war, der die Frankfurter Anwaltspraxis bereits aus seinem familiären Hintergrund kannte (H� Schmidt 8) und sich für den Gretchen-Komplex durch den 1771 bis 1772 gegen die Kindesmörderin Susanna Margaretha Brandt in Frankfurt angestrengten Prozess inspirieren ließ (siehe Mayer 149; Pausch 109-10)� In der Schlussszene Dom des Fragments schreitet die Handlung mit der steigenden Angst Grethchens auf ihren dramatischen Höhepunkt zu: Zwar hat sie im Fragment weder ein Kind bekommen noch es umgebracht, aber nachdem sie durch den Tod der Mutter und den Geschlechtsverkehr mit Faust schuldig geworden ist, ist sie der quälenden Stimme des bösen Geistes ausgesetzt, die sie gnadenlos anklagt und zur absoluten Angeklagten macht: 5 Wie anders, Grethchen, war dir’s, Als du noch voll Unschuld Hier zum Altar trat’st, Aus dem vergriffnen Büchelchen Gebethe lalltest, Halb Kinderspiele, Halb Gott im Herzen� Grethchen! Wo steht dein Kopf ? In deinem Herzen, Welche Missethat? Beth’st du für deiner Mutter Seele, die Durch dich zur langen, langen Pein hinüber schlief ? - Und unter deinem Herzen Regt sich’s nicht quillend schon, Und ängstet dich und sich Mit ahndungsvoller Gegenwart? (Goethe Z� 3776-3793; AV 132) Grethchen glaubt in dieser Stimme die eigenen Gedanken zu hören, die sie gnadenlos heimsuchen� In dieser Szene wird sie sowohl durch einen möglicherweise sichtbaren Geist als auch durch ihr eigenes Bewusstsein, das heißt durch 26 Stefania Sbarra eine doppelte urteilende Autorität, die gleichzeitig außerhalb von ihr existiert und in ihr verankert ist, zur Rechenschaft gezogen� Die Intensität des Vorwurfs wird auch durch eine dritte Instanz unterstrichen: den Chor� Dieser singt nach den beiden Eingangsversen “Dies irae dies illa / Solvet Saeclum in favilla” zwei Strophen aus dem Dies Irae , die gezielt und unerbittlich auf einen gerichtlichen Sachverhalt verweisen: Iudex ergo cum sedebit, Quidquid latet adparebit, Nil inultum remanebit� […] Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? Quem patronum rogaturus? Cum vix justus sit securus� (Goethe Z� 3813-3815; Z� 3825-3827; AV 133-134) Vor Grethchen eröffnet sich die Vision eines schrecklichen Gerichts, in dessen Gegenwart es vergeblich scheint, einen Anwalt zu rufen (“Quem patronum rogaturus? ”)� Das Fragment , das die Zeitgenossen lesen werden, bevor es 1808 mit der Veröffentlichung von Faust. Der Tragödie erster Teil obsolet wird, schließt im Zeichen von Grethchens Verzweiflung in dem Moment, in dem sie vom bösen Geist und vom Chor vor ihre Schuld gestellt wird und zusammenbricht� Ausgelassen werden aber die Strophen des Dies irae , in denen sich der Sünder mit der Hoffnung auf Nachsicht und Erlösung der Gnade Jesu anvertraut. Der Chor kann ihr nur diese Worte zum zweiten Mal entgegen halten, bevor sie in Ohnmacht fällt: “Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? ” Die ausgesparten Strophen des Dies irae, mit denen Goethes Leser mit aller Wahrscheinlichkeit vertraut waren, beantworten diese Frage mit einer Anrufung Jesu und mit der Aussicht auf Vergebung� Grethchen bleibt aber dieser Trost verweigert und sie reagiert auf die Aussichtslosigkeit ihrer Lage mit einer Anrufung der Nachbarin, die ihr das vermeintliche Schlafmittel für die Mutter gereicht hat und damit als Mitschuldige an deren Tod in Frage kommt: Chor� Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? Grethchen� Nachbarinn! Euer Fläschchen! - Sie fällt in Ohnmacht. (Goethe Z� 3833-3834; AV 134) Was die Leser des Faust. Ein Fragment 1790 am Ende zusammen mit Grethchens Ohnmacht vor Augen haben, ist eine gefallene, von “Mitschuldigen” bewohnte Welt, in der alle Figuren mit immenser Schuld belastet sind: Faust, Grethchen und Marthe, und gleichzeitig auch Mephistopheles, dessen Existenz im Frag- Kleists Käthchen von Heilbronn als Litotes von Goethes Grethchen in Faust. Ein Fragment 27 ment noch keine theologische Rechtfertigung erhält, wie es später im Prolog im Himmel des Faust. Der Tragödie erster Teil der Fall sein wird� Dass 1790 in Sachen Faust noch keine Rettung zu erwarten ist, besagt der Wegfall der tröstenden Verse des Dies irae einerseits, und der allgemein bekannte herkömmliche Fauststoff andererseits, der unweigerlich mit der Verdammung des Helden enden musste, wie August Wilhelm Schlegel nach Erscheinen des Fragments beteuert: “Fausts Schicksal ist zwar in gewisser Rücksicht längst entschieden: der Weg, den er einmal betreten hat, führt unvermeidlich zum Verderben” (Schlegel 17)� Was Grethchen betrifft, wird ihre Hoffnungslosigkeit dramaturgisch dadurch überspitzt, dass sie in ihrer verzweifelten Lage mit ihren Gewissensqualen völlig allein gelassen wird. In einem Zustand absoluter Hilflosigkeit ist die Waise nur auf sich selbst angewiesen� Erschwerend kommt hinzu, dass sie über keine Worte verfügt, die ihre Lage rechtfertigen könnten� “Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? ” Kleist scheint in seinem Stück mehrere Elemente des Fragments neu aufzugreifen und umzukehren, wobei er die neuesten Rechtsentwicklungen berücksichtigt und ein alternatives Handlungs- und Charaktermodell im Kontext der um 1800 zu reformierenden Rechtspraxis zeichnet. Das betrifft ganz besonders den dem Femgericht gewidmeten ersten Akt, der mit der Feme ein seit Goethes Götz von Berlichingen (1773) mit dem “Schauer des Unheimlichen” (Kleist 970) konnotiertes Motiv wiederaufgreift� 6 Im Gegensatz zum jungen Goethe, der in Übereinstimmung mit Justus Möser die Würde der mittelalterlichen Institution der Feme nicht im Geringsten berührt hatte, 7 zeigt Kleist am Beispiel der versammelten Richter in Das Käthchen von Heilbronn die Probleme, die die Reformvorschläge der Spätaufklärung veranlasst hatten� So legt Kleists Gerichtsvorsitzender die Befangenheit der Richter an den Tag, indem er seine positiven Vorurteile gegenüber dem angeklagten Adligen zum Ausdruck bringt: “Meister Theobald von Heilbronn! Erwäge wohl, was du sagst� Du bringst vor, der Graf vom Strahle, uns vielfältig, und von guter Hand, bekannt, habe dir ein Kind verführt” (Kleist 260). Diese offensichtliche Verschränkung der Justizgewalt mit den gleichrangigen Angeklagten ist nicht nur ein Skandal für die Justizkritik der Aufklärung, sondern steht auch im krassen Gegensatz zu dem, was zu Beginn des mittelalterlichen Gerichtsdramas behauptet wurde� Denn Graf Otto selbst konnotiert das Femgericht zunächst mit einem Verweis auf das Jüngste Gericht, wodurch der erste intertextuelle Verweis auf die Domszene im Faustfragment eingeführt wird: “Wir Richter des hohen, heimlichen Gerichts, die wir, die irdischen Schergen Gottes, Vorläufer der geflügelten Heere, die er in seinem Wolken mustert” (Kleist 269)� Wie im fünften Akt von Götz von Berlichingen treffen sich hier die vermummten Richter im Dunkeln, offenbaren aber sofort eine Widersprüchlichkeit und 28 Stefania Sbarra eine am Kanon der Aufklärung gemessen moralische Fragwürdigkeit, die in Goethes kurzer, ja apodiktischer Szene nicht einmal erwähnt werden konnte� Das ist aber nur ein Aspekt des hier dargestellten Sachverhalts� Der andere zeigt, dass sich hier die vermummten Richter doch auch um die umständliche Aufklärung eines sonderbaren Tatbestandes bemühen, indem sie nicht nur den Ankläger, d� h� Käthchens Vater Theobald, seine Klage vortragen lassen, sondern auch den Angeklagten zur eigenen Rechtfertigung und die angeblich verführte junge Frau selbst als Zeugin vorladen� Anders als es im Götz von Berlichingen der Fall war, herrscht hier eine milde, nachsichtige Einstellung zu den vor Gericht erscheinenden Personen� Und anders als in der Domszene des Faustfragments eröffnet sich im ersten Akt des Schauspiels ein Erzählraum, in dem alle zu Wort kommen und sich zu rechtfertigen zumindest versuchen können� Im mündlichen Gerichtsverfahren, das einem der im Zuge der preußischen Reformen zumindest teilweise öffentlich verhandelten Prozesse nachgebildet ist, verlieren die Richter ihre biblische Strenge und zeigen eine mit der märchenhaften Einfärbung des Schauspiels übereinstimmende Empathie mit der jungen Zeugin� So ist hier die richtende Instanz jenseits aller Kleistschen Gebrechlichkeit, soweit es um Käthchen geht, eine mitfühlende und nachsichtige, die mit den erleichternden Worten “Es ist hier nichts zu richten” (Kleist 281) dem in Kleists Werken ubiquitären Zustand des dauerhaften Angeklagt-Seins die Utopie des dauerhaften Losgesprochen-Seins entgegenhält� Die anfängliche Zuordnung des Femgerichts zum Jüngsten Gericht geht im Verhör verloren� Auf die implizite, Grethchen zur Wortlosigkeit führende Frage des Prätextes “Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? ” wird mit einem Wortschwall geantwortet, der die Rätselhaftigkeit von Käthchens Handeln zwar nicht erklärt, 8 aber immerhin zum Freispruch des Angeklagten führt und die Ehre der jungen Frau rettet� Außerdem beginnt das Drama mit der Entlastung der jungen weiblichen Figur durch den Vater Theobald, der vor Gericht den mutmaßlichen Verführer der jungen Tochter beschuldigt, eine Bürgerliche, die sich am Ende des Erstdrucks nach der kaiserlichen Anagnorisis als Prinzessin entpuppt - d� h� als das “Fräulein”, das Grethchen nicht sein konnte - und auch als märchenhafte Kaisertochter, also viel mehr als ein “Fräulein”� “Bin weder Fräulein, weder schön” (Goethe Z� 2607; AV 69) heißt es in der Szene Strasse bei Goethe, und dabei bleibt es auch für die vaterlose junge Frau, die in der Szene Dom vollkommen allein vor dem Gericht ihres Gewissens steht� Der böse Geist erinnert sie an ihr Leben vor dem Fall, um das Ausmaß ihrer Schuld hervorzuheben: Wie anders, Grethchen, war dir’s, Als Du noch voll Unschuld, Hier zum Altar trat’st, Kleists Käthchen von Heilbronn als Litotes von Goethes Grethchen in Faust. Ein Fragment 29 Aus dem vergriffnen Büchelchen Gebete lalltest, Halb Kinderspiele, Halb Gott im Herzen� Grethchen! Wo steht Dein Kopf ? In deinem Herzen, Welche Missethat? (Goethe Z� 3776-3786; AV 132) Auch Theobald strukturiert seine Anklage, indem er einerseits auf die glückliche Zeit der Unschuld vor Käthchens angeblicher Verführung durch den Grafen, andererseits auf die korrumpierte Zeit nach ihrem Fall (und Sturz zugleich) hinweist, für die sie aber zum Nachteil des Grafen keineswegs verantwortlich gemacht wird� Wetter vom Strahl, der Angeklagte, wird von Theobald in Worten beschrieben, die sich leicht mit der Figur von Goethes Faust verbinden: “[I] ch klage ihn schändlicher Zauberei, aller Künste der schwarzen Nacht und der Verbrüderung mit dem Satan an! ” (Kleist 260)� Die Gegenbildlichkeit, die Kleists Text in Bezug auf Goethes Faust inszeniert, signalisiert auch die Abweichung von konkreten Situationen, die im Fall Grethchens relevant waren� In seiner Rhetorik der wiederholten Verleugnung dessen, was Käthchen nicht ist, weist der stolze Vater darauf hin, dass sie den üblichen Verführungsstrategien nicht erliegen konnte� Bevor die verklärende Schilderung von Käthchens Lebensweg bis hin zu ihrer angeblichen Verführung im verklärenden Vergleich mit Jesus ihren Höhepunkt erreicht, scheint Theobald seine Tochter entscheidend vom Grethchen-Modell abgrenzen zu wollen� Auf rhetorischer Ebene entsteht Käthchen gleichsam als Litotes ihres literarischen Vorbildes: Hat er sie am Brunnen getroffen, wenn sie Wasser schöpfte, und gesagt: Lieb Mädel, wer bist du? Hat er sich an den Pfeiler gestellt, wenn sie aus der Kirche kam, und gefragt: Lieb Mädel, wo wohnst du? Hat er sich in ihre Kammer geschlichen, und ihr einen Halsschmuck gebracht, und gesagt: Lieb Mädel, gefällst mir? Ihr hochheiligen Herren, damit war sie nicht zu gewinnen! (Kleist 263) Den ersten Auftritt des Phöbus-Fragments beschließt einer der Femerichter mit Worten, die ihrer Ratlosigkeit vor dem “seltsamen Vorfall” (Kleist 266) Ausdruck geben, bevor Käthchen selber im zweiten Auftritt vor Gericht geladen wird: “Wenzel: Bei meinem Eid! Dieser Vorfall macht meinen Witz zu Schanden” (Kleist 272)� Diese Ratlosigkeit wird auf die Spitze getrieben, da Käthchen ihren Gefühlen so radikal und bedingungslos vertraut, dass sie nicht nur die Autorität der Richter nicht anerkennt, sondern auch den Gegenstand ihrer Liebe wegen seiner Reinheit erhebt, um nicht nur über sich selbst, sondern auch über die 30 Stefania Sbarra Richter selbst zu richten� Dass die Liebe über die urteilende Autorität siegt und in den Rahmen jedes Legitimationsdiskurses erhoben wird, ist eines von Kleists berauschenden Idealbildern, die nur im märchenhaften Kontext gedacht werden können� Die Liebe entzieht sich dem richtenden Blick der Menschen, denen die junge Frau keinen Zugang zu ihrem Inneren gewähren will: Was in des Busens stillem Reich geschehn, Und Gott nicht straft, das braucht kein Mensch zu wissen; Den nenn‘ ich grausam, der mich darum fragt� (Kleist 275) Bestürzt sehen die Richter zu, wie Käthchen ihre Existenz kaum wahrnimmt� Sie muss mehrmals an die Schranke erinnert werden, bleibt aber unaufhörlich und auf unerhörte Weise auf den Grafen als alleinigen Richter fixiert, hat fürs Gericht selber nur Worte und Gesten der Delegitimation� Was sie für sich selbst sagt, erinnert an Grethchens Gemütsverfassung, aber nur, um sie zu desavouieren: “Auf Purpur sitzen sie, vermummt in Schwarz, / Wie das Gericht am jüngsten Tage da” (Kleist 273)� Wie in der Domszene des Faust-Fragments erscheint auch hier das Jüngste Gericht, dessen furchtbare Härte jedoch als Maskerade entlarvt wird� In Käthchens Augen ist dies nicht das Jüngste Gericht, es scheint nur so� Im “wie” wird all das Grauen, das in der sich 1790 noch anbahnenden Gretchentragödie allgegenwärtig ist, abgeschwächt, und die Instanzen werden sogar im Zeichen der Liebe vertauscht, wobei Käthchen nur den Heißgeliebten als Richter anerkennt� Im fünften Akt des Erstdrucks wird dann Otto von der Flühe, Vorsitzer des Femgerichts in der ersten Szene des Schauspiels, seine Rolle als geheimer Richter ablegen und als öffentlicher Regisseur der für das Happy End nötigen Wiedererkennung agieren� Käthchen, die von ihrer Bahn nie abweicht, indem sie unentwegt ihrem inneren Gefühl folgt, wird am Ende in ihrer von vornherein vom Gericht festgestellten Eigentümlichkeit bestätigt, sobald die Wahrheit, die ihren Gefühlen und Visionen zugrunde liegt, ans Licht kommt� Ihre Unbeirrbarkeit wird auch dadurch nicht beeinträchtigt, dass sie immer wieder von den männlichen Figuren als Hund bezeichnet wird, irritiert von ihrer Unerschütterlichkeit� Im fünften Akt kann Wetter endlich vor der Adligen Käthchen von Schwaben sagen: “Das Käthchen ist die Erst’ itzt vor den Menschen, / Wie sie’s vor Gott längst war” (Kleist 429)� Auch in diesem Punkt ist eine Umkehrung von Grethchens Schicksal am Werk, deren bodenlosen Verlassenheit am Ende von Goethes Fragments nun die leuchtende Alternative einer von Gott und den Menschen nie ganz fallengelassenen Marionette entgegengehalten wird� War im Leben Käthchens vor den Augen ratloser Männer der Mensch zum Hund degradiert worden, hatte der Beginn eines beunruhigenden Moments ihre Biografie in eine Zeit vor dem Sturz und eine Zeit nach dem Sturz geteilt, so zeugt nun Kleists Käthchen von Heilbronn als Litotes von Goethes Grethchen in Faust. Ein Fragment 31 Wetters Aussage im fünften Akt von der Wiederherstellung einer einheitlichen, unversehrten Zeitdimension, die der jungen Frau von vornherein eigen ist, von den Menschen aber aufgrund der dem urteilenden Blick innewohnenden Unzulänglichkeit verkannt worden war� So suspendiert das märchenhafte Schauspiel Kleists die Philosophie der Geschichte, der Grethchen 1790 in der sich noch anbahnenden Tragödie Goethes zum Opfer gefallen war� Notes 1 “Et quand on rempliroit tous les temps et tous les lieux, il demeure torujours vray qu’on les auroit pu remplir d’une infinité de manieres, et qu’il y a une infinité de Mondes possible, dont il faut que Dieu ait choisi le meilleur, puisqu’il ne fait rien sans agir suivant la suprême raison” [sic] (Leibniz 107)� 2 Erst kürzlich ist Jan Wittmann am Beispiel von Der zerbrochne Krug dem Zusammenhang von juristischem Fachwissen und Schreibpraxis bei Kleist nachgegangen� Im Zentrum stehen dabei die neuen Anforderungen an die Richter, die in der einschlägigen Fachliteratur am Ende des 18� Jahrhunderts zur Debatte stehen� Zum Themenkomplex Recht und Literatur bei Kleist vgl� insbesondere Fink; Ensberg; Raue; Sendler; Stefanopoulou; Balke; Lehmann; sowie J� Schmidt 217-29� 3 In Faust. Ein Fragment verwendet Goethe diese Schreibart des Namens mit “h”� Deshalb wird er in diesem Beitrag dementsprechend geschrieben� Eine Ausnahme bilden in der Forschung gängige Begriffe wie “Gretchentragödie” und “Gretchen-Komplex”� 4 Das könnte zumindest teilweise erklären, was Günter Oesterle in seinen Ausführungen zum Schauspiel feststellt: “Es gehört zur bizarren Konstellation des Schauspiels Käthchen von Heilbronn , daß der handlungsbestimmende Geschehenskern erst sehr spät im Drama als Vorgeschichte erzählt wird” (Oesterle 310)� 5 Das Faust-Fragment wird mit Zeilenangaben nach der Online-Edition http: / / www�faustedition�net/ und mit Verweis auf die Seiten der Akademie-Verlag-Ausgabe von 1954 (gekürzt mit AV) zitiert� 6 “Following the success of Goethe’s play, Secret Tribunal scenes became almost ubiquitous in German fiction from the 1780s to the early nineteenth century� Historically tinged novels and dramas began to include Vehmic trials in their repertoire of tropes in order to appeal to the public and increase their commercial viability� Over a short period of time, the Vehme became a remarkable narratological and dramaturgical tool that could help dynamize the structure of literary works, providing striking settings and 32 Stefania Sbarra expanding the power of the villain, whose stature was often heightened by his association with the Secret Tribunal” (Vecchiato 198)� 7 “Even though Goethe does not embrace Möser’s retrospective utopia of restored medieval justice, he does share, to a certain extent, Möser’s fear that the absolutist state in his age could exercise oppressive control on interpersonal relations via levelling, anonymous laws, resulting in the loss of individual freedom in the interests of wider social concerns” (Vecchiato 195)� 8 “Daß Kleist ausgerechnet das Verhör mit seiner im Laufe des 18� Jahrhunderts modernisierten Befragungstechnik aufgreift, um das als wahnhaft eingestufte, extrem sonderbare Verhalten Käthchens mit Mitteln aufklärerischer ‘Wahrheitserforschung’ zu ergründen, mag als Beleg seiner Vorliebe für bizarre Konstellationen gelten� Denn es war absehbar, daß sich der durch die Vision bedingte ‘versteckte(n) Sachverhalt’ […] im Prozeßverfahren mehr verhüllte als enthüllte” (Oesterle 305)� Works Cited Baioni, Giuliano� Il giovane Goethe � Torino: Einaudi, 1996� Balke, Friedrich� “Kohlhaas und K� Zur Prozessführung bei Kleist und Kafka�” Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie 130�4 (2011): 503—29� Ensberg, Peter, ed� Recht und Gerechtigkeit bei Heinrich von Kleist � Stuttgart: Heinz, 2002� Fink, Adolf� “Michael Kohlhaas - ein noch anhängiger Prozeß� Geschichte und Kritik der bisher ergangenen Urteile�” Rechtsgeschichte als Kulturgeschichte: Festschrift für Adalbert Erler zum 70. Geburtstag � Ed� Hans Jürgen Becker� Aalen: Scientia-Verlag, 1976� 37—108� Goethe, Johann Wolfgang� Werke Goethes � Ed� Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin� Faust. Vol� 1� Urfaust ; Faust. Ein Fragment � Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1954� ---� Faust. Ein Fragment [1790]� Ed� Anne Bohnenkamp, Silke Henke and Fotis Jannidis� v1-2.faustedition.net � Faustedition, 8 July 2019� Web� 7 Dec� 2021� Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich� Funktionen parlamentarischer Rhetorik in der Französischen Revolution. Vorstudien zur Entwicklung einer historischen Textpragmatik � München: Fink, 1978� Hamacher, Bernd� “Goethe�” Kleist-Handbuch � Ed� Ingo Breuer� Stuttgart: Metzler, 2009� 214—19� Kleist, Heinrich von� Sämtliche Werke und Briefe in 4 Bänden� Ed� Ilse-Marie Barth, Klaus Müller-Salget, Walter Müller-Seidel and Hinrich Seeba� Vol� 2� Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1987� Lehmann, F� Johannes� “Kleists Michael Kohlhaas und das Politische� Oder: vom Recht zur Macht (und zur Geschichte des Rechtsgefühls)�” Kleist-Jahrbuch 2021: 95—117� Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm� “Essais de theodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal�” Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Kleists Käthchen von Heilbronn als Litotes von Goethes Grethchen in Faust. Ein Fragment 33 Leibniz � Ed� Carl J� Gerhardt� Vol� 6� Hildesheim/ New York: Georg Holms Verlag, 1978� 21—471� Marquard, Odo� “Rechtfertigung� Bemerkungen zum Interesse der Philosophie an der Theologie�” Gießener Universitätsblätter 13�1 (1980): 78—87� Mayer, Mathias� “Literatur�” Faust-Handbuch. Konstellationen - Diskurse - Medien. Ed� Carsten Rohde, Thorsten Valk and Mathias Mayer� Stuttgart: Metzler, 2018� 145—53� Mommsen, Katharina� Kleists Kampf mit Goethe � Heidelberg: Stiehm, 1974� Müller-Salget, Klaus� “Der arme Kauz aus Brandenburg�” Kleist-Jahrbuch 2013: 120—31� Oesterle, Günter� “Vision und Verhör� Kleists Käthchen von Heilbronn als Drama der Unterbrechung und Scham�” Gewagte Experimente und kühne Konstellationen. Kleists Werk zwischen Klassizismus und Romantik � Ed� Christine Lubkoll and Günter Oesterle� Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2001� 303—28� Pausch, Alfons, and Jutta Pausch� Goethes Juristenlaufbahn. Rechtsstudent Advokat Staatsdiener � Köln: Otto Schmidt Verlag, 1996� Raue, Peter� “Kleists Rechtsdenken�” Kleist - ein moderner Aufklärer? Ed� Marie Haller- Nevermann and Dieter Rehwinkel� Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005� 133—45� Schlegel, August Wilhelm� Sämmtliche Werke: Vermischte und kritische Schriften. Vol� 3� Malerei. Bildende Künste. Theater � Ed� Eduard Böcking� Leipzig: Weid’mannsche Buchhandlung, 1846� Schmidt, Hartmut� Der Rechtspraktikant Goethe � Wetzlar: Schriftenreihe der Gesellschaft für Reichskammerforschung, 1993� Schmidt, Jochen� Heinrich von Kleist. Die Dramen und Erzählungen in ihrer Epoche � Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2003� Sendler, Horst� “Über Michael Kohlhaas, damals und heute�” Recht - Gerechtigkeit - Rechtsstaat. Beiträge zwischen 1964 und 2005 � Ed� Konrad Redeker� Köln: Heymanns, 2006� 3—38� Stefanopoulou, Georgia� “Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811): Ein kritischer Rechtsdenker�” JuristenZeitung 66�23 (2011): 1154—57� Vecchiato, Daniele. “From Customary Law to Codification: Secret Tribunal Scenes in Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen and Kleist’s Käthchen of Heilbronn. ” Law & Literature 34�2 (2022): 191—205� Wittmann, Jan� Recht sprechen. Richterfiguren bei Kleist, Kafka und Zeh � Stuttgart: Metzler, 2018� Applause from the Jury: Publicness, Orality, Trial by Jury, and the Revolutionary Tribunal in Büchner’s Dantons Tod Sophia Clark University of Central Oklahoma Abstract: In Dantons Tod (1835), Büchner’s stage direction of Beifall , or “applause,” in scenes before the Revolutionary Tribunal is a citation of the historical anxiety stretching from ancient times up to Büchner’s contemporaries surrounding reformed trial procedure that opens the theatricality of justice to public participation� This paper argues that the applause stage direction is Büchner’s contribution to the interpretation of a specific historical judicial problem: that of negotiating the requirements of radical legal reform in a new Republic-reform, such as public, oral trial by jury, that manifested outwardly in the French Revolution as tools of tyranny during the Terror and remained at the heart of legal reform debates in the German states at the time of the play’s publication� At stake is the desire to open institutions of justice to public participation, yet there remains a distinct fear that justice will lose its legitimacy as a mere theatrical spectacle� Through the trial scenes in Dantons Tod , however, Büchner emphasizes an understanding that justice is indeed theatrical and performance-based� The question is no longer whether justice is theater but rather: who controls the theater of the courtroom, who is allowed to participate, and to what extent? Keywords: legal reform, theater, stage directions, trial procedure, performance, French Revolution, justice on stage “It is reserved for the theater to exhibit on its stage the fact that the court is a theater�” 1 Cornelia Vismann, Medien der Rechtsprechung (2011) 36 Sophia Clark The stage direction Beifall in Act 3, Scenes 4 and 9 of Georg Büchner’s Dantons Tod (1835) during the defense speeches of Büchner’s fictionalized Georg Danton include a clear reference to the theater as Danton takes command of the stage of the Revolutionary Tribunal� 2 This stage direction is one of the many instances of historical citation in the play� Recent studies by Rüdiger Campe and Matthew S� Buckley have opened new avenues of interpretive possibility for Büchner’s extensive use of citation and serve as a starting point for an analysis of the legal historical references to applause in the context of the play. An analysis of the “applause” stage direction specifically in Büchner’s drama reveals a direct conversation between the play and the legacy and repercussions of French trial systems regarding German legal reform debates, including the thought of leading German jurists, all of whom share in the face of liberal trial reform the anxiety that the court of law might become theater� This essay analyzes the place of revolutionary legal reform in Georg Büchner’s Dantons Tod , specifically the principles publicness, orality, and trial by jury, which had taken hold of legal reform discourse of the early nineteenth century, for example, in the legal writings of Paul Johann Feuerbach in an 1819 pamphlet on “Geschwornen-Gerichte” and the 1821 book Betrachtungen über die Oeffentlichkeit und Mündlichkeit der Gerechtigkeitspflege � In response to these discourses, the “applause” stage direction represents Büchner’s dramaturgical interpretation of these very fears surrounding reform and the challenges facing a future republic� In March 1834, Georg Büchner wrote to his fiancée, Minna Jaeglé, that he had been studying the history of the French Revolution� For days, he says, he has been paralyzed by the “Fatalismus der Geschichte” and has been unable to write ( Werke 288)� This fatalism, however, did not stop the then 20-year-old author in his political activity or literary pursuits for long� In Giessen, he joined the Gesellschaft der Menschenrechte and participated in revolutionary planning, returning to Darmstadt to found a local chapter in April of 1834� He published the revolutionary pamphlet Der Hessische Landbote with Friedrich Ludwig Weidig in the summer and fall of 1834, during which time many members of the Society were arrested, including Weidig� Shortly thereafter, he sent his manuscript of the French Revolutionary drama, Dantons Tod , to his publisher Karl Gutzkow in February of 1835� Fatalism is perhaps the key word that characterizes the tone of Büchner’s four-act play� Set during the Terror of 1793/ 1794, Dantons Tod recounts the trial and execution of the historical Georges Jacques Danton, the architect of the Committee of Public Safety, at the hands of his fellow revolutionaries and rival Jacobins led by Maximilien Robespierre� Unlike the active and temporarily rhetorically persuasive Jacobins who plan to eliminate them, Applause from the Jury: Büchner’s Dantons Tod 37 the opposition under the nihilistic leadership of Büchner’s Danton are depicted as disorganized and ineffective in the face of their downfall. The significance of Büchner, a revolutionary himself, choosing a moment of revolutionary terror and failure as subject matter for his play, and depicting his tragic hero, Danton, as resigned and even passive at times, can present a challenge for critics� Scholarship ranges from Buckley’s interpretation of the play as a “dramatic autopsy” of revolutionary action to Martin Wagner’s thesis of “perpetual revolution�” While this is not the central question of the present study, their interpretations provide models of analysis that consider both the play’s aesthetics and the politics of Büchner’s historical moment� In a letter from 28 July 1835 to his family addressing the play’s “immorality,” Büchner provides insight into the aesthetic program of his project: “[…] der dramatische Dichter ist in meinen Augen nichts, als ein Geschichtschreiber, steht aber über Letzterem dadurch, daß er uns die Geschichte zum zweiten Mal erschafft und uns gleich unmittelbar, statt eine trockne Erzählung zu geben, in das Leben einer Zeit hinein versetzt […]” ( Werke 305)� The dramatist’s goal, and thus Büchner’s, is to produce history a second time, but not as a dry story in the past tense, but rather directly in the present through the means available to him as a dramatic poet� Büchner continues: Der Dichter ist kein Lehrer der Moral, er erfindet und schafft Gestalten, er macht vergangene Zeiten wieder aufleben, und die Leute mögen dann daraus lernen, so gut, wie aus dem Studium der Geschichte und der Beobachtung dessen, was im menschlichen Leben um sie herum vorgeht� […] Wenn mir man übrigens noch sagen wollte, der Dichter müsse die Welt nicht zeigen wie sie ist, sondern wie sie sein solle, so antworte ich, daß ich es nicht besser machen will, als der liebe Gott […]� ( Werke 306) In the author’s own words, Büchner’s Danton seems to lie somewhere between historical specificity and anthropology brought to life through poetic expression, ostensibly without idealization or a moralizing objective, that is however still instructive to those who read it� The reader may learn just as much from the play of the dramatic poet as they might from the observation of human life and shall be transported into the very life of the historical moment the author depicts� Indeed, Büchner’s immediate approach to bringing the French Revolution to life a second time consists of intensive citation of historical sources from his months of study� He especially favors Carl Strahlheim’s Die Geschichte unserer Zeit and Louis-Adolphe Thiers’ Histoire de la révolution française for the various speeches before the National Convention and the Revolutionary Tribunal� As Buckley describes it, Büchner lets the French Revolution “speak for itself” (Buckley 124)� 38 Sophia Clark Büchner’s work continually cites moments and dialogues within and around the French Revolution so that it might live again for the reader� However, the unusual poetic execution and citational practice of Büchner’s project confounded some of its readers, according to the publisher of the literary section of the journal Phönix , Gutzkow, in a letter from 10 June 1836, because they could not pick apart what was quoted and what came from Büchner’s own hand� Gutzkow reports that readers would misidentify quoted jokes as Büchner’s additions, while attributing much of the rest of the work to external sources� The accusation was this: that Dantons Tod was nothing more than “ein dramatisiertes Kapitel des Thiers” ( Werke 350)� Indeed, according to Karl Viëtor’s estimation, about one-sixth of the text comes verbatim or as lightly edited quotes from his sources ( Werke 485)� What this aesthetic presentation and practice of citation amounts to is a richness in interpretive possibility and meaning of the highly intertextual, individual episodes� In his study on citation in Büchner’s work, Rüdiger Campe finds of Büchner’s citationality that “[b]eyond indicating the simple fact of a quotation from this or that history book […] [i]t meant that the work belonged to the sphere of social and political urgency rather than mere ‘poesy’ (or, in German, Dichtung)” (Campe 44)� Indeed, Büchner’s stage directions are themselves citations of the judicial theatricality of the French Revolution and are simultaneously in conversation with legal reform debates contemporary to Büchner� It would take nothing less than a revolutionary text to accomplish what the author ostensibly set out to do and be more than a collection of quotes arranged in chronological order� Buckley sees Büchner’s work of citation as exploring the mechanism of revolutionary action, “dramatizing the process through which the Revolution’s collapse was performed and experienced” (Buckley 130)� Buckley’s analysis emphasizes Büchner’s use of historical details, such as slogans and common phrases heard in the streets and its “open, episodic form, in which tragedy becomes […] merely one among several competing rhetorics of dramatic action and apprehension” (Buckley 124—25)� His observation that the play shifts “our attention to less-scripted and less-settled moments of the Revolution’s theatrical politics” (Buckley 126) is significant in that it articulates another break from classical drama: the dramaturgy of Dantons Tod switches focus from a unifying overarching historical theme or set of themes to smaller histories� This understanding of the drama as a fragmentary (but not fragmented) poetic interpretation of the French Revolution as a play of competing rhetorics, in which each episode of historical citation is of equal weight, allows readers to “zoom in” on smaller instances of citation, while simultaneously “zooming out” on their aesthetic and political meaning� Borrowing from Buckley’s concept of competing rhetorics and Campe’s assertion that Büchner’s citations indicate Applause from the Jury: Büchner’s Dantons Tod 39 political urgency, the following analysis of stage directions in the Revolutionary Tribunal and related scenes focuses on smaller histories and reads Büchner’s practice of citation, which is bound up in historical specificity as an aesthetic principle, for its larger political significance, namely, its engagement with discourses on legal reform� In Dantons Tod , Büchner uses the stage direction Beifall to indicate moments in which orators win over of audiences (and juries) and the theatrical conditions of trial procedure in revolutionary France� This “applause” is simultaneously a citation of the historical anxiety stretching from ancient times up to Büchner’s contemporaries surrounding reformed trial procedure that opens up the theatricality of justice to public participation� To be sure, the play’s use of stage directions is altogether sparse, and there is not much description of scenery� “Das Revolutionstribunal” is given as a setting in Scenes 4 and 9 of Act 3 without further description, and the descriptions of character actions are in general very brief, as is evident in the following examples from Act 3, Scene 6: “ St. <Just> wird hinausgerufen ,” “ Ein Schließer tritt ein ,” “ nimmt ein Papier ,” “ er schreibt und liest ,” “ St. Just, kommt zurück ,” etc� ( Werke 115—16)� That being the case, it might be tempting to read the stage directions as entirely practical rather than poetic decisions� However, this changes when the audience reactions to public speeches and their dramatic function in the play are scrutinized� In Act 2, Scene 7, Robespierre and St� Just speak before the National Convention, a body of “Deputierte” and “einige Stimmen” ( Werke 101), whose only function in the scene is to respond to their oratorical performances� Robespierre takes the stand first after Legendre, who has convinced the National Convention to allow Danton to speak before them if he is tried for treason� Robespierre opposes Legendre’s suggestion, claiming that Danton and the other Girondins should not receive any special privileges� This opening oratory is met with applause ( Beifall ) as the sole stage direction ( Werke 102)� He continues, ending his second salvo with “nie zittert die Unschuld vor der öffentlichen Wachsamkeit,” which garners general applause ( allgemeiner Beifall , Werke 103), and a third passage of oratory with the declaration: “Wir haben nur wenige Köpfe zu treffen und das Vaterland ist gerettet” ( Werke 103)� This, too, is met with applause ( Beifall )� He concludes with the words: “Ich verlange, daß Legendres Vorschlag zurückgewiesen werde,” to which “[d]ie Deputierten erheben sich sämtlich zum Zeichen allgemeiner Beistimmung” ( Werke 103)� St� Just then takes the podium not only to oppose Legendre, but to convince the crowd that more bloodshed is needed� He concludes his own lengthy speech with the following: 40 Sophia Clark ST� JUST� […] Die Revolution ist wie die Töchter des Pelias; sie zerstückt die Menschheit um sie zu verjüngern� Die Menschheit wird aus dem Blutkessel wie die Erde aus den Wellen der Sündflut mit urkräftigen Gliedern sich erheben, als wäre sie zum Erstenmale geschaffen. ( Langer, anhaltender Beifall. Einige Mitglieder erheben sich im Enthusiasmus �) ST� JUST � Alle geheimen Feinde der Tyrannei, welche in Europa und auf dem ganzen Erdkreise den Dolch des Brutus unter ihren Gewändern tragen, fordern wir auf diesen erhabenen Augenblick mit uns zu teilen� ( Die Zuhörer und die Deputierten stimmen d. Marseillaise an. ) ( Werke 104—05) In progressing from “ Beifall ” and “ allgemeiner Beifall ” to “ Langer, anhaltender Beifall ” to singing the Marseillaise by the end of the scene, the Tribunal audience expresses agreement with St� Just that the Revolution requires perpetual sacrifice. This crescendo of applause and displays of enthusiasm establishes a dramaturgical grammar with which to understand Danton’s later speeches before the Revolutionary Tribunal, which are the mirror events to the performances of Robespierre and St� Just� However, the applause in this initial scene, unlike in later scenes, is appropriate and expected in its context, namely, holding a public speech before an audience at the National Convention� The applause is, without doubt, confirmation of the speakers’ persuasive performance and rhetorical skill� Emotional appeals and emotional displays are par for the course� To point out that the public speeches before the National Convention in Büchner’s play are depicted as stage performances is almost trivial� In the legal trial in Büchner’s play, Danton speaks for the first time as an accused before the Revolutionary Tribunal in Act 3, Scene 4, which the reader knows has been manipulated to favor the bloody goals of the Jacobins� In his defense speech against the charge of conspiring with the enemies of the Revolution and the faction of Louis XVI, Herman, his accuser, condemns Danton’s boldness ( Kühnheit ) and passionate manner of speaking before the Tribunal and cautions him to be calmer� Danton rejects this warning, declaring that “[v] on einem Revolutionär wie ich darf man keine kalte Verteidigung erwarten� Männer meines Schlages sind in Revolutionen unschätzbar, auf ihrer Stirne schwebt das Genie der Freiheit,” which is met with “ Zeichen von Beifall unter den Zuhörern ” ( Werke 111)� In Herman’s warning and Danton’s response, we see the juxtaposition of the “cold defense” that Herman wishes for and the “boldness” of performance for which Danton is known, already a tacit acknowledgement by both parties that Danton’s great advantage in this disadvantageous situation is his magnetism and ability to ignite enthusiasm in the jury� This exchange is followed by more impassioned words and “ Wiederholte Zeichen von Beifall ” ( Werke 112)� Finally, just as Herman prevents him from speaking further after the ring- Applause from the Jury: Büchner’s Dantons Tod 41 ing of the bell, Danton declares his revolutionary accomplishments to “ Lauter Beifall ,” ending with: “Meine Stimme hat aus dem Golde der Aristokraten und Reichen dem Volke Waffen geschmiedet. Meine Stimme war der Orkan, welcher die Satelliten des Depotismus unter Wogen von Bajonetten begrub” ( Werke 112)� As in the speeches of Robespierre and St� Just prior to the trial before the National Convention, the various “applause” stage directions signal the momentum in Danton’s speech and his eventual persuasion of the jury-cum-audience� It is no coincidence that he emphasizes the power of his voice, the source of Herman’s concern� Likewise, it is no coincidence that Herman says, before closing the first session of the trial, “Danton, Ihre Stimme ist erschöpft, Sie sind zu heftig bewegt” ( Werke 112)� In Danton’s second appearance before the Revolutionary Tribunal, he begins his speech with: “Die Republik ist in Gefahr und er hat keine Instruktion! Wir appellieren an das Volk, meine Stimme ist noch stark genug um den Decemvirn die Leichenrede zu halten” ( Werke 120)� The reaction to Danton’s words again begins with “ Zeichen d. Beifalls ” ( Werke 120)� Having just changed the rules of the National Convention in order to prevent Danton from speaking further before the jury, however, members of the Committee of Public Safety enter the Revolutionary Tribunal and command: “Ruhe im Namen der Republik, Achtung dem Gesetz” ( Werke 120)� They rightly fear that Danton might win over the crowd and put the stacked jury, who are tasked with the solemn duty of upholding justice in the new Republic, in danger of succumbing to the performance of a skilled actor� Danton does not remain silent and appeals to the public directly: “Ich frage die Anwesenden, ob wir dem Tribunal, dem Volke oder dem Nationalkonvent Hohn gesprochen haben? ” to which “ VIELE STIMMEN ” of the audience shout: “Nein! Nein! ” ( Werke 120)� Before Danton is led away by force, he declares: “Wie lange sollen die Fußstapfen der Freiheit Gräber sein? Ihr wollt Brod und sie werfen Euch Köpfe hin� Ihr durstet und sie machen euch das Blut von den Stufen der Guillotine lecken” ( Werke 121)� These words cause “ Heftige Bewegung unter den Zuhörern, Geschrei des Beifalls ,” and the many voices chant: “Es lebe Danton, nieder mit den Decemvirn! ” as Danton is led forcefully away ( Werke 121)� In both defense speeches before the Tribunal, Danton, through his skills as an orator, is able to sway the jury to his side� They react to his words as one would to a performance-with applause� Büchner depicts this process of persuasion with the same pattern of stage directions as the scene depicting Robespierre and St� Just addressing their audience, the National Convention, in which the reactions to the National Convention speech progress from “applause,” to “loud applause,” to the singing of the Marseillaise, whereas the reactions to Danton’s second speech begin with “signs of applause” and end with “shouts of applause” and the chant “Long live Danton! ” The applause in 42 Sophia Clark the stage directions forms a comparative link between the great orators of the Revolution, and between the two institutions, one where applause is expected and the other where is it not� Büchner’s interpretation of the Revolutionary Tribunal acknowledges explicitly the trial’s theatricality through its citation of historical audience reaction- albeit as an enhanced reaction for literary effect. Büchner’s historical sources for these scenes mention crowd reactions, such as “approving murmurs” and “moved his judges to the suggestion,” but do not specify applause in the way that is employed here ( Werke 494). Applause is mentioned specifically in certain sources, as Yann Robert (128) points out in his study of theater in the French Revolution, to which we will return later� Yet Büchner’s repeated “applause” stage direction lends literary convention to the interpretation of an historical event in order to make clear that Danton’s defense is a performance that relies on theatricality for success rather than on sound legal evidence-whatever that might be against an otherwise wanton accusation; that the Revolutionary Tribunal is in fact a public stage and its actions theater, both because Danton makes it so and because the Jacobins orchestrate it as a show trial; and that the jury is the audience of said theater� If Büchner’s “applause” stage direction is a somewhat indirect historical reference, we might also ask a fundamental question of the text: in what courtroom does one give and expect applause? In contrast to Büchner’s depiction of the National Convention, we might have expected at a theoretical level the scene of the Revolutionary Tribunal to take a different form, including differing stage directions, since one is a space for public oratory whilst the other a court of law� This is, of course, not the case� Surprisingly, though, the “applause” stage directions are not necessarily mirrored in the Revolutionary Tribunal on account of Danton’s trial being a show trial-which it certainly is� Instead, I argue that the applause is Büchner’s contribution to the interpretation of this historical moment and judicial situation: that of negotiating the requirements of radical legal reform in a new republic-reform, such as public, oral trial by jury, that manifested outwardly in the French Revolution as tools of tyranny during the Terror� Paradoxically, if the Jacobins had had their way, there would have never been a show trial to begin with� They would have preferred a non-public trial procedure without any speeches at all, as Herman confirms with his fear that Danton will sway the crowd; indeed, something more akin to an inquisitional investigation and judgment made behind closed doors as was common to historical pre-revolutionary trial procedure� The Jacobins themselves fear the publicness of their own show trial� It is this anxiety surrounding reform that Büchner cites in his Revolutionary Tribunal scenes, and this is an anxiety that is Applause from the Jury: Büchner’s Dantons Tod 43 informed by larger legal historical conversations about reform of trial procedure in France and Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries� Considering that Büchner wrote his play in the revolutionary moment of the early 1830s, it would make sense to situate Dantons Tod , specifically the “applause,” within the contemporary legal reform debates of the early nineteenth century in Germany-debates which, having roots in Antiquity, still owed a great deal to the outgoing eighteenth century for both its moments of triumph and of failure� Dantons Tod would seem to conform to the recent assessment of the French Revolution by Yann Robert, who argues in his 2019 book Dramatic Justice that French revolutionary actors understood the actual courtroom as theater and intentionally imitated and utilized it as such� Just a few years earlier before the Revolution, however, the French courts of law, like those in the German Territorial States, functioned mainly through non-public, paper-based trial procedure and, in the case of criminal trials, the inquisition system� 3 Contentious debates over judicial reform in both France and Germany focused on the issue of “text vs spoken word,” with reformers pushing “for public, oral debate in which all parties are present for an adversarial trial” (Robert 147—48)� This position stood in stark contrast to the usual practice of experts deciding the outcome of a case behind closed doors or criminal inquisitional trials in which judges acted as both investigators and prosecutors� In the German states, the spectacle of justice was generally reserved for the Gerichtstag , during which the verdict of the trial would be read aloud to the public, or during the sentencing phase when the trial itself had already been concluded� Public punishment, especially execution, was already ritualized theater that was meant to reaffirm the authority of the prince and his state as the keepers of law, order, and justice on earth (van Dülmen 273—74)� Absolutist governments facing reform opposed opening up the stage of justice to all parties, specifically regarding the trial phase before a verdict and sentence had been reached� The reform principles of publicness, orality, trials by jury, accusatorial trials, and the separation of the judiciary from the state administration were already heavily discussed in France in the late eighteenth century, far more than in Germany according to Alexander Ignor (212—13), and consequently, many translations of French essays on law reform were published in Germany in the 1770s and 1780s� In the world of judicial reform in Germany, all eyes were on the unfolding French Revolution and new French Republic, from the declaration of publicness of criminal trials in 1789 by the French National Assembly to the introduction of the jury in April 1790 (Ignor 211)� This was followed by a more detailed implementation of trial by jury and institution of the public prosecutor in September 1791 (cf� Ignor 211)� An argument in favor of public criminal trial 44 Sophia Clark proceedings for a new revolutionary justice was that the scrutinizing eye of the public would prevent judicial errors and abuses and would thus participate directly in a trial as a “check” to the judiciary, thus ensuring good, citizen-led outcomes in the new Republic (Robert 144)� However, as Robert notes, “many politically liberal thinkers expressed a profound anxiety that their own ideals, transferred to the courtroom, would bring about an overly dramatic mode of justice” (Robert 12), in that either the prosecution or defense could pander to the public for support through a good performance rather than attempt to win a case through legitimate legal means� Robert argues that while early revolutionaries envisioned trials as public performances, the Jacobins later attempted through the creation of the Revolutionary Tribunal to “de-theatricalize justice” (Robert 18)� Only two years after the National Assembly declared that trials were public, silence and stillness were imposed on spectators (Robert 144), thus negating one of the original ideas behind citizen participation of French Republican justice� At stake was the liberal desire to “open all institutions to greater public supervision and democratic participation,” yet there remained a distinct fear that the institution of justice would lose its legitimacy as a mere theatrical spectacle (Robert 19)� With their patent preoccupation with the questions of representation and theater, the Jacobins pursued in vain, as Robert puts it, “a theater-proof performance of justice” (18)� Here, the question of what form of justice best upholds the principles of a republic is a critical one, whether that be direct public participation in a theater-like setting or an observing public that resists the lure of performance� Either way, public, oral trial by jury was the official procedure that stood in the laws of the French Republic� In Büchner’s play, however, the Revolutionary Tribunal is still in a state of exception, one in which there is mistrust of the public, and one that is thus far from the ideal courtroom of the envisioned Republic. In the lead-up to Danton’s first appearance before the Tribunal, the supporters of Robespierre discuss stacking the jury with members who are either unreliable or are supporters of Robespierre� They also change the rules of the Revolutionary Tribunal through the National Convention in Act 3, Scene 6 so that the Girondins cannot speak before the Tribunal if their defense speeches become too heated, since they suspect that Danton’s great skill as an orator will again sway the jury in his favor� Thus, the Jacobins work to undermine the very trial procedure that their new Republic guarantees� Indeed, as heads continue to roll, it is clear that the Jacobins have no intention of true reform until all their enemies have been purged� Robespierre declares to the applause of the National Convention: “Wir haben nur wenige Köpfe zu treffen und das Vaterland ist gerettet” ( Werke 103), implying that the Revolution is not yet over, and in the same scene, St� Just’s call for the people to participate in the perpet- Applause from the Jury: Büchner’s Dantons Tod 45 ual killing of the tyrant, to act as Brutus against Caesar in perpetuity ( Werke 105)� Thus, Hérault’s statement in Act 1 of the play that “[d]ie Revolution ist in das Stadium der Reorganisation gelangt� Die Revolution muß aufhören und die Republik muß anfangen” ( Werke 71) proves prophetic: Robespierre’s revolution is threatened by the very idea of an impending Republic� Callot, reassuring St� Just that Danton will be unable to speak before the Tribunal after new rule changes, states that “[d]ie Lava der Revolution fließt” ( Werke 116). Here, the Jacobins cling to the Revolution. The Revolution’s flouting of newly established legal principles must continue indefinitely; the Republic remains moored on the horizon� Danton’s warning, then, in his second defense that “[d]ie Republik ist in Gefahr” comes too late ( Werke 120)� The French Republic has been declared on paper but, on the stage of the Revolutionary Tribunal, the Republic was never complete� Here, Büchner cites the very real historical apprehension of the Jacobins about the Revolution’s own legal principles of publicness, orality, and trial by jury, leaving the audience of Dantons Tod with an unavoidable conclusion: the actual principles of the Republic that leaders of the French people have proclaimed through revolution must necessarily oppose the exceptional and bloody state of the current unending and unsustainable Revolutionary Tribunal� If direct, living history staged a second time is the aesthetic principle guiding Büchner’s drama of revolution, he succeeded in making the fear of the court of law becoming theater alive a second time, and in an historical moment in which this fear was still pervasive� During Büchner’s time, the legal reform ideas of publicness, orality, and trial by jury were gaining traction in the German Territorial States, not least on account of the legacy of the French Revolution as well as despite this very fact� Alexander Ignor (233) argues that the actual reform programs of the nineteenth century in the German states were, from the side of legal theory, rather detached from the French model of justice that emerged during the Revolution and then were reborn under Napoleon� This might seem surprising, since French-occupied German states were compelled to adopt or at least begin the process of integrating the various Napoleonic codes from the first decade of the nineteenth century, including oftentimes drastically different reformed trial procedures, such as an investigation process from the 1808 Code d'instruction criminelle that included a public and oral main trial with a jury and public prosecutor (cf� Ignor 214)� The Napoleonic model states on the left bank of the Rhine River completed this adoption, yet most of the other states were still in the process of drafting new law codes based upon the Napoleonic ones when Bonaparte’s empire fell apart� Karl Härter concludes that “[a]fter the Confederation of the Rhine disintegrated in 1814, all attempts to transfer or adopt 46 Sophia Clark the Code pénal into German criminal law were terminated as inappropriate to German legal culture” (68), as well as being fraught with too many difficulties. In one fell swoop, the (forced) unifying project of adopting French law was no more� However, debates on the principles of orality, publicness, and trial by jury raged on, both independent of and in reference to the French system� The general concerns surrounding reform in Germany were hardly different in 1835 than they were in 1789. The major difference between 1789 and 1835 was the volume of literature authored by German jurists that had, in the meantime, been published on the subjects of publicness, orality, and trial by jury� The reform discourse had been elevated, and the period from the beginning of the nineteenth century into the 1840s saw an explosion of book titles with the keywords “Öffentlichkeit” and “Mündlichkeit,” and, to a lesser extent, “Geschworenengericht�” Both sides of any particular debate defended their positions furiously, though some concepts were more acceptable than others� Certainly, publicness and orality were often bundled together, and publicness was perhaps, of the three, the least controversial of the reform concepts� The jurist Paul Johann Anselm Feuerbach, for example, argues in his influential 1821 volume Betrachtungen über die Oeffentlichkeit und Mündlichkeit der Gerechtigkeitspflege that there are benefits of publicness and openness in trial procedure, not least that being present in front of one’s judges combined with the pressure of public opinion will act as a check against judicial corruption (Feuerbach, Gerechtigkeitspflege 113)� This argument is somewhat similar to what the actors of the early French Revolution saw as an advantage of public, oral trials, albeit without the direct participation of the public� However, the Revolutionary Tribunal was indeed a trial by jury, and Ignor argues that this fact “hat dazu beigetragen, daß man in Deutschland der Idee der Geschworenengerichte und der Idee einer öffentlichen und mündlichen Gerichtsverhandlung vielerorts und lange Zeit skeptisch gegenüberstand” (214)-though, as should be self-evident, this is certainly more the case for trial by jury than the principle of public, oral trial procedure without trial by jury� Despite the hesitation of officials across the German Territorial States, there was one area within Germany that did implement this trial form successfully: the Confederation of the Rhine during Napoleonic occupation (1806—1813)� In fact, once the Rhine territories became part of Prussia, these areas kept their French reforms, favoring them over Prussian law (cf� Ignor 215)� In 1816, Karl August von Hardenberg led a Prussian commission to the Rhine to report on the legal circumstance there and came to the conclusion that the area should keep its current system, stating that “es enthält nahezu alle Vorteile, die vorher und nachher für das Anklageprinzip und die öffentliche und mündliche Hauptverhandlung ins Feld geführt und später von den Gesetzgebern über- Applause from the Jury: Büchner’s Dantons Tod 47 nommen wurden […]� Das gleiche gilt für das Gutachten der Kommission über die Geschworenengerichte” (quoted from Ignor 215—16)� Though the Rhine territories more or less kept their French reforms, this did not extend to Prussia� Trial by jury was a major sticking point, especially for the influential jurists Feuerbach and Karl Josef Anton Mittermaier, both of whom rejected the French model for Germany while also acknowledging that trial by jury could be a positive institution as implemented by other nations (cf� Härter 62; Ignor 216)� Additionally, Ignor states that a further hurdle for trial by jury was that the fierce controversy surrounding it gave trial by jury the appearance of a “politische Einrichtung,” thus raising suspicions about the motives of its supporters and detracting from its legitimacy (249)� He cites Jagemann, who comments in 1843 that trial by jury “sei ein durch und durch demokratisches Element” that the German governments would naturally want to avoid (cf� Ignor 250)� Contemporary revolutionaries contributed to the further politicization of trial by jury by demanding it specifically in, for example, documents that were circulating in French and German human rights societies� 4 For Feuerbach, trial by jury was the cornerstone of the constitutional republican state; however, he did not believe that mere structural change to trial procedure could guarantee freedoms or by itself sustain a truly republican form of government in the German territories (cf� Feuerbach, Erklärung 15, 22)� As a reformer, Feuerbach emphatically supported publicness and the combination of orality with the written word but, like many others, had doubts about pure orality and trial by jury� For example, in a pamphlet published in 1819 titled Erklärung des Präsidenten von Feuerbach über seine, angeblich geänderte Ueberzeugung in Ansehung der Geschwornen-Gerichte , Feuerbach inserts an anecdote from the Ancient Greek historian, Diodorus of Sicily, who comments on Egyptian justice, outlining their distrust of the oral trial: Auf diese Art [referring to written trials] pflegen die Aegypter alle Gerichte zu halten, weil sie glauben, daß durch den mündlichen Vortrag der Advocaten viel Dunkelheit über das Recht verbreitet werde� Denn durch die Künste der Redner, durch das Blendwerk der Gebehrden, und die Thränen der in Gefahr schwebenden, würden viele verleitet, von der gehörigen Strenge der Gesetze, und von den Grundsätzen der Wahrheit abzuweichen� Und oft sehe man, daß die geübtesten Richter, entweder weil sie hintergangen worden, oder weil die sich einnehmen lassen, oder vom Mitleid bewogen, durch die Macht der Rede fortgegriffen würden. Hingegen glaubten sie, die Urtheile würden gründlicher und richtiger gesprochen, wenn die Parteien ihre gegenseitigen Gerechtsame schriftlich darlegten, und man nun die Sache in ihrer wahren Gestalt sehe� Denn auf diese Art könnten weder die Genies den Langsamen, noch die Lügner und Dummdreisten den Wahrhaftigen und Bescheidenen den Vor- 48 Sophia Clark theil abgewinnen: sondern allen würde gleiches Recht widerfahren, wenn die Parteien durch die Gesetze Zeit genug hätten, einer des andern Schriften zu untersuchen, und die Richter, beide gegeneinander zu halten, und hiernach zu urtheilen� (Feuerbach, Erklärung 28—29) In this passage, Diodorus describes the susceptibility of people, including judges, to the art of performance (the arts of the orator, the illusion of gestures, the tears of those who are in danger)� The anxiety expressed by Diodorus’ Egyptians has its source in the inherent theatricality of the oral trial� It acknowledges that the orator (the lawyer) and the accused will engage in a performance before the court (which is a stage), and performances will obscure the truth and give advantage to acting and manipulation over fact� The fear expressed in this passage is that the court might actually become theater� It also posits that text-based trial procedure naturally pursues truth while performance-based oral trials will necessarily cause deviation from the truth� Feuerbach does not cite Diodorus to advance a direct theoretical or rational argument against trial by jury� He leaves the anecdote at the end of his essay without an explanation, presenting it perhaps as a warning� Through citation, Feuerbach discloses an anxiety about the theatricality of the court of law that could easily be transferred to trial by jury, the actual subject of the pamphlet� If Diodorus is already concerned about educated judges being swayed rather by sympathy or a good performance than material evidence or reason-based argument, the danger in having a group of lay people sit as judges is compounded� Feuerbach and other influential jurists did not recommend public oral trial by jury for the German states. On this point, however, Gideon Stiening clarifies that the major pushes for legal reform, for an independent judiciary, adversarial trials, publicness over secrecy, the integration of orality, and presence of all parties during a trial, came overwhelmingly from those working within the legal field in the territorial state governments, Feuerbach included (Stiening 35). Still, despite the enthusiasm for reform coming from the judiciary, the specter of fear that surrounded the transition to public, oral trials-not to mention trial by jury- persisted. The reasons are many, foremost being the difficulty of transitioning to an entirely new system of justice that was quite the opposite culturally from the textand expert-based inquisition system. The prospect of having juries filled with jurors who were not experts in law was a daunting one for those jurors who believed that the scientific rationality of the inquisition did in fact lead to the discovery of truth� It was also the symbolism of public, oral trial by jury, as Feuerbach argues, that pitted revolutionary against skeptic, which constituted more of an ideological than practical hurdle� Its association with theatricality and the bloody theater of the French Revolution is difficult to overlook. Büchner, Applause from the Jury: Büchner’s Dantons Tod 49 whether or not he was reflecting on his own project of revolution, depicted this association as undeniable through his escalation of “applause” stage directions in the Revolutionary Tribunal scenes of Dantons Tod � In Dantons Tod , the conflict between the “cold defense” and “boldness” of performance precisely depicts the perceived challenges of integrating publicness, orality, and trial by jury into the trial procedure outlined above� Herman, who attempts to persuade Danton to give a calm, quiet defense, is concerned, as Diodorus is, that the jury-audience will succumb to Danton’s performance rather than judge the actual matter at hand: the charge of conspiracy� Danton, on the other hand, rejects the cold defense in favor of his skill as an orator, as it is the best and only tool he has to defend himself in this Jacobin-engineered trial� For Diodorus, justice and truth are under threat by orality and the capriciousness of emotion; for the Jacobins, it is the continuing Revolution� In fact, however, the Revolutionary Tribunal scenes in Dantons Tod reveal that justice in the Republic was never threatened by an affective performance before the jury; justice was under threat because the Tribunal was rigged from the start� Büchner’s project in Dantons Tod was to make his historic subject alive a second time through dramatic poetry using the practice of historical citation and quotation. He quoted speeches verbatim, included specific and forgotten historical details, and cited larger issues within the French Revolution without much elaboration� One of many conversations that was revived in Dantons Tod through the play’s stage directions were the anxious debates surrounding legal reform in a time that was still negotiating these ideas� He wrote Dantons Tod in the political atmosphere of the 1830s in which one camp believed that textbased justice, such as the inquisition process, maintained both order and legal accuracy in the pursuit of truth, while the revolutionary camp believed that publicness, orality, and juries would result in more just outcomes and were necessary principles for justice in a free republic� That being said, both sides remained suspicious of performance and theatricality in the courtroom� What Büchner emphasizes with Dantons Tod , however, is an understanding that justice is theatrical and performance-based� The question is no longer whether justice is theater but rather: who controls the theater of the courtroom, who is allowed to participate, and to what extent? Büchner’s play spoke to the present moment, as Germany was overdue for radical legal reform� In the revolution of 1848 a little over a decade after Büchner’s death, trials were guaranteed to be public and oral by Paragraph 45, Article 9 of the “Gesetz, betreffend die Grundrechte des deutschen Volks” of December 1848 authored by the Frankfurter Nationalversammlung � The same guarantees are found in Paragraph 178 of the Paulskirchen-Verfassung of 28 March 1849. Trial by jury was first introduced 50 Sophia Clark by the German Empire in 1877. And perhaps fulfilling the fearful portents of the past, public trials were used as a stage by political groups—not necessarily to win any particular verdict, as Henning Grunwald has shown of trials in the Weimar Republic, but rather to win political momentum among their followers� After its abolition in 1924, trial by jury, as it was imagined by revolutionaries, never returned to the German states� However, the hard-fought revolutionary concepts of publicness and orality persisted, and these values are enshrined in the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany today� Notes 1 Vismann 38� My translation� 2 All Büchner quotes will be cited from the Münchner Ausgabe of Werke und Briefe as “Werke” and page numbers� 3 The common exception being summary trials ( summarische Verfahren ), which were short oral trials that would not last more than a day or two and could be decided by a local judge� The issues at hand were usually minor ones that did not require the legal expertise of higher courts� 4 Declaration of a jury in Article 9 of the Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights (Erklärung der Menschen- und Bürgerrechte) , originally drafted as the Déclaration des Principes Fondamentaux de la Société by the French Society of the Rights of Man and Citizen and first translated into German in 1834 by Charles-Antoine Teste in Paris (cf� Hauschild 333)� Works Cited Buckley, Matthew S� Tragedy Walks the Streets: The French Revolution in the Making of the Modern Drama � Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2006� Büchner, Georg� Werke und Briefe. 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A Revision of the Myth of its Predominant French Influence � Ed� Aniceto Masferrer� Cham: Springer, 2018� 53—75� Hauschild, Jan-Christoph� Georg Büchner: Biographie � Stuttgart/ Weimar: J�B� Metzler, 1993� Ignor, Alexander� Geschichte des Strafprozesses in Deutschland 1532 - 1846. Von der Carolina Karls V. bis zu den Reformen des Vormärz � Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2002� Robert, Yann� Dramatic Justice: Trial by Theater in the Age of the French Revolution � Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2019� Stiening, Gideon� “‘Man muß in socialen Dingen von einem absoluten Rechtsgrundsatz ausgehen’� Recht und Gesetz nach Büchner�” Commitment and Compassion: Essays on Georg Büchner. Festschrift for Gerhard P. Knapp � Ed� Patrick Fortmann and Martha B� Helfer� Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2012� 21—45� Wagner, Martin� “Why Danton doesn’t die�” Georg Büchner: Contemporary Perspectives � Ed. Robert Gillett, Ernest Schonfield and Daniel Steuer. Leiden/ Boston: Brill Rodopi, 2017� 173—91� Vismann, Cornelia� Medien der Rechtsprechung � Ed� Alexandra Kemmerer and Markus Krajewski� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 2011� Displacing Justice? Looking for the Law in Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten 53 Displacing Justice? Looking for the Law in Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten Benedict Schofield University of Bristol Abstract: This article assesses the treatment of the theme of justice in Gustav Freytag’s comedy Die Journalisten (1852), one of the most frequently performed Lustspiele on the German-language stage in the second half of the nineteenth century� It argues that Freytag’s play foregrounds questions of justice, but in terms of wider “structural couplings” (Thomas Beebee) between law and literature which move our attention beyond the direct representation of legal processes on the stage� After considering the place of Die Journalisten within the wider dramatic production of the nineteenth century, the article first considers the function of justice in the work’s critique of electoral injustice� Here it argues that Freytag responds to the specifics of German electoral law in the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions, whilst also seeking to situate that German debate within a wider European one, through intertextual links to Charles Dickens� The article then turns to the play’s titular representation of journalism, revealing the extent to which Freytag viewed the freedom of the press from judicial control as a cornerstone for a specifically bourgeois model of German social progress. It closes by considering the play’s more concrete representation of the law through the figure of the Justizrath and its central thematic presentation of justice as a specifically bourgeois value. In so doing, the article maps the ways in which questions and concepts of justice continued to find expression in nineteenth-century drama-and met with great success in the process� Keywords: Gustav Freytag, Charles Dickens, nineteenth-century Lustspiel, elections on stage, journalism on stage, justice on stage 54 Benedict Schofield Early in the second scene of Heinrich von Kleist’s Der zerbrochne Krug (1808), the play’s comic antihero, the Dorfrichter Adam, discovers that his judge’s wig has disappeared� It is not merely a hairpiece that has gone astray, however: the very “Ehre des Gerichts,” Kleist suggests, has vanished from this village courtroom (232, l� 1631)� Attempting to cover up the loss, Adam embarks on a series of elaborate lies, which foreshadow his later, and more egregious, perversion of the course of justice: “So wahr ich lebe,” he swears falsely, he cannot wear his wig, since his cat has had kittens on it (186, l� 245)� Unable to stick to a simple story, and demonstrating what Michael Minden has termed a “voluptuous […] pleasure in lying” (64), Adam comically undermines his tale by offering up an entirely imaginary kitten as proof of the calamity that has befallen him-a calamity that has left him “[k]ahlköpfig,” and thus judicially disempowered (190, l� 377)� When, at the play’s end, the missing wig reappears as a crucial piece of evidence in the very trial Adam is attempting to undermine, Kleist’s drama reaches its comic climax: the judge’s wig, now reempowered as a symbol of justice, both exposes Adam’s lies, and cements his comic downfall, literally chasing him off-stage: “Seht! seht! / Wie die Perücke ihm den Rücken peitscht! ” (244, ll� 1958—1959)� Despite its badly received premiere at the Weimar Hoftheater in 1808, Der zerbrochne Krug would become one of the most regularly performed Lustspiele on the nineteenth-century stage; regarded too by early German literary historians as part of “einer deutschen ‘Klassik’” (Schanze 8)� The play continues to hold canonical status, not only as “one of the very few full-blooded comedies in the modern German tradition” (Minden 64), but also as a crucial example of the “performance of justice” on the German-language stage (Allan, “Gender” 55), and one, in addition, by a “Dichterjurist” (Wohlhaupter 467)� Thematically, it details a crime: the destruction of Frau Marthe’s eponymous jug, the result of Adam’s sexual blackmail of Eve� Dramaturgically, it stages a trial, with the audience functioning, at times, as a quasi-jury for Kleist’s courtroom� Philosophically, it explores the very concept of justice, questioning “whether legal right always corresponds absolutely to moral right” (Griffiths 159). And politically, too, it registers a contemporary crisis in the German judicial system: a system riven by corruption, largely controlled by aristocratic and conservative elites, and “more concerned with the maintenance of law and order than […] with justice per se” (emphasis added; Allan, “Violence” 246)� By the latter half of the nineteenth century, however, other voices had begun to displace Kleist’s drama, both in terms of performance figures, and as models for German stage comedy. The most significant of these voices is one that is now only tangentially associated with German theater: Gustav Freytag� Largely known for his bestselling, antisemitic novel Soll und Haben (1855), Freytag Displacing Justice? Looking for the Law in Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten 55 was also an experienced dramatist, writing six dramas between 1841 and 1859, including Die Brautfahrt, oder Kunz von der Rosen (1841), which was awarded the Prussian Hoftheater prize for best comedy, and Die Fabier (1859), awarded the prestigious Schiller prize� Freytag would go on to write a theory of theater, Die Technik des Dramas (1863), which in turn led him to be invited to become a judge for the Schiller Commission, and during his career, he would work with major theaters, such as the Berlin Hoftheater and the Vienna Burgtheater , enjoying close relationships with many of the most significant Intendanten of the day, including Eduard Devrient and Heinrich Laube� The most successful of Freytag’s dramas was his comedy Die Journalisten (1852), and the play’s performance statistics (in as much as these can be reliably reconstructed) are quite staggering� Christa Barth has demonstrated how the play repeatedly outperformed canonical competitor Lustspiele (119), bettering both Der zerbrochne Krug and Lessing’s Minna von Barnhelm (1767)� Philip Böttcher has similarly revealed, in exceptional detail, the extent to which Die Journalisten was, in fact, for many theaters, their most frequently performed play� At the Berlin Hoftheater , for instance, over a 76-year period in repertory, Die Journalisten was produced 634 times, and, in the 1850s and 1860s, was the most performed play overall (relegating Goethe’s Faust (1808) to second place)� As a result, “ Die Journalisten [ging] schließlich in die Geschichte des Berliner Theaters als jenes Stück ein, dass ‘alle Aufführungsrekorde schlug’” (Böttcher 97). Significantly, the play met with success not only in Berlin; it would also be the most frequently performed work at the Frankfurt Stadttheater between 1886 and 1930, and at the Coburg and Gotha Hoftheater between 1827 and 1918� It was also one of the most popular plays at the Zurich Stadttheater between 1901 and 1921, and the Vienna Burgtheater between 1888 and 1934, with more performances there than Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1609), Schiller’s Die Räuber (1781) and Wilhelm Tell (1804), and Grillparzer’s Weh dem, der lügt! (1838) (Böttcher 101—02)� At the turn of the century (1898—1902), Die Journalisten was being performed three times as frequently as Der zerbrochne Krug (my reading of Böttcher’s statistics, 109), and its reception by critics frequently saw it as equal to Kleist’s work, heralding it as the new Musterlustspiel � Böttcher has again undertaken an exhaustive account of this reception, persuasively concluding: “Bei all diesen Wertungen handelt es sich nicht um […] eine Zusammenstellung wunderlicher Einzelmeinungen oder um eine flüchtige Episode der Kanonisierungsgeschichte, sondern um einen […] breit geteilten Konsens” (114)� The remarkable success of Freytag’s play renders its absence from most later literary-historical outlines of this era particularly glaring� It is also, however, a symptom of a wider issue in accounts of German theater history, which have frequently argued that German-language drama entered a fallow period during 56 Benedict Schofield the second half of the nineteenth century� Characteristic is the account in volume seven of the dtv Deutsche Literaturgeschichte on Realismus und Naturalismus , which devotes just one paragraph to drama during the era of Realism: 1 Das Drama, bislang die angesehenste Gattung, erlitt durch die realistische Kunstauffassung einen Rückschlag� Die unheroische Lebenshaltung des Bürgers vertrug sich nicht mit dem rhetorischen Pathos Schillers und mit der überlieferten Auffassung von den hohen Inhalten der Tragödie� So verlor die Gattung an Niveau und trat schließlich ganz in den Hintergrund: Nach Hebbel entstand bis zum Naturalismus kein bedeutendes Drama mehr� (Rinsum 275) Here we are faced with a blunt expression of what Helmut Schanze has termed, in his qualitative and quantitative study Drama im bürgerlichen Realismus , the “Lücke des Dramas von Hebbel bis Hauptmann” (1)� Schanze, however, counters this narrative of Verfall with the fact that German theater in the 1850s to the 1890s enjoyed an unprecedented level of freedom, above all from “de[m] Einfluss dilettierender Adliger auf die Bühnenleitung,” and instead developed, in the hands of the middle classes, into a vital “bürgerliche Bildungsanstalt” (5)� Edward McInnes has similarly noted how the lack of canonical works must be understood in the context of the “immer stärkeren Expansion des Theaterbetriebes” in this period, in which “[b]reite Schichten des Bürgertums regelmäßigen Zugang zum Theater [fanden],” with the number of theater companies doubling between 1869 and 1885, and audience numbers tripling (353)� The supposed gap in drama is thus a qualitative assessment by literary history, rather than a quantitative assessment of theatrical reality� For the purposes of this special issue, with its focus on the staging of justice, one further potential gap might be noted: an apparent lack of legal drama after Kleist� Neither the canon, nor literary histories-such as McInnes’s excellent survey of post-1848 Nachmärz drama (343—93)-offer immediate examples of this. In this context, it is also of note that Schanze’s list of the different genre classifications used by theaters-his study reproduces in full, as an example, the 79 different classifications used by the Mannheim Nationaltheater between 1789 and 1889-does not include any references to the law, justice, or forms of legal drama (though these might be obscured by the classification system, however expansive it at first appears)� At the very least, there are challenges in identifying major legal dramas in German-language theater in the later nineteenth century� This challenge is particularly fascinating, since in the wider European context, the processes of “legal reform and intensified professionalization of legal practice” were strongly reflected in the cultural production of the period (Sarat et al. 18), most famously, perhaps, in the forms of “legal Realism” that found particular voice in the Anglophone novel (Ben-Yishai 136)� This was mirrored in German-language writing, Displacing Justice? Looking for the Law in Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten 57 with the law a regular “Motiv und Thema in literarischen und publizistischen Schriften” already in the Vormärz (Conter 12)� This article assesses what happens to our understanding of German theater, and specifically its treatment of themes of justice, if we look beyond the discourse of these multiple gaps, and instead explore what was actually performed on the stage, taking Freytag’s Die Journalisten as a prime example of theatrical success in this era� Freytag is of interest here not only because of his success, but also because he has been placed by criticism in a German genealogy of the interface between law and literature� Thomas O� Beebee, for instance, has outlined a trajectory for the interaction between the “subsystems of law, politics and literature” in his study Citation and Precedent: Conjunctions and Precedents of German Law and Literature (297), which argues that the “structural couplings between law, literature and philosophy are stronger in German-speaking countries than in any other national literature” (25), and are marked by the impact of multiple “Dichterjuristen” (9)� In his conclusion, Beebee acknowledges that the specific genealogy he has outlined (across Jacob Grimm and Friedrich Karl von Savigny; to Kant, Goethe and Schiller; and to Kafka, Carl Schmitt, and Peter Weiss) presents just one of many potential trajectories for the interaction of law and literature in Germany: “Were this book to move instead from Heinrich von Kleist’s Broken Jug (1808) to Gustav Freytag’s Debit and Credit (1855) to the Weimar theater of Hans Jose Rehfisch and the novels of Hans Fallada to the contemporary law professor-cum-novelist Bernhard Schlink, a rather different outline […] might emerge” (298)� Beebee does not expand on this interesting, alternative trajectory, and the rationale for including Freytag is not immediately apparent� Freytag, unlike Kleist, Rehfisch, and Schlink, was not a Dichterjurist , and while he did work as a reporter like Fallada, the latter had a more clearly defined career as a court reporter. Beebee specifically mentions Freytag’s novel Soll und Haben in his trajectory, yet this too is not concerned primarily with the law; instead, it is a combination of Geschäftsroman and Bildungsroman � For Beebee, however, the conjunction of law and literature is to be found less in the direct “ reflection of the law” in a literary work (emphasis added; 21), and rather in wider “structural couplings” that reveal the interaction of these two systems (25)� In Freytag’s novel then, rather than looking for extensive trial scenes or courtroom battles, we might instead choose to read the novel’s critique of the aristocracy, and its antisemitic portraits of Jewish businessmen, as markers of such a structural coupling: one through which the wider legal and social shifts of the era are encapsulated-in particular, in Freytag’s depiction of a mercantile bourgeoisie beginning to assert its legal rights in the aftermath of the social and legal changes of 1848� Here we might also note that it is, ultimately, a point of law on which the plot of the 58 Benedict Schofield novel turns: the economic ruin of many of its figures resulting from the manipulation of Schuldscheine and the exploitation of laws regulating debts and their repayment� On this reading, the law and justice are present in the novel, but are displaced away from (say) the courtroom, and into the world of business� This process of displacing questions of the law and justice away from direct representations, and toward other contexts which nevertheless reveal structural couplings between law and literature, can also be seen in Freytag’s Die Journalisten . The play revolves around three interlinked plots. The first details a local election taking place in the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions� The young liberal candidate is Oldendorf, whose campaign is managed by the bourgeois journalist and editor Bolz. Oldendorf ’s opponent is an older conservative figure, Oberst Berg, whose campaign is run by the aristocrat von Senden, who deploys underhand means to try and influence the election. The second plot, reflected in the title of the play, explores Oldendorf ’s role as the editor of the liberal newspaper, Die Union , where Bolz is the star reporter, and Berg’s role as a correspondent for the conservative newspaper, Der Coriolan � Here, the focus falls on the role of journalism in shaping public opinion, and on the attempts of the conservative paper to stifle the freedom of the press. A third and final plot addresses two love stories: Oldendorf, it transpires, is in love with Berg’s daughter, Ida, while Bolz is in love with a local aristocrat, Adelheid� Success in the election, and success in journalism, might thus result in the breakdown of friendships and love stories, and it is in the resolution of these simultaneously personal and public conflicts that the comedy-and political message-of Freytag’s play resides� While the play does not directly contain a trial in the mode of Kleist, then, it is clearly interested in political questions that relate to issues of legal and administrative reform in the years after 1848� In the following, I will thus explore a series of displacements in Die Journalisten , away from the direct representation of legal processes, but toward alternative structures which nevertheless reveal the law and justice at work� In particular, I will outline three key areas that reveal the continued structural coupling of law and literature in the play: first, its focus on electoral reform and the right to vote; second, its treatment of the freedom of the press after the loosening of judicial controls of censorship; and third, its conceptualization of justice as something firmly on the side of an ever more dominant bourgeoisie� In detailing an election, Die Journalisten reflects the status of electoral law in the years after 1848-a period that was marked by moves toward wider male enfranchisement, and thus a greater level of citizen participation in the political and electoral process� For McInnes, this subject marks Freytag’s comedy as especially “aktuell[] für das Gesellschaftsleben der Zeit [und von] unmittelbare[r] Displacing Justice? Looking for the Law in Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten 59 politische[r] Signifikanz” (367). Freytag’s journalism and memoirs demonstrate that he welcomed, broadly, the reforms brought about by 1848, albeit from a relatively cautious, national-liberal, and bourgeois perspective, that primarily sought a kleindeutsch solution to German unification under Prussian leadership. This did not entail, therefore, full-throated support for universal suffrage. In the pages of Die Grenzboten , the journal he co-edited from 1848 to 1870, Freytag frequently attacked, for example, what he saw as “die Auswüchse der Demokratie” ( Werke 1: 155)� Freytag’s concern was not with democracy itself-indeed, he clearly believed that democratic reform could strengthen the position of the bourgeoisie (and in this mold, he himself would stand and be elected to the Reichstag des Norddeutschen Bundes in 1867)� At the same time, though, it is equally apparent that he felt too broad an enfranchisement of the population could endanger this very influence: in particular, full male enfranchisement would allow the working classes, and other groups, a level of access to the democratic process which he feared might displace the power of the bourgeoisie� Despite his pro-Prussian sentiments, then, Freytag was often strongly dismissive of Bismarck, especially of the latter’s introduction of “allgemeine[s] Wahlrecht,” which Freytag condemned as “das leichtsinnigste aller Experimente, welche Graf B[ismarck] jemals gewagt hat,” since “die Wahl liegt [jetzt] in den Städten in der Hand der Arbeiter, auf dem Land in der der kleinen Leute, Tagelöhner und Knechte”-in other words, to the detriment of the middle classes (Tempeltey 213—16)� In Die Journalisten , it is not primarily the working classes that concern Freytag though; far more he fears the election might be manipulated and won by the conservative aristocracy, and the play is particularly concerned with forms of electoral injustice. Specifically, Freytag articulates his distrust of indirect elections: in other words, those where there is limited direct democracy, and where the results are decided instead by a select group of Wahlmänner (in the case of the play, one hundred of them)� For the liberal and conservative parties in the play, then, their primary goal is to win over enough Wahlmänner to secure victory� Since most of these electors, on both sides, are already set in their politics (with their votes thus resulting in a form of stalemate), the outcome of the election ultimately resides in the hands of a very small number of Wahlmänner who are either undecided or open to influence. Journalism thus plays an important role in the electoral process, since it can shape both wider public opinion and the decisions of these crucial Wahlmänner � Indeed, Freytag comically notes that the outcome of the election is, in the end, perhaps less the result of discussions centered on policy, and instead the consequence of the force of (journalistic) narrative: “Natürlich werden wir die Majorität haben, eine Majorität von 8-10 Stimmen,” Bolz assures his editorial team; “erzählen Sie das überall mit der 60 Benedict Schofield größten Sicherheit� Mancher, der noch unentschlossen ist, kommt zu uns, wenn er hört, daß wir die stärkeren sind” ( Werke 3: 21—22)� Freytag casts a satirical eye over the entire electoral process, from the selection of candidates to the aftermath of the results� Much humor is derived, for instance, from his critique of the motivations of individuals who stand for election, especially those that engage with politics out of ego and vanity, rather than genuine political commitment� This temptation befalls both conservatives and liberals in the play, and Freytag revels in exposing political hypocrisy� When the conversative Berg, for instance, learns that Oldendorf is standing for the liberal party, he deftly skewers any sense that such a decision can be taken without self-interest: “so wird der Eitelkeit ein hübscher Mantel umgehangen und der Wahlcandidat springt hervor, natürlich aus reinem Patriotismus” ( Werke 3: 34)� Yet in the very next scene, Berg himself falls prey to this process: flattered by von Senden, he agrees to become the conservative candidate, now able to delude himself that he is doing so for the good of the nation, rather than as a result of a well-massaged ego� Ultimately, though, Freytag suggests that the best politicians are able to free themselves of such vanity, and significantly-if not entirely surprisingly, given his own political views-it is only the liberals that are granted this possibility of achieving a more noble, indeed almost transcendent, state of political being� Oldendorf alone, then, is granted a speech which sets out a positive vision of the impact that the new political and democratic process will have on Germany: Es ist möglich, daß, wie jetzt Sie, auch eine spätere Zeit unsern politischen Hader, unsere Parteibestrebungen und was damit zusammenhängt, sehr niedrig schätzen wird� Es ist möglich, daß unser ganzes Arbeiten erfolglos bleibt; es ist möglich, daß vieles Gute, das wir ersehnen, sich, wenn es erreicht ist, in das Gegentheil verkehrt […]; aber das alles darf mich nicht abhalten, dem Kampf und Ringen der Zeit, welcher ich angehöre, mein Leben hinzugeben; denn es ist trotz alledem dieser Kampf das Höchste und Edelste, was die Gegenwart hervorbringt� ( Werke 3: 75) This bourgeois form of political engagement requires the sacrifice of the self, rather than self-promotion-in other words, it is an act of duty, a concept Freytag consistently proposes as a core middle-class value in his writing (best encapsulated by the hero of Soll und Haben , who actively embraces the subjugation of self to become a dutiful “Rad eingefügt in die Maschine” ( Werke 4: 67) of bourgeois business)� Even Adelheid’s ironic response to Oldendorf ’s speech-“Das also ist einer von den Edlen, Hochgebildeten, von den freien Geistern deutscher Nation? Sehr tugendhaft und außerordentlich vernünftig! er klettert auch aus reinem Pflichtgefühl ins Feuer! ” ( Werke 3: 76)-ultimately reinforces what Frey- Displacing Justice? Looking for the Law in Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten 61 tag considers to be core bourgeois values (such as Bildung , Freiheit , Tugend , Vernunft , and Pflicht ), even as it generates laughter at Oldendorf ’s expense� Freytag’s most direct representation of electoral injustice occurs when the conservatives decide that the best way to win over the Wahlmänner is not to appeal to their politics, but to their appetites� The play’s central comic scene depicts von Senden’s plans for “einen großen Fischzug nach Wahlmännern,” in the form of a party “wo die vornehmen Leute mit den Bürgern Arm in Arm gehen” ( Werke 3: 29)� Politics results in an unusual social gathering in this moment; one in which different classes mix, which in turn requires a change in political tone from the conservative-aristocratic figures: “Denken Sie nur an Ihre Rede; sein Sie populär, denn wir sind heut unter dem großen Haufen,” von Senden is reminded by his colleague Blumenberg ( Werke 3: 45)� In particular, the conservatives have identified the wine merchant Piepenbrink as a key elector to win to their side by means of the party, since he in turn holds influence over a block of undecided Wahlmänner . The conservative plot to influence and bribe the electors falters, however, when Bolz infiltrates the party and flatters Piepenbrink to such a degree that the latter agrees to side with the liberals instead� In this positive outcome for the liberals, Freytag prompts us to see that an injustice has been averted: von Senden’s plan to manipulate the Wahlmänner and sway the election has been foiled� At the same time, though, the liberals are hardly covered in glory, since their success also resides in Bolz’s ability to manipulate the indirect electoral system� The ambiguity in the presentation of Bolz here is in some ways reminiscent of Der zerbrochne Krug , and Kleist’s comedically ambivalent depiction of Adam� Like Adam, Bolz is a compromised figure in this sequence, at once exposing the injustice of the aristocratic plans, but then using the same method for his own side’s benefit. To bring Piepenbrink round to the liberal cause, Bolz has been forced to deploy his imaginative creativity, and to lie, demonstrating, like Adam, a “rasche Anpassungsfähigkeit an neue Situationen [und] Überzeugungskraft” (Borries 179)� Nevertheless, unlike Adam, Bolz is quickly rehabilitated, and in the end it is clear that Freytag views his skills of persuasion and adaptability as excellent attributes for a journalist (as well as a great vehicle for generating comedy), especially if these help expose the potential for injustice posed by “das falsche Princip indirecter Wahl” ( Werke 15: 4—5)� The Piepenbrink sequence has, however, a more explicit forbearer than Kleist, and one that places the play’s treatment of electoral injustice in a transnational frame, through an intertextual connection to Charles Dickens. Dickens’s influence on the play is announced from its opening, in which Ida, Berg’s daughter, is naming new varieties of dahlia, of which “eine soll heißen […] ‘Boz’” ( Werke 3: 5)� Böttcher has read this use of Dickens’s penname as a dramaturgical tool that 62 Benedict Schofield foreshadows the play’s later romance plot: “Adelheid nämlich mag nicht nur Boz, sie hängt auch am namenähnlichen Bolz, der mit Charles Dickens zudem den Journalistenberuf teilt” (Böttcher 188)� That Freytag uses “ausgerechnet Dickens’ Zeitungspseudonym” is in turn seen as a form of thematic foreshadowing, encoding from the play’s start “eine deutlich positive Bezugnahme auf den Journalismus” (Böttcher 188)� These are convincing readings, and yet they do not fully capture the wider influence of Dickens on the play, which was as much literary as journalistic (something also encoded in the opening reference to Boz, since Dickens not only published journalism under this name, but also most of his serialized fiction from The Pickwick Papers , 1836—1837, to Dombey and Son , 1846—1848). Indeed, contemporaries of Freytag noted the influence of Dickens on his works: Theodor Fontane identified both The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist (1837—1839) as intertexts for Soll und Haben (Fontane 215), and Rudolf Gottschall saw Die Journalisten as rooted in “[einem] an Dickens anklingende[n] Humor” (qtd� in Böttcher 135)� Freytag himself viewed Dickens “as a particularly appropriate model for German cultural renewal” (Schofield 125), and was especially fond of The Pickwick Papers , a novel he believed had been of profound impact on the development of German bourgeois culture: Da kamen die Pickwickier in das Land� Man muß jene Zeit in gebildeten bürgerlichen Familien durchlebt haben, um die schöne Wirkung zu begreifen, welche das Buch auf Männer und Frauen ausübte. Die fröhliche Auffassung des Lebens, das unendliche Behagen, der wackere Sinn, welcher hinter der drolligen Art hervorleuchtete, waren dem Deutschen damals so rührend, wie dem Wandrer in der Fremde eine Melodie aus dem Vaterhause, die unerwartet in sein Ohr tönt� Und Alles war modernes Leben, im Grunde alltägliche Wirklichkeit� (“Ein Dank” 482) Freytag stresses here several facets of Dickens’s appeal that also contribute, in a generic manner, to his own play (his use of humor; his focus on contemporary reality), while also subtly positioning Dickens as a form of honorary German: a figure whose writings both revived the German spirit, while echoing (and thus finding a natural home in) a longer German tradition-precisely what Freytag hoped to achieve with his own works� It is The Pickwick Papers too that provide an important model for Die Journalisten . Like much of Dickens’s work, the novel reflects on the nineteenth century as “an age of reform” (Sanders 235), and is marked by the “lexis of the law” (Schramm 317)-most clearly in its trial scenes, with chapters, for instance, “ wholly devoted to a full and faithful Report of the memorable Trial of Bardell against Pickwick ” (Dickens 445)� Even more crucial for its impact on the composition of Die Journalisten , however, is the novel’s extensive satire on local elections (a form of wider “structural coupling” (Beebee 25) between Displacing Justice? Looking for the Law in Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten 63 law and literature, as outlined in the introduction to this article)� Chapter 13 of the Papers in particular gives “ Some Account of Eatanswill; of the state of Parties therein; and of the Election of a Member to Serve in Parliament for that ancient, loyal, and patriotic Borough ” (Dickens 165)� The humor of Dickens’s depiction of the events at Eatanswill rests on his account of an election which is subject to voter manipulation through acts of bribery� These acts strongly mirror Freytag’s later play and von Senden’s plans in the Piepenbrink scene, since they also revolve around the “masterly stroke of policy” of offering copious amounts of food, drink, and gifts, in return for votes (Dickens 168)� In the Papers , the conservative agent Mr. Perker remains confident of his side’s electoral victory, since, as he confides to Mr. Pickwick, “sinking his voice almost to a whisper,” they have “had a little tea-party here, last night-five-and-forty women, my dear sir […]� Secured all their husbands, and half their brothers” (169)� At the same time, their opponents have “three-and-thirty voters in the lock-up coach-house at the White Hart” (168), where they are being kept “very drunk on purpose” (169)� And when Mr� Pickwick queries whether the electors are truly “devoted to their party,” his valet Sam replies: “Never seen such dewotion in my life, sir� […] I never seen men eat and drink so much afore” (173)� As Mark Wormald has noted, Dickens “express[es] the degeneration to which voters’ expectations of bribes of food and drink often tended” (Dickens 782), and although Dickens is broader in the range of targets for his satire than Freytag, there remains a very close connection between the Papers and Die Journalisten through this similarity in their “bribery” plots, and the role these play in exposing electoral injustice� As von Senden notes at the start of the central comedic episode with Piepenbrink: Alles geht gut� Ein superber Geist in der Gesellschaft� Diese guten Bürger sind entzückt über unser Arrangement. - Das mit dem Fest war ein vortrefflicher Gedanke […]� Machen Sie nur, dass die Leute schnell warm werden� […] Es kann nicht fehlen, die Leute müssen Herzen von Stein haben, wenn sie ihre Stimmen nicht geben zum Dank für ein solches Fest� ( Werke 3: 44—45) The naming of Dickens at the start of the play can thus also be read as an intertextual pointer to this shared satirical treatment of local elections, suggesting an even stronger case for influence (in addition to the gestures toward journalism, and the foreshadowing of the later romances), and one which would be fully in line with Freytag’s wider engagement with Dickens, and the Papers in particular� While Die Journalisten might thus at first appear to be a highly specific work politically and temporally-the product and reflection of a small window of national liberalism in Germany after 1848-it can also be placed within a wider European debate on the state of democracy in the mid-nineteenth century� 64 Benedict Schofield In staging democracy, then, one of Freytag’s primary concerns is to present it as a system that is open to abuse� He critiques indirect elections, given their openness to corruption (in the play, by the aristocracy in particular)� At the same time, his wider writings reveal him rejecting universal male suffrage, for the danger it poses to bourgeois hegemony (especially from the working classes)� Instead, Freytag favors some form of restricted but direct franchise as a means of ensuring that the German bourgeoisie is able to continue to solidify its influence in the post-1848 period, placing its interests at the heart of debates on the future shape and form of Germany� Given the title of Die Journalisten , it comes as no surprise that Freytag also posits the freedom of the press as equally central for the shaping of a bourgeois-German future� The extent to which Freytag viewed the freedom of the press that blossomed briefly after 1848 as a cornerstone for German social progress can be seen in the Schluß der Ahnen (1880), the conclusion to his nine-volume novel, Die Ahnen (1872—1880)� Tracing two thousand years of German history from the year 357 onwards, Freytag sets the climax to his epic during the 1848 revolutions, with the hero of the final volume choosing to become a journalist� Journalism, the novel thus argues, is the best medium with which to shape proactively the future of the German nation after 1848, not least since it is now free from the legal jurisdiction of censorship: “Erst wenn das gedruckte Wort frei wird, kann unser Volk zu einem gesunden Gedeihen kommen” ( Werke 13: 267)� Freytag himself had direct experience with the censor as editor of Die Grenzboten , and through his work for the Literarisch-politischer Verein � He joined this group in 1852 (the same year as the premiere of Die Journalisten ), which was dedicated to circumventing the new censorship controls of the Nachmärz , by producing the anonymous “Autographische Korrespondenz,” which had as its aim “die öffentliche Meinung in Preußen zu revolutionieren” (Tempeltey 24). Freytag’s letters detail many of the censorship measures of the era: the confiscation of pamphlets by the police; the targeting of publishers to uncover the names of authors; and the issue of arrest warrants-including one for Freytag, who had to flee Prussia as a result. By 1854 Freytag would write, in a state of demoralization: “Die Zeitungen sind fast alle auf dem Punkt angekommen, wo ihre Existenz in Frage gestellt ist� Sie sind zur äußersten Vorsicht gezwungen und jede Redaction schreibt mit einem Knebel vor dem Mund� […] Diese Gesetze und ihre Handhabung sind abscheulich” (Tempeltey 23)� Die Journalisten , too, faced forms of theatrical censorship, both through indirect censorship practices by cautious Theaterintendanten , and through the challenge of obtaining permits for performance� In 1852, the Intendant of the Hoftheater in Berlin, Botho von Hülsen, for example, initially rejected Displacing Justice? Looking for the Law in Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten 65 Freytag’s play because of its supposed political radicalism; Hülsen later explained to Freytag that “die Wahl und parlamentarische Angelegenheiten und die Besprechung darüber [waren] ein Spiegel der Zustände,” and thus, he felt, impossible to stage at the Hoftheater (Droescher 144) . Meanwhile in Vienna, the play was almost not staged because of its positive depiction of the freedom of the press, and in order for a license for its performance to be awarded, Laube, the Intendant of the Burgtheater , had to demonstrate to the authorities that “der Journalistenstand […] nicht geschont wird” (Laube 255)� Freytag’s experiences with censorship, both as dramatist and journalist, thus illuminate a crucial node of interaction for law and literature: one where authorship was “nicht nur als ein politisches Medium verstanden, sondern dezidiert auch als ein justitiables, als eine stets auch der Gerichtsbarkeit unterworfene Sache” (Conter 13)� The plot of Die Journalisten thus takes place during a small window of press freedom between 1848 and before the introduction of new federal laws in 1854, which drew on “the mechanisms of the criminal law [to ensure] [a]uthors, publishers, and printers became legally responsible” for their publications (Heady 6)� The play celebrates this window of freedom, and liberal journalism’s ability to hold up politics to scrutiny� As Berg notes of his friend Oldendorf: “Seit Sie Journalist geworden sind, Ihre Union redigieren und dem Staat alle Tage vorhalten, wie mangelhaft er eingerichtet ist, seit der Zeit sind Sie nicht mehr der Alte” ( Werke 3: 6)� For the conservative old guard (here represented by Berg), the liberal press is now able “Maßregeln anzurathen, die er [Berg] haßt, und Einrichtungen anzugreifen, die er verehrt” ( Werke 3: 7)� For the liberals, however, it is precisely the task of the press to critique traditional structures, and to demand social change and modernization, holding the state to account: “Wir [ Journalisten] summen wie die Bienen […] und stechen, wo uns etwas mißfällt” ( Werke 3: 78)� Freytag does not favor an unbiased mode of journalism in the play, then, and his sympathies clearly lie with journalistic work that openly seeks justice for the social and political program of the liberal bourgeoisie� This work is presented as a virtuous activity, mirroring the depiction of liberal politicians analyzed earlier in this article� Journalism, like politics, is presented as a form of middle-class duty, entailing both commitment and self-sacrifice: “Wenn Konrad Bolz [the liberal journalist], das Weizenkorn, in der großen Mühle zermahlen ist, so fallen andere Körner auf die Steine, bis das Mehl fertig ist, aus welchem vielleicht die Zukunft ein gutes Brot bäckt zum Besten Vieler” ( Werke 3: 78)� The honorable, future-orientated work of the liberal Die Union is consistently contrasted with critical accounts of Der Coriolan , in which “die Vertreter der konservativen Zeitung als überwiegend opportunistisch, gesinnungs- und 66 Benedict Schofield charakterlos entworfen werden” (Böttcher 213)� Schmock, for instance, a journalist for Der Coriolan , is critiqued in an antisemitic portrait for his willingness to write stories for all political parties, and thus, by extension, for lacking commitment to both politics and the German nation: “Ich habe geschrieben links, und wieder rechts� Ich kann schreiben nach jeder Richtung” ( Werke 3: 48)� And while there is some satire reserved for liberal journalists too, this is again generally presented as a source of passing humor, rather than political critique� Bellmaus, for instance, a journalist for Die Union , repeatedly prints a story about a sea snake, which, at six lines long, perfectly fits the space of type required to complete a page. For this he is berated by Bolz: first, and jokingly, for not being creative enough to compose a better lie (“Erfinde deine eigenen Geschichten, wozu bist du Journalist? ”), but more seriously for not choosing to write about truth, rather than fiction: “Es gibt so Vieles, was geschieht […], daß es einem ehrlichen Zeitungsschreiber nie an Neuigkeiten fehlen darf�” In the end, then, any critical commentary here is displaced by Bolz’s assertion of truth over fiction, granting the liberal press the moral high ground, however many times “du die ewige große Seeschlange durch die Spalten unserer Zeitung wälzen solltest” ( Werke 3: 20)� Against this backdrop of electoral injustice and journalistic freedom, more abstract notions of justice do come into focus in Freytag’s play� The concept of just behavior, for example, is raised with marked frequency, with characters constantly debating who has Recht on their side, and, as a corollary, who is guilty of Unrecht � These terms are used by Freytag in a systematic and political manner: as a means with which to group figures along class lines, and they come to stand for specific codes of behavior that are either praised or criticized. Recht is thus ascribed to the bourgeoisie and the liberals, while Unrecht characterizes the actions of the aristocracy and the conservatives� It is no surprise, then, that the aristocratic figure von Senden is depicted as “ein ungerechter Mensch” ( Werke 3: 99). As the figurehead of Berg’s candidacy for the election, von Senden not only masterminded the electoral manipulation of the Wahlmänner during the party, but also a further “grosse[s] Complot […] unsern Professor Oldendorf beim Herrn Obersten [Berg] in Mißcredit zu bringen”-a plot replete with legal tropes, including locating witnesses who might testify to the plans, and a search for “Beweise” which are later retrieved from von Senden’s waste paper basket ( Werke 3: 83)� Even a conservative character that is presented in a sympathetic light, like Berg, is forced after the election to acknowledge that “[e]r [Bolz] hat wieder Recht, und ich habe immer Unrecht! ” ( Werke 3: 93)� As Böttcher rightly notes, “Recht und Moral [sind] ganz auf der Seite von Bolz” (Böttcher 217)� In this way, Recht becomes a form of linguistic and dramatic shorthand for bour- Displacing Justice? Looking for the Law in Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten 67 geois , imbuing and connecting those characters with qualities-especially, as has been demonstrated in this article, the desire to do one’s duty, and adherence to moral behavior-that are consistently marked as positive attributes of the middle classes� Even more tangibly, among the play’s cast is a representative of the justice system, in the figure of the Justizrath Schwarz, who plays a small, but significant role in resolving the plot of Die Journalisten � In the play, once the election has been settled in favor of the liberals, the conservatives attempt to get their revenge by trying to shut down the liberal press by purchasing Die Union , in order to convert it into a further conservative mouthpiece: “mit diesem Wechsel des Eigenthümers [soll] auch eine Aenderung in der politischen Haltung des Blattes verbunden sein” ( Werke 3: 108). This is firmly marked out as an act of injustice, both because it explicitly flies in the face of the freedom of the press the play celebrates, and because it would silence the liberal voice Freytag himself favors and supports� Adelheid, however, has been hatching a counterplan, and has purchased Die Union , hiding her identity behind the Justizrath who has acted as her legal “Bevollmächtigter” ( Werke 3: 107)� Adelheid’s decision to buy the newspaper is motivated by her sense of both moral and political justice, and when questioned about her plans, she stresses they are “[n]ichts Unrechtes, nichts, was Ihrer und meiner unwürdig wäre” ( Werke 3: 103)� Here Adelheid uses Recht in a triple sense: her actions are Recht in the legal meaning (as she is following the conventions of the law); they involve the transfer of “alle Rechte” ( Werke 3: 107) to her (thus both the legal ownership of the paper and her rights over its intellectual property); and they are Recht in the sense of ensuring moral justice for the bourgeoisie in the face of the attempted aristocratic takeover� Here, Freytag explicitly contrasts Adelheid’s motivations with those of von Senden, which lie not in what is good for the press and freedom, but in his unjust and “unwürdig” desire for revenge� The end of the play thus focuses on what is essentially a contract dispute, as the liberal journalists anxiously await to hear “an wen wir unsere Rechte abgetreten haben” ( Werke 3: 109)� Bolz argues that even if the ownership of the newspaper has changed, “[u]nsere Contracte geben uns das Recht, die Zeitung ganz nach unserm Ermessen zu redigiren,” to which von Senden retorts that he will find the legal “Mittel […] dem zu begegnen” ( Werke 3: 108)� It is with the arrival of the Justizrath that this conflict is resolved, through his confirmation of Adelheid’s ownership� The Justizrath thus becomes a form of legal deus ex machina : the law descending at the very end of the play to resolve the contractual dispute, and, in so doing, ensuring justice is served through the salvation of the liberal newspaper� While the law here is displaced to the function or status 68 Benedict Schofield of a plot mechanism, it is a mechanism that nevertheless strongly implies that justice will always rule in favor of the bourgeoisie� In Drama im bürgerlichen Realismus , Schanze argues that “[n]ach der gescheiterten Revolution von 1848 die bürgerlichen Revolutionäre nicht die Regierung, sondern das Theater übernommen [hatten],” converting it, as noted at the start of this article, into a form of “bürgerliche Bildungsanstalt” (Schanze 5—6)� Schanze’s assertion might appear a surprising one, given the wider assessment of this period as one characterized by a paucity of drama (that supposed gap from Hebbel to Hauptmann)� Yet Freytag, this article has argued, did seize this moment after 1848, creating a bourgeois theater that was simultaneously a political one� In it, questions of justice were displaced, but not forgotten: the performative structures of staging a trial reformed into the staging of an election; the arguments articulated in the courtroom converted into the arguments conducted in the pages of a newly free press� Audiences responded strongly to Freytag’s national-liberal comedy, ensuring its continued dominance on the German-language stage� In staging democracy, I have argued, the play does not unambiguously celebrate democracy, and instead explores questions of electoral injustice, and the ways in which indirect elections are open to manipulation, above all by entrenched, conservative, and aristocratic interests, to the disservice of the bourgeoisie. Significantly, it is a play that also situates its stance on electoral reform not only in a German context, but, I have shown, in a transnational one, through its intertextual references to Dickens: both Freytag and Dickens pull back the curtain on supposedly democratic processes� The play in turn presents the freedom of the press after 1848 as a crucial means through which the voice of the bourgeoisie can take a key role in shaping the future of Germany: Freytag’s celebration of liberal journalism, as I have demonstrated, systematically places justice in the hands of the middle classes, in contrast to a conservative aristocracy that is consistently portrayed as unjust in its actions� Die Journalisten thus demonstrates how the interaction of legal and literary systems is not only something that occurs via direct textual representation of, say, trials and courtrooms, but also in what Beebee terms the wider “structural couplings” between literature and legal-political change (25)� In this context, too, the play’s production history, and its initial difficulties in gaining sanction for performance on the Berlin and Vienna stages, act as a further important reminder of how culture not only reflects justice textually, but is also subject to forms of extratextual judicial control� Florian Malzacher has argued that “it was not by chance that the awakening of the European bourgeoisie was accompanied by the emergence of the bourgeois theater as an aesthetic but also cultural-political and institutional phenomenon” Displacing Justice? Looking for the Law in Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten 69 (11)� As this article has shown, Die Journalisten clearly marks the emergence of a contemporary, political, and popular bourgeois theater in Germany in the years after 1848� The notion of a theatrical gap in the later nineteenth century, then, in fact reveals more about the evolution of the canon than the historical state of the theater: a canon that regularly fails to reflect what Lynne Tatlock has termed the actual “reading nation” (6), or, in this context, what might be called the spectating nation� To ignore this phase in the story of German theater, and its most popular proponent in the figure of Freytag, is thus to mischaracterize an era in which the middle classes sought multiple means-from the ballot box, to the newspaper article, to a play like Die Journalisten -to reflect, and promote, the ever increasing social, political, and legal power of the bourgeoisie� 2 Notes 1 The volume does briefly discuss Wagner’s operas as “eine Sonderstellung in dieser Entwicklung,” but only turns to theater again with Hauptmann (Rinsum 275)� 2 I would like to express my thanks for the support and community of all the members of the DDGC (Diversity and Decolonization of the German Curriculum) Writing Support Group, hosted by Dr� Ervin Malakaj, and the DDGC Remote Write-on-Site Groups, hosted by Marisol Bayona Roman, Dr� Nicole Coleman, Prof� Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, and Dr� Maureen Gallagher, within which this article was written� Works Cited Allan, Seán� “‘So glaubst du jetzt, daß ich dir Wahrheit gab? ’ Gender, Power and the Performance of Justice in Kleist’s Der zerbrochne Krug �” Heinrich von Kleist and Modernity � Ed� Bernd Fischer and Tim Mehigan� Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2011� 55—70� ---� “‘Mein ist die Rache spricht der Herr’: Violence and Revenge in the Works of Heinrich von Kleist�” A Companion to the Works of Heinrich von Kleist � Ed� Bernd Fischer� Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2003� 227—48� Barth, Christa� Gustav Freytags “Journalisten”: Versuch einer Monographie. 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Leipzig: Hirzel, 1904� Wohlhaupter, Eugen� Dichterjuristen � Vol� 1� Tübingen: Mohr, 1953� Watching Spectatorship and Judgment: Trial Scenes in Brecht’s Epic Theater 73 Watching Spectatorship and Judgment: Trial Scenes in Brecht’s Epic Theater Laura Bradley University of Edinburgh Abstract: In a landmark judgement in 1923, the English Lord Chief Justice Hewart declared that it was “of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done�” In Brecht’s trial scenes, justice is usually seen not to be done, whether because of rigged trials and witness intimidation ( Arturo Ui ), a legal system biased in favour of the property-owning classes ( Die Ausnahme und die Regel ), or judges’ vested interests ( Der gute Mensch von Sezuan )� Such scenes expose deficits in justice that can only be overcome through sociopolitical change� By encouraging the theater audience to critique the spectatorial competencies exhibited-and the judgments reached-by the characters on stage, Brecht’s trial scenes play a crucial role in his attempts to cultivate critical, socially responsible spectatorship through epic theater� His experiments with onstage spectatorship reached a climax in Die Maßnahme (1930), which invites critical scrutiny of the shortsighted ethical spectatorship of the Young Comrade and the farsighted strategic vision of the Communist Party Control Chorus, an audience present on stage throughout the piece� Die Maßnahme provoked lively disagreements at its 1930 premiere and has continued to do so ever since� Keywords: Bertolt Brecht, spectatorship, epic theater, Die Maßnahme, justice on stage In a landmark judgment in England in November 1923, Lord Chief Justice Hewart announced that it was “of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done” (Rex v� Sussex Justices 259)� In trial scenes in Bertolt Brecht’s plays, however, justice is usually seen not to be done, whether because of rigged trials and witness intimidation, a legal system biased in favor of the property-owning classes, or 74 Laura Bradley judges’ vested interests. The scenes typically expose deficits in justice that can be overcome only through sociopolitical change� This interest in exposing contradictions between law and justice in capitalist societies runs through Brecht’s plays from the late 1920s onwards� 1 In Die Dreigroschenoper , business owner Peachum observes that the law is made exclusively for the purpose of exploiting those who do not understand it or who are prevented by naked misery from obeying it (BFA 2, 290)� As Keith Dickson argues, trial scenes serve Brecht’s epic theater by functioning as a “ready-made alienation-effect” (145). This is because “the reconstruction of past events by witnesses and their interrogators automatically divests them of their dramatic immediacy” (145)� Guy Stern notes that Brecht even creates a “double alienation effect” in some cases, for example by presenting the trial scenes in Der kaukasische Kreidekreis as a play-within-a-play (Stern 71)� Even without the framing device of a play-within-a-play, trial scenes focus on the questions of watching, evaluation, and judgment that are central to Brecht’s epic theater� During a trial, eyewitnesses play the role of spectators-turned-participants, actively filtering and framing their observations and perceptions of the events that form the subject of the case� As Leif Dahlberg points out in his study of representations of the law, “a trial is not put on for passive spectators� Rather, the judge(s) and the lay judges constitute the audience for the juridical drama in the courtroom” (36)� Judges act as both spectators and participants: they watch performances by eyewitnesses and attorneys designed to sway their judgment, at the same time as refereeing the proceedings, intervening with questions, and reaching a verdict� These links between spectatorship and participation are useful for Brecht as he seeks to cultivate critical, interventionist, and socially responsible spectatorship in the theater audience� Even so, scholars who address portrayals of legal proceedings have not paid sustained attention to the roles that onstage spectatorship plays in Brecht’s trial scenes� Dickson focuses instead on Brecht’s Marxist critique of the split between law and justice in bourgeois society (145—61), and Stern only briefly mentions onstage spectators at the trial in Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (72)� While K� Scott Baker acknowledges that “courtroom scenes […] have an explicitly theatrical structure, in which argumentative and demonstrative claims by a set of pre-cast role players lead to judgments that are in turn subject to the opinions of an audience,” he is referring to the theater audience rather than the spectators that are present on stage� 2 Yasco Horsman alludes in passing to Brecht’s use of onstage spectatorship (Horsman 92, 106, 109), but focuses firmly on a “cross-legal” reading of Die Maßnahme with the hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the Moscow show trials� This article provides the sustained focus on onstage spectatorship that has previously been lacking: it Watching Spectatorship and Judgment: Trial Scenes in Brecht’s Epic Theater 75 explores how Brecht’s trial scenes encourage the theater audience to observe and critique the spectatorial competencies exhibited-and the judgments reached-by characters on stage� It culminates in an examination of Die Maßnahme , where Brecht invites critical scrutiny of both the shortsighted ethical spectatorship of the Young Comrade and the farsighted strategic vision of the Communist Party Control Chorus, an audience present on stage throughout the piece� In her analysis of the role of the audience as witness in Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II , Meg F� Pearson comments that “witnessing and testimony, whether used in an explicitly legal setting or not, are inextricably entwined with conceptions of judgment and an awareness of how watching matters” (94)� It was for this reason that Brecht used the analogy of a witness to a road accident, reenacting what they saw before an audience of bystanders, as a model for acting and spectatorship in his essay “Die Straßenszene” (BFA 22/ 1, 370—81)� Written in 1938, the essay presents spectatorship as an activity with real-world consequences� The spectator has been paying attention, thinking about what they have seen� They go on to bear witness and to contest alternative interpretations of the accident, knowing that a judgment has to be reached� These activities share a natural affinity with the trial scene: Brecht notes that the witnesses to the road accident know that legal responsibility has yet to be assigned, with all the attendant consequences for those involved. The chauffeur may be dismissed, lose their driver’s license, or be sent to prison; the victim of the accident may face high medical costs, unemployment, and permanent disability, and may even never work again (BFA 22/ 1, 374)� Just as the bystanders in the street scene have all witnessed the accident, many of the trial scenes in Brecht’s plays concern action that the theater audience has witnessed during the preceding scenes� In such cases, the theater audience is made up of informed spectators, who are in a position to contrast the interpretations of onstage witnesses and judges with their own. In her analysis of American films featuring courtroom drama, Carol Clover describes this use of dramatic irony as a “split-knowledge arrangement” (257): the audience may know more than the onscreen-or, for present purposes, onstage-judge� She argues that this arrangement “positions us not as passive spectators, but as active ones, viewers with a job to do” (257)� The theater spectator’s status as a witness carries responsibility, and Brecht typically increases this responsibility by stripping the most powerful spectator-participants in his trial scenes-the judges-of authority� In Der gute Mensch von Sezuan , three gods come to earth ostensibly to investigate whether the world needs to be changed, but with a vested interest in proving that it does not� Although they believe that they have found a good person in the compassionate prostitute and businesswoman Shen Te, she has to resort to inventing and impersonating a ruthless male cousin, Shui Ta, in order to save her fledg- 76 Laura Bradley ling business from ruin. In the final scene, the gods’ role as fraudulent judges is made explicit when they arrive at court wearing borrowed robes and armed with forged certificates (BFA 6, 270). The theater audience is already primed to reject the waterseller Wang’s assessment of them as “sehr gute [Richter]”: it knows from the preceding action that the gods lack the will to use their observational and interpretive skills productively� They have not realized that Shen Te has been masquerading as Shui Ta for months, and they had to rely on Wang to interpret a parable for them in an earlier episode (BFA 6, 241)� In court, the First God attempts to halt Shen Te’s testimony, telling her “ mit allen Zeichen des Entsetzens : Sprich nicht weiter, Unglückliche! ” (BFA 6, 276)� He then tries to brush aside her confession of guilt, dismissing what she describes as evil deeds as merely “Ein Mißverständnis! Einige unglückliche Vorkommnisse! ” (BFA 6, 276)� Here, Brecht’s provocative use of biased, incompetent judges contrasts with the model of spectatorship outlined by Joanne Rochester in her study of trial scenes in Philip Massinger’s plays� Rochester argues: “What the trial does provide is a model of the ideal spectator: the judge, probing appearances, catching nuances and interpreting the speeches in detail, is a figure for the work of the audience” (133)� When Brecht’s judges fail to meet even basic standards of spectatorial competence, let alone fairness and impartiality, the epic theater spectator is expected to step into the breach� In Die Ausnahme und die Regel , the trial scene forms the second half of the play. In the first half, the audience witnesses the events leading up to a merchant’s murder of an unskilled laborer, referred to as a “coolie�” Despite having been consistently exploited and abused by the merchant during their journey through a desert, the coolie offers the merchant his own water bottle. Assuming that the coolie is about to hit him over the head with the bottle, the merchant murders him� In court, the judge watches the testimony of the coolie’s widow and the eyewitnesses alertly, intervening with frequent comments and questions� In this respect, he models a critical, interventionist mode of spectatorship, contextualizing witnesses’ statements and testing his assumptions through new questions� However, as the trial progresses, it becomes clear that the judge’s interventions protect the class interests of the rich. He acts effectively as defending counsel to the merchant, telling him: Hören Sie, Sie dürfen sich nicht weißer waschen wollen, als Sie sind� So kommen Sie ja nicht durch, Mann� Wenn Sie Ihren Kuli so mit Handschuhen angefaßt haben, wie erklären Sie dann den Haß des Kulis gegen Sie? Doch nur, wenn Sie den Haß glaubhaft machen können, können Sie auch glaubhaft machen, daß Sie in Notwehr gehandelt haben� Immer denken! (BFA 3, 254) Watching Spectatorship and Judgment: Trial Scenes in Brecht’s Epic Theater 77 The judge is coaching the defendant in the middle of the trial, and the merchant goes on to adapt his testimony accordingly� He exchanges smiles with the judge; this admission of complicity stems from their shared membership of the same class, and it is clearly designed to provoke a theater audience that has witnessed the merchant’s brutal murder of the coolie� The irony is that the judge is not breaking the law: he is, after all, reminding the merchant to tell the truth� The court accepts the merchant’s argument of self-defense, not because it was justified by the coolie’s actions or intentions but because of the context of class oppression� It was more reasonable for the merchant to assume that the oppressed coolie intended to use the water bottle to hit him over the head, than to think that the coolie was offering him a drink. The judge is merely expressing a bias that is entrenched in the legal system� Here Brecht follows Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who argue in Das kommunistische Manifest : “Die Gesetze, die Moral, die Religion sind für [den Proletarier] ebenso viele bürgerliche Vorurteile, hinter denen sich ebenso viele bürgerliche Interessen verstecken” (45)� These interests are on naked display in Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny , where bar-ownerturned-judge Leokadja Begbick negotiates bribes openly in court before releasing a man accused of murder, only then to sentence the penniless Paul Ackermann to death for failing to settle his debts with her (BFA 2, 377; 381)� In Der kaukasische Kreidekreis , however, Brecht presents a judge who has a social gaze that privileges the lower classes. When Azdak first appears on stage, he sees straight through the attempts of the Grand Duke-who has been deposed and is on the run-to pass himself off as a beggar. Even though the Grand Duke is dressed in rags, Azdak recognizes that his clipped speech, unblemished hands, and the way in which he eats are those of a rich man� Indeed, he tells him “Schmatz nicht wie ein Großfürst oder eine Sau” (BFA 8, 59)� When Azdak subsequently comes to play the accused in a mock trial scene before an audience of mercenary soldiers, he uses his observations of the Grand Duke to parody not only his conduct but that of his entire class� This performance is designed to show the onstage audience of mercenaries where their class interests lie, and to expose the similarities between the Grand Duke and the Fat Prince, who is paying their wages� 3 It changes the course of the action: rather than approving the appointment of the Fat Prince’s nephew as judge, the mercenaries give the position to Azdak himself� In Act V of Der kaukasische Kreidekreis , the two threads of the play-within-aplay come together� Azdak is charged with ruling which mother has the rightful claim to the child Michel: the Governor’s wife, who abandoned Michel during the turmoil of the palace coup, or the maid Grusche, who rescued him and brought him up� Azdak provides the theater audience with what feels-in the context of the action-like a just ending, when Grusche is allowed to claim her adoptive son as her own� However, this judgment stands in blatant contra- 78 Laura Bradley diction to the law of Grusinia, and so Brecht uses the trial scenes in Act IV to foreground the improbable coincidences and contortions needed to produce a semblance of justice in a legal system skewed in favor of the rich� Azdak is a Rabelaisian judge: he takes bribes openly, sits on the law books instead of reading them, and clinks bottles together instead of using a judge’s hammer� He judges cases two at a time, mixing up details in a manner that is designed to confuse the onstage and offstage audiences. His decisions are legally wrong, but they compensate-awkwardly and imperfectly-for systemic social injustice� Once again, Brecht argues that the system needs to be changed� The Prologue presents the theater audience with an alternative model: a Soviet society in which justice is decided by the people, with a legal expert acting as facilitator� This prologue can be read as an attempt to recuperate what Cornelia Vismann describes as “die versammelnde und versöhnende Kraft des gerichtlich gehegten Dings” (21) in Germanic law, whereby representatives of the community gathered together to resolve legal disputes� Indeed, Vismann observes that the “Richter” were not judges in the modern sense of the term, even though this would be the usual translation� They were charged solely with organizing the Thing (trial), and the task of reaching a judgment resided with the “Urteiler” (Vismann 20)� Here, a parallel becomes evident between the judges and the role of the legal expert sent only to facilitate the discussion in Brecht’s Prologue, and with the fact that the two collectives themselves arrive at a decision� Brecht’s Das Verhör des Lukullus provides another example of popular involvement in justice� After his death, the Roman general Lukullus is tried in the underworld by lay judges drawn from the lower classes: a courtesan, a fishwife, a baker, a peasant, and a slave who used to be a teacher (BFA 6, 97—98)� Rather than emphasizing their keen social gaze, as in the case of Azdak, Brecht presents these dead judges as blind� Like the blindfolded goddess Justitia, they are incapable of being swayed by the sight of power and splendor: Sie sitzen auf einem hohen Gestühl Ohne Hände, zu nehmen und ohne Münder, zu essen Unempfindlich für Glanz die lange erloschenen Augen Unbestechliche, sie, die Ahnen der Nachwelt� (BFA 6, 98) Unusually, Brecht avoids the “split-knowledge arrangement” in Das Verhör des Lukullus � The lower-class judges on stage can be trusted to question Lukullus and to expose the cost of his wars of conquest� Even so, the original version of the text-conceived as a radio play in 1940-ends with the announcement that the court will withdraw to discuss its judgment, leaving the theater audience to fill in the gap. When Brecht’s collaborator Paul Dessau composed the music for the opera version in 1949—1951, he prompted Brecht to supply a new ending, Watching Spectatorship and Judgment: Trial Scenes in Brecht’s Epic Theater 79 in which the judges unequivocally condemn Lukullus (BFA 6, 141—43)� Despite this change, the opera aroused controversy in the GDR at its premiere in March 1951, prompting both Brecht and Dessau to rework it for the revised version Die Verurteilung des Lukullus (see Lucchesi, Das Verhör in der Oper )� In other plays, the “split-knowledge arrangement” prompts the theater audience to evaluate the testimony of the onstage defendants and witnesses critically, in the light of its own knowledge of the preceding action� Brecht’s concern here is not simply to expose individual failings on the part of the witnesses onstage, which could be attributed to lapses in morality, to laziness, or to incompetence� Rather, his concern is to expose the structural inequality in a legal system that is skewed towards the property-owning classes� In Der gute Mensch von Sezuan , eyewitnesses offer different readings of the preceding action, depending on their class viewpoint. The rich barber and house owner defend Shui Ta as an upstanding businessman and criticize his spendthrift cousin, Shen Te; in contrast, the waterseller Wang, carpenter, and old couple point to the cost of Shui Ta’s actions, praising Shen Te� In Die Ausnahme und die Regel , the merchant edits the truth regarding his treatment of the coolie� And in Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui , a satire in which Brecht parodies the rise of Adolf Hitler, Giri-standing in for Hermann Goering-denies involvement in the arson attack on Hook’s warehouse, even though the theater audience has seen his men carry the cans of petrol across the stage� In each of these plays, characters are discouraged from speaking out against the injustice and oppression that they have witnessed� Even when they disregard these warnings, voicing testimony that the theater audience knows to be true, their voices are not heeded� This is evident, for example, in Die Ausnahme und die Regel , when a guide testifies against the merchant. As Vismann argues, “es genügt schließlich nicht, die Stimme zu erheben, um das Subjekt zu werden, das als Träger von Rechten in die Welt tritt� Sie muss auch gehört werden von der Instanz, die diese Rechte garantiert” (115)� Brecht’s point is that the courts do not guarantee the rights of the coolie, only those of the merchant� In Arturo Ui , lone individuals are willing to testify to crimes that they and the theater audience have witnessed, once they have nothing material left to lose� In each case, the witnesses are brutally silenced� During the hearing about the corruption allegations against the supposedly upstanding politician Dogsborough, the witness-Bowl-is shot dead offstage, on the steps of the courtroom, before he can testify (BFA 7, 48). Later, during the trial over the arson attack on Hook’s warehouse, Hook is beaten up so that he can no longer testify to the attack that both he and the theater audience have witnessed� The judge ignores the gangsters’ blatant intimidation of the defense and jury� Even though the judge has seen Ui’s bodyguards boo and adopt a threatening attitude towards Hook, his defending counsel, and the press, he overlooks their intimidation and charges the defense with contempt of court 80 Laura Bradley (BFA 7, 65—66; 70)� The scene functions as an analogy for the Reichstag Fire Trial although, as Dickson points out, Brecht’s satire “reflects the grosser abuses of the law after the constitution of the Volksgerichtshof and Sondergericht ” (149—50)� These examples demonstrate that Brecht’s trial scenes typically depict the failure of justice, and that they attribute this to the way in which the legal system itself serves an unjust sociopolitical order, either through its routine operations-as in Die Ausnahme und die Regel- or through its failure to oppose interference in the judicial process-as in Arturo Ui � The real problems in Die Ausnahme und die Regel and Der gute Mensch are, respectively, the systemic exploitation of coolies and the impossibility of maintaining human dignity under capitalism; these cannot become the subject of a trial before the existing courts� Dramaturgically, Brecht’s trial scenes deny catharsis to the theater audience, refusing the closure that a just trial and verdict would provide� The resulting frustration is heightened by the sense of responsibility that the theater spectator carries as a witness to the original action� This frustration and responsibility are designed to fuel the process of political reflection during and after the performance, as the theater audience carries out the labor neglected on stage� It is no accident that the trial scenes in Die Ausnahme und die Regel and Der gute Mensch appear at the end of each play, and that they are followed by an epilogue telling the theater audience to do better� Brecht adopted a similar technique midway through Arturo Ui , in which the rigged arson trial is followed by a scene in which a bloodstained victim of Ui’s gang staggers to the stage apron and appeals directly to the theater audience for help (BFA 7, 71)� It is for this reason that Karl-Heinz Schoeps is wrong to argue that Brecht’s trial scenes exclusively “involve the audience intellectually, not emotionally” (37)� While they do create distance, they also provoke emotions that spur the audience on to engage critically and intellectually with the matters misjudged on stage� Brecht’s earlier play Die Maßnahme , written in collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler and the director Slatan Dudow, presents a more complex case� This is partly because it was not designed primarily for performance before a theater audience; instead, it was devised as a means of turning concertgoing audiences into the producers of art� Amateur choirs sing the parts of a Communist Party Kontrollchor on stage, and at the premiere in 1930 three choirs joined together for this, resulting in a Control Chorus of three to four hundred singers� Members of this chorus act both as performers and as an onstage audience� They watch the action that is reconstructed by four agitators who have recently returned from China, and the text and music are designed to provoke the performers to reflect critically on both this reconstructed action and the lines that they are asked to perform� But Die Maßnahme is also different because it presents a Communist Party tribunal, rather than a court of law� Brecht presents the Party’s judicial Watching Spectatorship and Judgment: Trial Scenes in Brecht’s Epic Theater 81 processes within the framework of a play whose characters, chorus, and songs campaign unequivocally for a Communist revolution� The sheer force of this propaganda and Hanns Eisler’s music initially seem to work against any invitation to critique the Party processes at work� George Jocums, for example, argues that “by tapping the rhetorical strength of choral structure, Brecht […] predisposes the viewer within the emotional field of the form itself to accept as true, or at least consider seriously, the judgment reached in this structure” (126)� Before examining the judicial process in detail, it is worth summarizing the scenario presented in Die Maßnahme � When the piece opens, four agitators have just returned to Moscow from a secret mission in Mukden, China� They interrupt the Party’s triumphant chorus of congratulation with the news that they have killed their young comrade� They did so in an extrajudicial measure or “Maßnahme,” a term associated in the political theory of jurist and political theorist Carl Schmitt (1888—1985) with a situation of crisis or imminent danger� 4 The agitators now submit their actions to the Party’s judgment� They reenact the episodes that led up to the Young Comrade’s death, showing the mistakes that he made, how they reasoned with him, and how he promised to do better� Each reenacted episode is followed by discussion between the agitators and the Control Chorus, and at the end of the play, the Control Chorus approves the agitators’ decision to kill their comrade� Reinhold Grimm and Yasco Horsman argue that the Control Chorus represents the offstage audience, and it does ask questions that an offstage audience has to save for discussion after the performance (Grimm 396; Horsman 93)� However, Grimm and Horsman overlook the way in which the Chorus’s overhasty congratulations in the opening scene have already cast its authority and judgment into question� As Ralf Schnell points out, the very name “Kontrollchor” is ambivalent in German: it suggests not only that the Chorus examines the action critically, but that it is itself subject to critical examination (154)� However, in keeping with Brecht’s prioritization of rehearsal and performance over reception by a third-party audience, there is no “split-knowledge arrangement” in Die Maßnahme � As the Party tribunal occupies the entire length of the play, any audience-if present-has seen no more of the action than the spectators in the Control Chorus on stage� Brecht does not establish his onstage or offstage audience as alternate witnesses to the action discussed in court� Consequently, both audiences are positioned as judges� Die Maßnahme can be and has been read as an endorsement of the Stalinist obliteration of dissent within the Communist Party� In 1948, Ruth Fischer- Hanns Eisler’s estranged sister-argued that it was “a preview of the Moscow trials” (Fischer 618) and that it presented the “transfiguration and beatification of the Stalinist Party” (624)� This line of thinking was also evident in a staging that premiered at the Schauspiel Leipzig in 2017, as the stark colors, uniform costumes, and mechanized choreography in Figs� 1 and 2 indicate� 82 Laura Bradley Die Maßnahme at the Schauspiel Leipzig, directed by Enrico Lübbe, 2017� Photographs by Bettina Stöß� Watching Spectatorship and Judgment: Trial Scenes in Brecht’s Epic Theater 83 The staging showed the cancerous growth of the Party apparatus through the proliferation of identically clad performers on stage� On its website, the Schauspiel Leipzig argued: “Ebensowenig, wie es in der Maßnahme substantielle Zweifel oder Ambivalenzen gibt, darf es Namen und Individuen geben� Im Gegenteil: Maskierung und Tarnung ist Pflicht, die Entindividualisierung ist Leitprogramm” (“Verblendung” n� pag�)� In this reading, criticism of the Control Chorus and its methods is assumed to run contrary to Brecht’s and Eisler’s intentions� This interpretation ignores the ways in which details in the text and score invite performers to question the Control Chorus� Even in the opening scene, the Control Chorus rushes to judgment, praising the agitators before hearing their testimony (BFA 3, 75)� The Chorus then reacts naively to the reenacted episodes, asking questions such as “Aber ist es nicht richtig, die Ehre zu stellen über alles? ” (BFA 3, 89) after the reenactment has proven this not to be the case� Its instinct is to empathize with the Young Comrade, and it comes to recognize that it needs to learn from the agitators� The Party tribunal reveals that it is not only the Control Chorus that struggles with spectatorship� While critics have tended to present the Young Comrade’s conflict with the Party as one of feeling versus reason, spontaneity versus discipline, or reformism versus revolution, 5 Brecht and Eisler also present his conflict as one of spectatorship� Oliver Simons recognizes this when he argues that “Brecht’s young comrade is himself a viewer of tragic conditions-a spectator, however, who does not want to resign himself to his role and would rather intervene in the action” (335)� Yet Simons goes on to propose the un-Brechtian view that the Young Comrade’s “error is […] becoming an active agent to interfere in the theatrical action” (335)� Simons overlooks the fact that Brecht and Eisler criticize the Young Comrade’s gaze itself as shortsighted. In the first reenacted episode, the Young Comrade focuses on the immediate challenges in his area-chaos, shortages, and illiteracy-and expects the agitators to have brought practical aid� It is the agitators who shift the focus away from material issues to education, propaganda, and class consciousness; and it is the head of the Party house who broadens the focus to the global political context of the mission� The four agitators, not just the Young Comrade, are warned that the world is watching Mukden and they must not be seen; while they remain mindful of the need for anonymity, the Young Comrade keeps losing sight of it, the political context, and the fact that he is being watched� He repeatedly reveals himself: first to the overseer in charge of the coolies, then to the policeman and the merchant, and finally to the townspeople (BFA 3, 81—82; 85—86; 89; 93). He thus fails to correct the myopia evident in the audience’s first encounter with him, and he fails to act in awareness that he is under surveillance� 84 Laura Bradley Brecht and Eisler also use the Young Comrade to challenge notions of ethical spectatorship� Die Maßnahme replaces the idea of an abstract system of ethics with the Leninist view that ethics-moral behavior-are derived from the needs of the class struggle (BFA 24, 101)� The reenacted episodes show time and again how the Young Comrade adopts what would appear to be the ethical, humane response to the sight of suffering and injustice. For example, on seeing a coolie slip over in the mud while hauling a rice barge uphill, he bends down and puts a stone in front of the coolie’s foot before the man takes his next step (BFA 3, 82)� He thus helps this one man temporarily, rather than persuading all of the coolies working in the chain gang to campaign for better working conditions� The Young Comrade’s reactions are instinctive and spontaneous, but they cause him to lose sight of his instructions and the insights gained temporarily through discussion with the agitators, so that he fails to deny others immediate aid as it was denied to him� This amounts to a critique not just of liberal humanism, but also of reformism: attempts to ameliorate workers’ lives through piecemeal reform, rather than political revolution� This critique of the Young Comrade’s spectatorship sets the context for critical scrutiny of the spectatorship and judgment of the Control Chorus� The Control Chorus’s reactions to the climax of the conflict with the Young Comrade serve as a test of how far it has progressed as an active, critical onstage audience� The agitators reenact the episode in which the Young Comrade tore off the mask that concealed his identity, destroying the agitators’ cover and endangering their mission� The Chorus ratchets up the tension by switching from past to present tense when describing the threat and demanding to be told the agitators’ decision: “Eure Maßnahme! ” (BFA 3, 94)� Eisler changes from song to recitative: the Chorus chants “heftig, etwas eilend” (85), while the drum hurries the choristers along, beating in triplets as they chant mainly in crotchets� On one level, this reproduces the pressure that the agitators faced when they made their decision� On another, though, it suggests that the Control Chorus remains an impatient audience-particularly as the agitators tell the Chorus four times to wait (BFA 3, 94—95)� The agitators resist the pressure to switch to present tense dialogue, continuing instead to describe their actions in the past tense� They report how they wrestled with their decision: Klagend zerschlugen wir uns unsere Köpfe mit unseren Fäusten Daß sie uns nur den furchtbaren Rat wußten: jetzt Abzuschneiden den eigenen Fuß vom Körper; denn Furchtbar ist es, zu töten. (BFA 3, 97) 6 The language conveys the agonized labor of the agitators’ thought process through the alliteration of “k” and “f ” sounds and the chiasmus of the initial Watching Spectatorship and Judgment: Trial Scenes in Brecht’s Epic Theater 85 letters of the body parts “Köpfe,” “Fäusten,” “Fuß,” and “Körper�” The momentum then quickens, as the agitators repeat and vary the verb “töten”: Aber nicht andere nur, auch uns töten wir, wenn es nottut Da doch nur mit Gewalt diese tötende Welt zu ändern ist, wie Jeder Lebende weiß� (BFA 3, 97) The deceleration provided by the three subordinate clauses, and then by the caesura, allows the key statement to stand out: “Noch ist es uns, sagten wir | Nicht vergönnt, nicht zu töten” (BFA 3, 97)� The complexity of these lines, with the double negative and the deferral of “noch,” forces the actors to slow as they work through the logic of the text� Yet after this labored language, the Control Chorus simply responds: Erzählt weiter, unser Mitgefühl Ist euch sicher Nicht leicht war es, zu tun, was richtig war� (BFA 3, 97) The understatement of the final line borders on the trite, particularly given Eisler’s instruction in the score that the lines should be delivered expressionlessly� As the lines are sung a capella , the Chorus lacks the support and reinforcement hitherto provided by the brass and percussion� The emphasis solely on “Mitgefühl” (sympathy; literally: shared feeling) echoes the “Mitleid” (compassion; literally: shared suffering) that previously characterized the Young Comrade’s spectatorship: his insistence on offering immediate aid to relieve suffering, which repeatedly led him to lose sight of the political goals of his mission� By relapsing from active reflection into unreflective sympathy, the Control Chorus exhibits exactly the kind of response that led to the Young Comrade’s tragic death� While the Chorus abdicates its responsibility as a critical audience and judge at the decisive moment, Die Maßnahme has given the performers and any theater audience the tools with which to spot and critique its lapse� Seeing the reference to “Mitgefühl” as “a strategic ‘verbal blunder’” by the Control Chorus, William Rasch writes: If we, as readers and spectators, have followed the progress of the Kontrollchor and have seen it as a model to be imitated or tried on for size, if we have seen in its actions a type of training for right behavior in a revolutionary situation, then we must stumble over this word, and therefore also stumble over the apparent transformation the Chor undergoes� If we have been good students, in other words, we are driven to question the lesson presented to us� (341) 86 Laura Bradley The closing chorus functions as a further stumbling block, as its triumphalist propaganda jars with the tenderness and mourning that the agitators have expressed in the preceding episode, in which they act out their killing of the Young Comrade� It recycles the opening chorus, in which-as Joachim Lucchesi argues-the mourning of the musical accompaniment anticipates and communicates the terrible news that the Chorus and any theater audience have yet to learn (Lucchesi, “Das Stück” 194—95). In the final scene, the significance of the music, not just the text, is now clear. Yet it is surely significant that Eisler does not use new dissonances, or motifs from the episodes concerning the Young Comrade, to suggest a dialectical synthesis or learning on the part of the Control Chorus� As a result, the triumphalist lyrics may suggest that the Control Chorus remains guilty of the opposite failing to the Young Comrade: hyperopia, or farsightedness, manifested in its exclusive focus on the Party’s long-term strategic goals� Despite the Chorus’s earlier expression of sympathy for the agitators, the Young Comrade’s death does not alter its assessment that the mission was a triumphant success� Trial scenes were clearly useful to Brecht because they provide dramatic situations in which witnessing, interpretation, intervention, and judgment matter� The courtroom scenes in Die Ausnahme und die Regel , Arturo Ui , and Der gute Mensch von Sezuan depict the failure of justice, manifested in the failure of judges to respond adequately to the evidence presented to them as spectator-participants in court� The plays thus challenge the theater audience to do better, particularly as it has witnessed the action under discussion in court in these plays� Die Maßnahme is more complex, partly because its depiction of the Communist Party’s internal judicial processes is accompanied by propaganda unequivocally in favor of a Communist revolution� While Die Maßnahme can be read as endorsing the Party’s right to eliminate dissent within its ranks, Brecht’s text and Eisler’s music create the space for performers-and, if present, the theater audience-to critique the spectatorial activity and judgment of the Communist Control Chorus� It is a richly provocative piece that sparked lively disagreements among the performers at rehearsals for the 1930 premiere and has continued to do so ever since� Notes 1 Brecht’s works are cited from the Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe in the form: BFA with volume and page numbers� 2 Baker 9� Baker’s article explores how Brecht’s courtroom scenes “tend to either demonstrate ideological positions as revealed through judicial deci- Watching Spectatorship and Judgment: Trial Scenes in Brecht’s Epic Theater 87 sions, or to use the stylized theatricality of the courtroom as a synecdoche for self-representation as role-play” (4)� 3 For further discussion of this episode, see Bradley 1034—35� 4 See e�g� Simons, esp� 330—34� 5 See e�g� Speirs 178; Bormann; and White� 6 The first two lines only feature in the 1930 edition and not in the revised edition published in 1931� Works Cited Baker, K� Scott� “Brecht’s Courtrooms and the Epic Theater�” Brecht Yearbook 37 (2012): 4—22� Bormann, Alexander von� “Nämlich der Mensch ist unbekannt: Ein dramatischer Disput über Humanität und Revolution ( Masse-Mensch , Die Maßnahme , Mauser )�” Wissen aus Erfahrungen: Werkbegriff und Interpretation heute. Festschrift für Hermann Meyer zum 65. Geburtstag � Ed� Alexander von Bormann in conjunction with Karl Robert Mandelkow and Anthonius H� Touber� Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1976� 851—80� Bradley, Laura� “Training the Audience: Brecht and the Art of Spectatorship�” Modern Language Review 111 (2016): 1029—48� Brecht, Bertolt� Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe � Ed� Werner Hecht et al� Berlin/ Frankfurt am Main: Aufbau/ Suhrkamp, 1988—2000� Clover, Carol� “‘God Bless Juries! ’” Refiguring American Film Genres: Theory and History � Ed� Nick Browne� Berkeley: U of California P, 1998� 255—77� Dahlberg, Leif� Spacing Law and Politics: The Constitution and Representation of the Juridical � Abingdon/ New York: Routledge, 2016� Dickson, Keith A� Towards Utopia: A Study of Brecht. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978� Eisler, Hanns� Die Maßnahme: Lehrstück von Bertolt Brecht in 8 Nummern für Tenor, 3 Sprecher, gemischten Chor und kleines Orchester, op. 20 (1930). Vienna/ London/ New York: Universal-Edition, 1931� Fischer, Ruth� Stalin and German Communism: A Study in the Origins of the State Party. London: Geoffrey Cumberlege and Oxford UP, 1948. Grimm, Reinhold� “Ideologische Tragödie und Tragödie der Ideologie: Versuch über ein Lehrstück von Brecht�” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 78�4 (1959): 394—424� Horsman, Yasco� Theaters of Justice: Judging, Staging and Working Through in Arendt, Brecht, and Delbo � Stanford: Stanford UP, 2010� Jocums, George� The Dialectics of Law and Justice in the Plays of Bertolt Brecht � Diss� U of Michigan, 1970� Lucchesi, Joachim, ed� Das Verhör in der Oper: Die Debatte um die Aufführung “Das Verhör des Lukullus” von Bertolt Brecht und Paul Dessau. Berlin: BasisDruck, 1993� 88 Laura Bradley ---� “‘Das Stück wirkt mit der Musik ganz anders! ’” Maßnehmen: Bertolt Brecht/ Hanns Eislers Lehrstück “Die Maßnahme.” Kontroverse, Perspektive, Praxis � Ed� Inge Gellert, Gerd Koch and Florian Vaßen� Berlin: Theater der Zeit, 1998� 189—95� Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels� Das kommunistische Manifest. Hamburg: Severus, 2016� Pearson, Meg F� “Audience as Witness in Edward II �” Imagining the Audience in Early Modern Drama, 1558-1642 � Ed� Jennifer A� Low and Nova Myhill . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011� 93—111� Rasch, William� “Theories of the Partisan: Die Maßnahme and the Politics of Revolution�” Brecht Yearbook 24 (1999): 330—43� Rex v� Sussex Justices [1924], 1 KB 256� Rochester, Joanne� Staging Spectatorship in the Plays of Philip Massinger. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010� Schauspiel Leipzig� “Verblendung: Impulse zu ‘Die Maßnahme / Die Perser’�” schauspielleipzig.de. Schauspiel Leipzig, n�d� Web� 23 May 2022� Schnell, Ralf� “Text und Metatext: Zur textstrategischen Dimension der Maßnahme �” Maßnehmen: Bertolt Brecht/ Hanns Eislers Lehrstück “Die Maßnahme.” Kontroverse, Perspektive, Praxis � Ed� Inge Gellert, Gerd Koch and Florian Vaßen� Berlin: Theater der Zeit, 1998� 150—58� Schoeps, Karl-Heinz� “Epic Structures in the Plays of Bernard Shaw and Bertolt Brecht�” Essays on Brecht: Theater and Politics � Ed� Siegfried Mews and Herbert Knust� Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1974� 28—43� Simons, Oliver� “Theater of Revolution and the Law of Genre: Bertolt Brecht’s The Measures Taken ( Die Maßnahme )�” The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory 84�4 (2009): 327—52� Speirs, Ronald� Brecht’s Early Plays. London/ Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1982� Stern, Guy� “Drama Within Drama: Brecht’s Use of Trial Scenes�” Communications from the International Brecht Society 32 (2003): 70—74� Vismann, Cornelia� Medien der Rechtsprechung � Ed� Alexandra Kemmerer and Markus Krajewski� Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2011� White, John, and Ann White� “Mi-en-leh’s Progeny: Some of Brecht’s Early Theatrical Parables and their Political Contexts�” The Text and its Context: Studies in Modern German Literature and Society Presented to Ronald Speirs on the Occasion of his 65 th Birthday � Ed� Nigel Harris and Joanne Sayner� Bern: Peter Lang, 2008� 327—37� On Truth and Politics in German Documentary Theater of the 1960s: Hannah Arendt and Peter Weiss8 9 On Truth and Politics in German Documentary Theater of the 1960s: Hannah Arendt and Peter Weiss Benjamin Wihstutz Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz Abstract: The article addresses the German documentary theater of the 1960s through the eyes of Hannah Arendt� Arendt’s essays on “Truth and Politics” and her theory on judgement share a common interest with playwrights like Peter Weiss, Rolf Hochhuth and Heiner Kipphardt in court trials, political history and witnessing. However, their perspectives also differ with regard to the impartiality of judgement and their understanding of factual truth. The article seeks to take a closer look at these differences and contradictions with a special focus on Die Ermittlung (1965) by Peter Weiss, the famous documentary play on the Auschwitz trials, and links them to the intersections of theatricality and judgement and to political questions of German memory culture� Keywords: Peter Weiss, Hannah Arendt, documentary theater, Auschwitz trials, German memory culture, justice on stage Throughout the history of European theater, legal and courtroom plays have often been influenced by real trials and have interpreted their historical truth and political meaning� But even if inspired by historical events, the courtroom scenes in Aeschylus, Shakespeare or Kleist - just to name a few of the most obvious examples - clearly remain fictional drama. The characters and their lines are, for the most part, invented and composed for scenes that take up their place within the dramatic plot of the play� This changes with German documentary theater of the 1960s� Authors like Peter Weiss, Rolf Hochhuth, and Heinar Kipphardt deliberately copied from court protocols, reports, and testimonies in order to reenact and document the trials� This lent them a claim to historical truth and spoke to a political motivation to enlighten the public with unwelcome facts� In this sense, German documentary theater stands out in the history of legal drama, as it is clearly invested in inquiring into historical truth 90 Benjamin Wihstutz on the one hand and in forming the audience’s judgment and political opinion on the other� However, truth and politics can be in a relation of contradiction, as Hannah Arendt pointed out at around the same time (see Arendt, “Truth”)� Arendt, too, was interested in court trials - in fact one of her most prominent texts is her own reporting of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem� Is this common interest just a coincidence, or do Weiss and Arendt, despite their different means of reporting on these trials, share similar views on historical truth and politics? Might we learn something about documentary theater from Arendt’s thoughts on judgment and factual truth? And to what extent can Arendt and Weiss help us differentiate between the theatricality of the court and that of the courtroom drama? The present essay seeks to answer some of these questions by relating Arendt and Weiss to each other with the aim of developing a new perspective on the political, historical, and judicial dimensions of documentary courtroom drama. The essay consists of five parts: The first part examines Arendt’s distinction between factual truth and political opinion and its striking contemporaneity� The second part elaborates on Peter Weiss’s conception of documentary theater and compares it to Arendt’s notion of truth and judgment� The third part examines Weiss’s motivation to write about Auschwitz in Die Ermittlung (1965) and relate it to today’s debates about memory culture� The fourth part looks back at Arendt’s reporting on the Eichmann trial and takes it as a springboard to differentiate between different theatrical modes in the courtroom. And the fifth and last part of this essay compares two different premieres of Die Ermittlung that were staged simultaneously in Berlin and Stuttgart in 1965, to point out that it is not just the dramatic text that determines how the truth and politics of the courtroom are presented, but also the staging of the trial, even in a documentary play� 1� In February 1967, Hannah Arendt, at the time teaching at the University of Chicago and a member of the Committee of Social Thought, wrote an essay entitled “Truth and Politics” for The New Yorker magazine� In this essay, Arendt differentiates between rational and factual truth and concludes that it is factual rather than rational truth which is endangered by politics and political lies: Seen from the viewpoint of politics, truth has a despotic character� It is therefore hated by tyrants, who rightly fear the competition of a coercive force they cannot monopolize, and it enjoys a rather precarious status in the eyes of governments that rest on consent and abhor coercion� Facts are beyond agreement and consent, and all talk about them - all exchanges of opinion based on correct information - will contribute nothing to their establishment� Unwelcome opinion can be argued with, rejected, or On Truth and Politics in German Documentary Theater of the 1960s 91 compromised upon, but unwelcome facts possess an infuriating stubbornness that nothing can move except plain lies� (Arendt, “Truth” 241) It is no wonder that Arendt has reappeared in recent debates on politics and political theory� When she states that it “may be in the nature of the political realm to be at war with truth” (“Truth” 239) her thoughts seem strikingly contemporary� What today is typical of political discussions with deniers of climate change or ‘anti-vaxxers,’ of false claims about a “stolen election” (USA) or the corruption of opinion polls (Austria), was at the time based on Arendt’s own observations of political developments during the Cold War� Arendt’s ideas were especially influenced by the Stalinist show trials in the Soviet Union and Hungary on the one hand, and by Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist witchhunts in the United States on the other� Moreover, her report on the Eichmann trial from 1961 famously triggered a heated debate on the history of the Shoah and “the banality of evil” (Arendt, Eichmann 287), which mirrors her distinction between truth and politics insofar as her critical view on the trial highlighted its political motivations over its factual truth� According to Michael Rothberg, the Eichmann trial also marks a key moment in the history of memory culture (Rothberg 176), since it manifests the “uniqueness” of the Holocaust, “separating it off from other histories of collective violence” (9). The question of how the Shoah is remembered and dealt with politically in Israel, Germany, and the United States remains a polarizing issue to this day� 1 What makes Arendt’s reflections and observations so contemporary today, however, is not a repetition of history, but her perspective as a philosopher, historian, and political thinker� One could say that it is in fact the ‘contemporariness’ of her philosophical writing itself that resonates with today’s polarized society and pandemic - a notion of contemporariness articulated by Giorgio Agamben� Long before Agamben fell into the trap of conspiracy theories during the Covid pandemic, 2 he defined contemporariness as “a singular relationship with one’s own time, which adheres to it and, at the same time, keeps a distance from it” (Agamben, “What is the Contemporary? ” 41)� In this sense, “contemporary” is the opposite of “timely” - it is the “un-timely” (41)� Arendt kept some distance from her own political times and from being “timely” by observing and judging from a rather detached, sometimes strangely dissociated perspective, whether it be on the events of the Cold War or the Eichmann trial� She performed her role as a public intellectual mostly by acting as an onlooker and commentator on her times, not as a political actor� This distance of the “contemporary” lies at the core of Arendt’s understanding of impartial judgment, which is bound to a Kantian disinterestedness and the impartiality of a “world-spectator” (Arendt, Lectures 52): “The advantage the spectator has is 92 Benjamin Wihstutz that he sees the play as a whole, while each of the actors knows only his part or, if he should judge from the perspective of acting, only the part of the whole that concerns him. The actor is partial by definition” (68). Hence, Arendt continues, “withdrawal from direct involvement to a standpoint outside the game is a condition sine qua non for all judgment” (55)� It is this distance that made Arendt’s comments on the Eichmann trial and other historical events provocative and un-timely, and as such contemporary� 3 2� During the early 1960s, another German export attracted international attention: documentary plays by authors like Rolf Hochhuth, Heinar Kipphardt, and Peter Weiss� What these playwrights shared with Arendt was their particular interest in court trials, testimony, and political history� The most successful works of documentary theater focused on recent political and judicial developments, like the role of the Vatican during the Third Reich in Der Stellvertreter (1963) by Rolf Hochhuth , the hearings of the United States atomic energy commission in Heinar Kipphardt’s In der Sache J. Robert Oppenheimer (1964), or the documentation of the Auschwitz trials in Peter Weiss’s Die Ermittlung (1965)� Considering the content of these plays with regard to truth and politics, one could say that one of the authors’ primary goals for this new form of theater was to confront the public with the ‘unwelcome facts’ that, according to Arendt, cannot be argued with� The term “documentary theater” ( Dokumentartheater ) was first introduced by Erwin Piscator in the playbill of Der Stellvertreter in February 1963 at the Freie Volksbühne Berlin, where the play premiered under his direction (see Esslin 139)� Piscator had become famous in Berlin during the 1920s by founding his successful Piscator-Bühne at Nollendorfplatz, where he had staged political plays and revues with extensive use of new media and technology like film projections and hydraulic lifts, and the inclusion of agit-prop elements� Piscator’s use of the term “documentary theater” was therefore meant to construct a mental bridge to his own documentaries produced during the 1920s (see Piscator)� Piscator had recently returned from exile to Germany in 1962, becoming the artistic director of the Freie Volksbühne theater in West Berlin, where he wanted to pick up and continue his political theater work that had been interrupted for more than two decades� But the term “documentary theater” was far from being generally agreed on among playwrights� Rolf Hochhuth later stated in an interview that documentary drama was a meaningless term� In his comment he indicated that there is no such thing as pure documentation in dramatic writing but that, on the contrary, the playwright has to study the relevant documents in order to dramatize them: On Truth and Politics in German Documentary Theater of the 1960s 93 Ich bin sehr unglücklich über dieses Schlagwort, denn was soll das schon heißen, ich finde gar nichts. Reine Dokumentation, das ist nicht mehr als ein Haufen Akten. Man muß schon noch etwas dazutun, wenn ein Stück daraus werden soll� […] Jeder Dramatiker, der einmal historische Stücke geschrieben hat, mußte die Dokumente studieren� Deshalb hat das Schlagwort dokumentarisches Theater überhaupt keinen Sinn� (qtd� in Esslin 139) Despite these objections, the term was gratefully accepted among theater critics and audiences, and with Piscator setting the tone and tradition, documentary theater was also immediately seen as political theater� The great public and political attention it received clearly had to do with the normative and political bias of the plays� The plays were in fact not so much about merely documenting history but about the right representation of history or being “on the right side of history” (Sandel 52)� Their aim was to educate and enlighten the audience in a specifically political way. This political and educational purpose was often answered with criticism in the media and politics� Prominent theater reviewer Joachim Kaiser wrote an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung in 1965 that criticized Die Ermittlung for stealing the spectator’s “interpretational sovereignty” ( Deutungshoheit ), and Robert Oppenheimer himself protested that Kipphardt had invented a final speech that he never delivered during the real hearings of the atomic commission (see “In der Sache J� Vilar”)� Peter Weiss’s fourteen “Notizen zum dokumentarischen Theater” from 1968 show these contradictions of documentation, fictionalization, and political bias in a clear and conceptual way� First of all, documentary theater, as Peter Weiss puts it, is a theater of factual reports, “ein Theater der Berichterstattung�” It may use all kinds of historical materials and sources: Protokolle, Akten, Briefe, statistische Tabellen, Börsenmeldungen, Abschlußberichte von Bankunternehmen und Industriegesellschaften, Regierungserklärungen, Ansprachen, Interviews, Äußerungen bekannter Persönlichkeiten, Zeitungs- und Rundfunkreportagen, Fotos, Journalfilme und andere Zeugnisse der Gegenwart bilden die Grundlage der Aufführung. Das dokumentarische Theater enthält sich jeder Erfindung, es übernimmt authentisches Material und gibt dies, im Inhalt unverändert, in der Form bearbeitet, von der Bühne aus wieder� (“Notizen” 91) By using these authentic documents, documentary theater, according to Weiss, seeks to clarify history by laying out facts in front of an audience that is thereby enabled to review and judge the case� In a preface to Die Ermittlung, Weiss states that the play is not meant to be a reconstruction of the tribunal but rather a distillate of the evidence, selected from hundreds of testimonies, “ein Konzentrat der Aussage” ( Ermittlung 9)� And he even adds that this distillate should 94 Benjamin Wihstutz contain nothing but facts: “Dieses Konzentrat soll nichts anderes enthalten als Fakten” (9)� Although this might sound like a historiographical or even forensic approach to factual truth, the second of Weiss’s fourteen propositions somewhat contradicts a fact-oriented perspective� Here, the author states that the purpose of documentary theater is to criticize historical lies and political falsifications of reality (see “Notizen” 92)� By doing so, documentary theater cannot be politically neutral: “Das dokumentarische Theater ist parteilich� Viele seiner Themen können zu nichts anderem als zu einer Verurteilung führen�” (“Notizen” 91)� The notion of Verurteilung is obviously not linked to the impartiality or distanced spectatorship of judgment ( das Urteilen ) in Arendt’s sense� Rather, condemnation seems to be the outcome of a documentation and representation of history that aims at influencing the audience in a political way. But demanding or assuming condemnation might also be far removed from an inspection of “nothing but facts�” One extreme example is the production of Weiss’s play Viet Nam Diskurs in 1968 at the Kammerspiele in Munich� Here, stage director Peter Stein notoriously transformed the judgment required of the audience during the final scene into monetary value, when money was collected from the audience in support for the Viet Cong (see Nussbaum 252). After the first night, however, the Intendant of the Munich Kammerspiele prohibited these donations in the theater, insisting that art should maintain a distance from actual politics� With reference to Arendt’s thoughts on truth and politics, one can conclude that the double goal of documentary theater - reporting and educating according to Weiss - might in fact be contradictory: on the one hand documentary theater is supposed to be a theater of facts, to stage the truth and nothing but the truth; on the other hand, it seems partial and political from the start, seeking “to effect change” (Nussbaum 239). Moreover, the material itself has to be transformed to be included in the play� According to Weiss, it is the transformation of historical documents into artistic material that enables the dramatic work to become the instrument of political thought and the forming of opinion (see “Notizen” 96). Documentary theater uses documents, official statements, testimonies, and reports, but at the same time adapts, alters, and condenses this material for a play that represents a specific political opinion. Therefore, Weiss states, dramaturgical strategies that influence the audience’s political opinion, such as condensing the facts to use a black-and-white technique that takes only one side into account, are specifically allowed in documentary theater (see “Notizen” 99)� To demand that the concentrate “contains nothing but facts” therefore seems to be a difficult, if not impossible task, since Weiss’s goal of shaping political opinion would violate any strict focus on facts - the categorical opposite of opinion according to Arendt� On Truth and Politics in German Documentary Theater of the 1960s 95 The politically motivated selection and transformation of documents into artistic material as a distilled concentrate is without doubt one of the key elements of German documentary theater of the 1960s� It explains how more than a thousand pages of protocols of Robert Oppenheimer’s trial hearings could become a two-hour play by Heinar Kipphardt or how only nine of more than a hundred witnesses at the Auschwitz trial appear in the eleven Cantos of Die Ermittlung � Reduction and editing, but also altered and even fictionalized quotations are central dramaturgical principles that help make the content accessible as well as aesthetically and politically appealing� Political judgment guides this process of editing the documentary material from the start� Unlike Marshall McLuhan’s often cited phrase “The medium is the message” (McLuhan 7), which is only one year older than Die Ermittlung and highlights the social effects of media devices , Weiss’s principle for writing and composing documentary plays seems to be just the opposite: ‘The message is the medium’ - it is the political message that guides Weiss’s selection and distillation process, it is the message that helps to sort, arrange, and present the documentary material in a particular way� By narrating unwelcome facts in a certain politicized way, documentary plays seek to influence the audience’s perspective on factual truth and testimony, as well as on history and memory culture� 3� During the summer of 1964, Peter Weiss attended the Auschwitz trials in Frankfurt as a spectator� Later he traveled to Auschwitz-Birkenau to see the extermination camp with his own eyes� He was deeply troubled and felt at the same time connected to Auschwitz� The description of his visit, which he published in 1965, offers insights into the intensity of his experience but also into the difficulties he faced in sensing and reliving the horror of the camp. At precisely the moment when Weiss seems able to grasp such horror, the narrator’s viewpoint shifts from a firstto a third-person perspective: Ich gehe langsam durch dieses Grab. Empfinde nichts. […] Im Augenblick, in dem die Sonne versinkt, steigen die Bodennebel auf und schwelen um die niedrigen Baracken. Die Türen stehen offen. Irgendwo trete ich ein. Und dies ist jetzt so: Hier ist das Atmen, das Flüstern und Rascheln noch nicht ganz von der Stille verdeckt, […] in den schweren Schatten, sind die tausend Körper noch zu ahnen, […] hier ist die Außenwelt noch nicht ganz eingedrungen, hier ist noch zu erwarten, daß es sich regt da drinnen, daß ein Kopf sich hebt, eine Hand sich vorstreckt� Doch nach einer Weile tritt auch hier das Schweigen und die Erstarrung ein� Ein Lebender ist gekommen, und vor diesem Lebenden verschließt sich, was hier geschah� Der Lebende, der hier herkommt, aus einer andern Welt, besitzt nichts als seine Kenntnisse von Ziffern, von niedergeschriebenen Berichten, von Zeugenaussagen, sie sind Teil seines Lebens, er 96 Benjamin Wihstutz trägt daran, doch fassen kann er nur, was ihm selbst widerfährt� […] Jetzt steht er nur in einer untergegangenen Welt� Hier kann er nichts mehr tun� Eine Weile herrscht die äußerste Stille� Dann weiß er, es ist noch nicht zu Ende� (“Meine Ortschaft” 34, 42—43) The meaning of the last sentence remains strangely unclear� What is not yet at an end? Theater critic and Weiss biographer Henning Rischbieter writes: “Der Schlußsatz ist mehrdeutig� Die Torturen, der Massenmord sind noch nicht zu Ende? Oder die Bedrängnis durch das, was während des Zweiten Weltkrieges geschah? Auf jeden Fall: Auschwitz verpflichtet den Schriftsteller Weiss” (Rischbieter 66)� What becomes clear is that Weiss feels committed to this darkest place in German history, obliged to dedicate his theater work to the inconceivable truth of Auschwitz, at once affirming and contradicting Adorno’s famous dictum that “nach Auschwitz ein Gedicht zu schreiben, ist barbarisch” (Adorno 30). The switch from the firstperson to a third-person narrator is not a shift to an impartial or neutral point of view: although Rischbieter interprets it as “groß und fordernd, aber auch kalt objektiv” (66), the objective perspective on “he” also seems to hint at Weiss’s struggle to face the historical truth of Auschwitz as a German subject “I” who cannot escape his generation or responsibility, i�e�, a collective responsibility of the German people that allowed this horror to happen� 4 In light of recent debates and critical views on the memory culture of the Shoah in Germany, one might ask where Peter Weiss’s approach to creating a theater piece on Auschwitz fits in with today’s discourse on “multidirectional memory” (as defined by Rothberg) or with the criticism of a “theater of memory” ( Gedächtnistheater ; see Czollek 19—34)� By “Gedächtnistheater,” a term originally used by Michael Bodemann, Max Czollek refers to a specific way of remembering that promotes the identification of the German public with the Jewish victims and especially with the incommensurability of the Shoah� Gedächtnistheater avoids real confrontation with historical guilt by integrating and instrumentalizing the witnesses of the Shoah for German memory culture, and therefore detracts from the responsibility that Germans carry as a people of perpetrators� Although Weiss can certainly not be accused of a hypocritical Gedächtnistheater as it is analysed by Czollek with regard to political speeches and memorial ceremonies in Germany from the 1980s to the present, Die Ermittlung still played a prominent role in German memory culture as it helped absorb Auschwitz into the German literary canon� Auschwitz, paradoxically, has served as both a void and a place of identification for German intellectuals since the 1960s: it is the place where guilt can be transformed into a theater of memory, where remembrance is transformed into redemption, and the history of the perpetrators’ defeat may be transformed into a liberation of victims� 5 On Truth and Politics in German Documentary Theater of the 1960s 97 From this perspective, it seems interesting that Weiss associates Auschwitz with the otherworldliness of Dante’s Divine Comedy , which is in many ways a contrary perspective of Arendt’s “banality of evil�” Die Ermittlung is a documentary court drama on Auschwitz, but at the same time it is an “Oratorio in eleven Cantos” of selected and dramatized testimonies� Michael Bachmann has pointed out that testimonial practice in theater can only succeed if it does not aim at an illusion of reality, but instead underlines the absence of the real witnesses (see Bachmann 67)� In a paragraph quoted by Bachmann, Claude Schumacher writes: The staging of a theatrical text requires the physical presence of the actor, that “other,” that “impostor” who was not in Auschwitz� How can the actor, who lives in the same world as us, who performs in the same space which we, the audience inhabit, how can that actor effectively convince us that he is a camp inmate, a Nazi officer or even a survivor from those days? (qtd� in Schumacher 4) By letting actors cite the testimonies of real witnesses on stage without any means of illusion or reconstruction, Peter Weiss aims at a documentary theater whose function is a testimonial practice without witnesses, a drama of testimonies without theatrical representation� If the concentration camp can “only be imagined as literature not as reality,” as Imre Kertesz writes (see Bachmann 57), Die Ermittlung is a piece of dramatic literature that should not be confused with mere documentation of reality� What the audience witnesses in Die Ermittlung is instead a verbal materialization of the incomparable horror of the Shoah that despite its absence of representation still allows the audience to side with the victims and thereby to become moral witnesses themselves� Their own historical guilt is no longer the focus, it can be transferred to the actors of the Nazi perpetrators on stage� The testimonies of the victims, however, may serve as tools of identification - an identification as “sensed victims” (“gefühlte Opfer”; Jureit/ Schneider 33)� When Arendt wrote her report on the banality of evil four years earlier in 1961, and published it later as a book in 1964, she was immediately criticized by historians and politicians alike for downplaying the cruelty of Adolf Eichmann and mocking his innocent air in court� As Yasco Horsman has pointed out, Arendt’s famous wording of the banality of evil was neither meant to be a thesis on the nature of evil nor “a psychological concept explaining Eichmann’s behavior” (Horsman 18)� The formulation rather expressed Arendt’s observation as a spectator of the simple thoughtlessness that drove Eichmann’s crimes as opposed to the anti-Semitic hatred many had expected and imagined (see Horsman 17)� The banality of evil was therefore an impression that Arendt had as a distanced spectator rather than as a political actor� In her postscript Arendt states: 98 Benjamin Wihstutz Eichmann was not Iago and not Macbeth, and nothing would have been farther from his mind than to determine with Richard III ‘to prove a villain’� Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at all� And this diligence in itself was in no way criminal; he certainly would never have murdered his superior in order to inherit his post� He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing� ( Eichmann 287) The scandal of Arendt’s “banality of evil” was precisely that the Shoah in her view was not enabled by a handful of evil Nazi murderers but by a bureaucratic apparatus that allowed for systematic mass murder in the first place. For Arendt this meant, as a consequence, that Eichmann could have been anyone involved in this system, anyone who “never realized what he was doing” ( Eichmann 287) by just doing his job� By describing the Auschwitz trials in detail with testimonies of torture and murder, above all the torture scenes of the “death swing” used by overseer Wilhelm Boger (see Scene 3 of Die Ermittlung ), Peter Weiss seems to aim at correcting this bureaucratic and indifferent image of people like Eichmann that Arendt drew in her reports of the trial in Jerusalem� 6 Although most of the defendants in Die Ermittlung also cannot admit guilt or any wrongdoing, Weiss portrays so much personalized evil in this play, and this evil is often rendered so explicit and real, that it is certainly far from being banal or merely bureaucratic� It is an evil that remains performative even in the testimonies of the court - placing the reality of horror images via literary means before the audience’s inner eyes as the witnesses speak� By using their testimonies as dramatic material, Weiss breaks the silence of Auschwitz, which he felt so strongly, and provides his documentary theater with a mode of representation to which the spectator can relate� 4� One aspect that neither Arendt’s critics nor Weiss seem to pay attention to is the theatricality of the tribunal itself, which Arendt’s quote on the Eichmann trial above highlights� From this perspective, the scandal of Arendt’s observations may have been less her use of the term “banality” than the fact that she described parts of the Eichmann trial as an almost laughable show trial� When Arendt comments that “comedy breaks into the horror itself, and results in stories, presumably true enough, whose macabre humor easily surpasses that of any Surrealist invention” ( Eichmann 50), she no longer observes this trial as an event of world justice but as theater� She even calls prime minister David Ben-Gurion the “invisible stage manager” (Horsman 21) of the trial and Eichmann “a clown” she likes to laugh at (Horsman 16)� Of course, “Arendt’s laughter” (Horsman 17) and her reading of the trial as a comedy had nothing to do with not taking Auschwitz seriously� First of all, the impression of a show On Truth and Politics in German Documentary Theater of the 1960s 99 trial was significantly influenced by Ben-Gurion himself, who had announced that, from an Israeli perspective, the verdict mattered less than the spectacle staged for a global audience - a spectacle “to teach Israel and the world a few lessons about the Holocaust” (Horsman 20)� Secondly, Arendt wanted to point out that even the most shocking facts and testimonies can be politicized and that no court trial can represent the horror of Auschwitz or compensate for the Holocaust� Nevertheless, Arendt’s description of the Eichmann trial as theater raises the question of how to differentiate various theatrical modes of the court in general� Isn’t every court trial theatrical, after all? Under what circumstances does a trial become a show trial? And how is the theatricality of the court actually linked to the long history of court dramas in the theater? These theoretical questions cannot be addressed in detail here, but it is worth briefly discussing the theatricality of law before coming back to Arendt and Weiss� According to Alan Read, theater and law share a set of basic principles that can be attributed to any democratic court trial� First of all, like theater, law addresses the public - “law has to be seen to be done” (Read 8)� Second, like a play, a court trial also has an Aristotelian dramatic structure, consisting of a beginning, a middle, and an ending� Third, in most legal systems court procedures demand certain costumes like robes or wigs� Fourth, judicial spectacle operates simultaneously as ‘reality’ and ‘fiction.’ As a spectacular event, the trial has to happen in real time and all parties involved in it have “to agree to the status of the event for it to be viable and function” (Read 13). And fifth, law is performative in the sense that it demands performative speech acts that lead to further actions like punishment� Cornelia Vismann points out that every criminal court needs to transform the criminal act into a symbolic scene (see Vismann 32)� But the trial could not be staged at the actual crime scene since what is judged is not an act itself but the symbolic representation in the theatrical space of the courtroom� The symbolic representation is then developed collectively with the help of testimonies, inspection of evidence, and pleas� According to Vismann, it is this transformation which makes the court trial theatrical� But if every court trial is theatrical, this begs the question of how to differentiate between democratic trials, show trials, and court dramas� Or must we assume - as Erving Goffman did with regard to social life, and Rüdiger Campe with regard to political and legal representation - that all roles are, to some extent, theatrical? Instead of speaking of a general theatricality in court, I would like to apply a stricter concept of the term based on an action in the mode of “ein Handeln als-ob,” as Matthias Warstat has argued in his book Soziale Theatralität (Warstat 231—42)� It is the as-if that transforms a trial into a theatrical representation and that enables us to differentiate between social roles and costumes on the one hand, 100 Benjamin Wihstutz and dramatic representations of court trials on the other - whether it be entirely fictional, as in Kleist’s Der zerbrochne Krug , or documentary, as in Die Ermittlung. To use Sylvia Sasse’s terminology, the show trial can be further distinguished from both “legitimate trials” and “dramatic trials” (Sasse 138)� With reference to the Moscow trials organized by Stalin in the 1930s, Sasse demonstrates that a show trial suspends the openness of judgment, since the judgment is set before the trial even starts� As Sasse points out, everyone in Moscow - even the defendants and the audience - had to play dramatic roles (see Sasse 128)� The defendants were often forced to confess publicly to crimes they never committed in order to save their families or friends from death or torture without any chance to avoid their own death penalty, whereas the public had to play the role of the gullible masses to reinforce the totalitarian power of the regime and to verify a false version of history� Compared with the Moscow trials, it would be wrong to call the Eichmann trial a show trial� Despite the fact that everyone was expecting the death penalty as a sentence for Eichmann, and that the goal of the trial was “to teach the world a lesson” according to Ben-Gurion, none of the testimonies were bought or blackmailed, and the trial was based on factual truth� In fact, Arendt’s statement that truth has a despotic character and is hated and feared by tyrants matches Stalin’s practice of the show trial perfectly, whereas her report on the Eichmann trial does not question the validity of factual truth at all, but rather demonstrates how a democratic judicial system can deal with factual truths from the past, and that even a debate on different politics of memory is possible in Western democracy� Thus, the politicization of the trial clearly does not affect the question of Eichmann’s guilt. Arendt’s argument is much more about the interpretation and consequences of this guilt for a future memory culture� But with this interpretation a different kind of theatricality of judgment comes into play that has already been mentioned above under the notion of contemporariness� If true judgment implies the “withdrawal from direct involvement to a standpoint outside the game” (Arendt, Lectures 55), then Arendt’s goal is not to play a part in the political game of Israel teaching the world a lesson, but to keep a distance from it - to be an “emancipated spectator,” as Jacques Rancière would call it; a spectator who challenges the opposition between seeing and acting and acknowledges the capacity of every spectator to make up his own mind of the play: “The spectator also acts, like the pupil or scholar� She observes, selects, compares, interprets� She links what she sees to a host of other things that she has seen on other stages, in other kinds of place” (Rancière 13)� In her lectures on Kant, Arendt points out that Kant’s positive judgment of the French Revolution as a great historical event for mankind was only possible because the philosopher stood back from their own interests and moral stan- On Truth and Politics in German Documentary Theater of the 1960s 101 dards when faced with revolutionary violence� The distance of his spectatorship was also a literal one: observing the event more than a thousand miles away from the action in Paris, Kant’s only sources for portrayals of the Revolution were journals and letters� But despite his moral objections to violence, Arendt writes, Kant resisted taking up the role of a partial political actor� Instead, he stuck to a perspective of disinterested and impartial judgment, one that Kant otherwise ascribes to aesthetic judgment� Aesthetic judgment, from a Kantian perspective, is without interest, which means that it is not bound to immediate responses to sensations like taste but to a distance from the judged objects that is created by the mere power of imagination, and to a judgment of the imagined objects “as though they were objects of an inner sense” (Arendt, Lectures 64)� The political dimension of true judgment for Arendt, therefore, does not imply bias or partisanship but the universal aim of a common sense to share and communicate judgment with other spectators as world-spectators� By observing and reporting the trial in Jerusalem, Arendt sees herself as such a world-spectator, distancing herself from her own feelings of revenge and anger, focusing on the theatricality of the trial and the political intentions that shaped the trial setting and its dominant reception� Paradoxically, although maybe not surprisingly, it took a Jewish philosopher living in the United States to contradict the dominant reception of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and to point out the collective responsibility of the German people in contrast to the idea of payback time against a Nazi villain - a standpoint that neither Hochhuth nor Weiss were ready to fully embrace when writing about Nazi Germany and the Shoah� In 1966, Peter Weiss decided to attend another tribunal, this time not as a spectator but as a member of the tribunal committee� Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre had organized the tribunal on the International War Crimes in Vietnam, indicting the United States and its allies and focusing public attention on the crimes and atrocities committed by the US military in Southeast Asia� Here, the contradiction between the forensic claim and the politicized position of the tribunal can hardly be overlooked� When Russell states at the beginning of the trial that “[o]ur purpose is to establish, without fear or favour, the full truth about this war” (723), he reveals that the actual goal of the tribunal was less a due process but to demonstrate evidence of the American war crimes by presenting its victims to the Western public� From today’s point of view, these pictures also have an unsettling colonial bias with white male experts inspecting young and helpless victims from Vietnam� Apparently, the subaltern is not supposed to speak here, it is Western philosophers who do the speaking� 7 But even with this white Western and anti-imperialist voice, the tribunal apparently still consisted of different opinions and viewpoints. In his notebook from 1968, Peter Weiss expresses his frustration at the lack of unity in the tribunal: 102 Benjamin Wihstutz Die Widersprüche innerhalb des anti-imperialistischen Lagers sind so groß, dass der beispielhafte Kampf Viet Nams die Solidaritätsbewegungen draußen nicht zu einigen vermag, sondern daß sich in deren Vorstößen doch nur weitere Gegensätze und Zerteilungen anbahnen� (Weiss, Notizbücher I, 540) This dissent obviously contradicted Weiss’s own attitude as a political writer� In 1965, he had stated that Jedes Wort, das ich niederschreibe und der Veröffentlichung übergebe, ist politisch, d� h� es zielt auf einen Kontakt mit größeren Bevölkerungsgruppen hin, um dort eine bestimmte Wirkung zu erlangen� […] Da meine Worte immer nur einen verschwindend kleinen Teil ausmachen innerhalb der allgemeinen Opinion, muß ich die größtmögliche Präzision erreichen, um mit meiner Meinung durchdringen zu können� (Weiss, “10 Arbeitspunkte” 14) It seems obvious that, for Weiss, a tribunal in a play seems to be superior to a tribunal in real life. In drama, reality can be shaped and clarified in a way that is able to convince the audience more easily of what is right. Significantly, a play does not have just one audience like a court trial but can be multiplied to reach out to different audiences in different places. 5� When Die Ermittlung premiered in 1965 it was staged in fifteen different productions in East and West Germany, as well as in London by the Royal Shakespeare Company� This ring premiere highlighted Weiss’s claim to be enlightening for the public - simultaneously reaching out to an international audience in sixteen different cities to tell the truth about Auschwitz by the means of documentary theater� Two of the most prominent productions were staged in Berlin under Erwin Piscator’s direction, and in Stuttgart under Peter Palitzsch� According to Henning Rischbieter, the two different audiences got to see completely different plays. In Stuttgart the stage was brightly lit with witnesses entering through a door giving a sober testimony in front of an audience that was given no chance to become immersed in illusions� Music and projections stressed the documentary character of the play� The Berlin production, on the contrary, was criticized by Rischbieter with regard to the way the audience was addressed and influenced by the staging: Erwin Piscators Inszenierung ist zugleich feierlich, theatralisch und polemisch; Sachlichkeit - die dem Zuschauer Freiheit ließe zu intellektuellen Reaktionen - ist ganz von der Bühne vertrieben; vorherrschend ist die Absicht zu erschüttern, zu betäuben, anzuklagen� Das Publikum wird in den Zustand von Fassungslosen und Mitleidenden versetzt� (Rischbieter 114) On Truth and Politics in German Documentary Theater of the 1960s 103 Moreover, according to Rischbieter, the sympathy and identification with the victims was blatantly enabled by a demonization of the defendants as an evil and cynical chorus (“ein bösartiger, zynischer Chor”), that laughed scornfully at the audience, while the witnesses appeared as helpless victims� One can only speculate that Rischbieter’s biased judgment probably exaggerates the contrast between the two stagings� His goal seems to be to deliver a harsh criticism of famous theater director Erwin Piscator who, in his eyes, no longer fits in with West German theater of the 1960s. From today’s historical distance it is hard to tell which version one would prefer: the sober version from Stuttgart or Piscator’s more radical politicized version� It is in fact likely that from a contemporary perspective the historical distance to both of these productions would enable us to take a more disinterested perspective on both, with the impression that today they may similarly look quite outdated with regard to the style of acting, the stage design, lighting and music� The bias of Rischbieter’s description itself and the obvious difference between the two productions leads us to an insight that Arendt also presents in her lectures on Kant and that is often forgotten when political and documentary theater is discussed� She states that aesthetic judgment itself has a political dimension, which lies in the contradiction between an individual and subjective judgment of taste on the one hand, and the claim of the universal communicability of aesthetic judgment on the other (see Beiner)� By providing a forum for discussion and debate about taste (both in the theater and especially after the show), documentary theater can provide a public sphere where common sense (in the meaning of Kant’s Gemeinsinn ) is negotiated and agonistically contested� Therefore, plays like Die Ermittlung should not be reduced to a mere documentation of facts, nor to an educational purpose. Each staging rather provides an occasion to reflect, represent, and think about the history of the Shoah and the ways in which its memory is kept alive� It follows from Arendt’s thoughts on truth, politics, and judgment that documentary theater should not be limited to agit-prop nor to political opinion-making� Rather, each new production may provide a “theatrical public sphere” that goes beyond the actual performance (see Balme), and this is something Weiss ignores in his fourteen propositions� Within the theatrical public sphere, different opinions and judgments can collide and may be confronted with each other� It is precisely this public sphere of judgment that Arendt fought for time and again in her political philosophy, especially since she saw the public sphere slip - in Hitler’s and Goebbels’s Germany, in Stalin’s Soviet Union, and in McCarthy’s United States� 8 104 Benjamin Wihstutz Notes 1 There have been many books, especially by Jewish authors, that have triggered political debates in Germany on the Shoah� From Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners (1996) or Michael Rothberg’s Multidirectional Memory (2009) to Max Czollek’s polemic essay Desintegriert Euch! (2016), it has been a polarizing issue how Germans take responsibility for the Shoah or appropriate Jewish positions or even a position as “sensed victims” ( Jureit/ Schneider 33), i�e�, the self-perception by those associated with the perpetrators of violence that they, too, are victims� The political debate has become especially tricky in Germany since the 2010s, when it became intertwined with Israeli politics and discussions about anti-Semitism and the Palestinian-led BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement against Israel� This has led to paradoxical situations like German government functionaries calling Jewish intellectuals and organizations anti-Semitic when they take a critical stance towards Israeli politics� 2 In some ways one could say that Agamben himself had set this trap with his own reading of Carl Schmitt’s “state of exception�” This triggered him to see the measures against Covid-19 as a harbinger for the end of democracy as we know it (see Agamben, “Nach Corona”)� 3 Recent debates on Arendt’s own blind spots of colonial and even racist thinking in her work show that she certainly could not escape her own times entirely. Her comments on the Civil Rights Movement (“Reflections on Little Rock”) as well as on post-colonial Africa ( The Origins of Totalitarianism) clearly contradict and complicate her concept of a world-spectator and raise the question of whether judging history impartially and un-timely is even possible� This debate goes beyond the parameters of the present essay, since it shifts the attention away from the argument about documentary theater and the theatricality of judgment� However, I would like to acknowledge the importance of this debate, since it demonstrates not only the extent to which structural racism has influenced continental philosophy as a whole, but also shows how even a Jewish philosopher and important thinker like Arendt could not escape the racist logic embedded in the Eurocentric strands of Enlightenment (see Gines; Rothberg 33—65; Smith 1—18)� 4 It is noteworthy that Weiss had Jewish roots himself� He had a Jewish father who had converted to Christianity, which Weiss only found out when the family emigrated in the 1930s� Thus, although Weiss did not grow up Jewish (also, Jewishness is traditionally passed on by the mother), he did feel connected to the victims of the Shoah, asking himself why he survived, On Truth and Politics in German Documentary Theater of the 1960s 105 especially since many people who were ‘half-Jewish’ were also murdered by the Nazis (see Weiss, Notizbücher I, 293)� 5 Max Czollek especially criticizes the famous speech which German Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker held on 8 May 1985, forty years after the end of WWII� Weizsäcker said that the 8 th of May was the day that “liberated all of us from the inhumanity and tyranny of the National Socialist regime�” During the same speech, Weizsäcker quoted Ba’al Shem Tov’s words: “[T] he secret of redemption lies in remembrance�” 6 Of course, one should add that the two trials were very different and cannot be compared directly� 7 The parallel to Spivak’s famous critique of Foucault and Deleuze speaking for the subaltern is obvious and intended (see Spivak)� 8 I would like to thank Daniel Hendrickson and Nathan Taylor for their excellent help with the editing and revision of my English writing as well as Daniele Vecchiato and Matthew Bell for inviting me to King’s College London to a wonderful conference and to contribute to this special issue of Colloquia Germanica � I am very grateful for their editing and thoughtful commentary, as well as for the excellent and thorough reviews, which have been of great value to me� Works Cited Adorno, Theodor W� “Kulturkritik und Gesellschaft�” Gesammelte Schriften � Vol� 10/ 1� Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977� Agamben, Giorgio� “What is the Contemporary? ” What is an Apparatus? 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Ed� Rosalind C� Morris� New York: Columbia UP, 2010� 21—78� Vismann, Cornelia� Medien der Rechtsprechung. Ed� Alexandra Kemmerer� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 2011� Warstat, Matthias� Soziale Theatralität. Die Inszenierung der Gesellschaft � Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2018� Weiss, Peter� Die Ermittlung. Oratorium in 11 Gesängen. 1965� Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2015� ---� “Meine Ortschaft�” Atlas zusammengestellt von deutschen Autoren � Berlin: Klaus Wagenbach, 1965� 31—43� ---� “Notizen zum Dokumentarischen Theater�” Rapporte 2 � Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1971� 91—104� ---� “10 Arbeitspunkte eines Autors in der geteilten Welt�” Rapporte 2 � Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1971� 14—23� ---� Die Notizbücher 1960 - 1971. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1982� Weizsäcker, Richard K� “Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker during the Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the End of War in Europe and of National-Socialist Tyranny�” bundespraesident.de � Der Bundespräsident, 8 May 1985� Web� 27 Nov� 2021� Wihstutz, Benjamin� “Bezeugen, verstellen, lügen, entlarven� Über Theater, Politik und Zeugenschaft�” Bezeugen. Mediale, forensische und kulturelle Praktiken der Zeugenschaft. Ed. Zeynep Tuna, Mona Wischhoff and Isabelle Zinsmaier. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2022� 69—85� Lay Judges and Lay Actors: Emancipating the Spectator in Rimini Protokoll’s Zeugen! and Ferdinand von Schirach’s Terror Daniele Vecchiato Università degli Studi di Padova Abstract: Are viewing and acting separate things? In his essay The Emancipated Spectator (2008), Jacques Rancière argues that the state of passivity inscribed in the traditional role of the spectator must be revoked by theater itself, whose primary aim should be to liberate “a form of consciousness, an intensity of feeling, an energy for action” that can empower the spectators, make them aware of the social reality they live in, and potentially foster their desire to transform some of its structures� This paper looks at two examples of contemporary attempts at “staging justice” that expressly require an emancipated spectatorship, though in different ways: Terror. Ein Theaterstück (2016) by Ferdinand von Schirach, a courtroom drama in which the spectators are requested to judge on a fictional legal case, and Zeugen! Ein Strafkammerspiel (2004) by theater collective Rimini Protokoll, in which experts of justice from the Berlin-Moabit criminal court share their knowledge and experience with the audience� By examining the aesthetic strategies through which both texts portray the world of justice on stage, the paper outlines their political relevance as well as the different ways in which they thematise the theatricality of legal processes and the relationship between make-believe and reality� Keywords: Rimini Protokoll, Ferdinand von Schirach, Jacques Rancière, spectatorship, law and literature, justice on stage In his essay The Emancipated Spectator (2008), arguably one of the most cited pieces in theater and performance studies over the last few years, Jacques Rancière places the spectator at the heart of the debate over the relationship between art and politics� He speaks in particular of the “paradox of the spectator” who, in their position as a passive observer of stage dynamics, is traditionally 110 Daniele Vecchiato “separated from the capacity to know and the power to act” (Rancière 2) and yet is expected to be moved to action by theater, which is regarded as the most political of all art forms� Rancière cites Bertolt Brecht’s epic theater and Antonin Artaud’s theater of cruelty as historically relevant examples of dramaturgies that promote the political emancipation of the audience� Both Brecht and Artaud, in their own ways and employing their own peculiar techniques, strove to activate spectators and to challenge the idea that an audience merely constitutes a mass of passive voyeurs� According to Rancière, theater should challenge the notion that viewing and acting are separate things: given that spectators not only observe what is produced on stage but also select, compare, and interpret what they see, theater should cultivate spectators’ potential for action through performances capable of liberating “a form of consciousness, an intensity of feeling, an energy for action” (Rancière 14)� This approach to dramaturgy can empower an audience, make its members aware of the social reality in which they live, and foster their desire to change its nonfunctioning structures for the better� Intellectual and political emancipation begins when spectators realize that viewing also means actively transforming and interpreting what they see, feel, and understand from a performance - which, of course, is not necessarily what the playwright or performer thinks spectators should understand, but rather what responses they develop via their own elaboration of the content of the performance� The centrality of the spectator has been accentuated not only in scholarly debates but also, and perhaps even more so, in theater practice during recent years (see Frieze; Malzacher 65—91). In particular, postdramatic aesthetics, as first described by Hans-Thies Lehmann, have contributed to a radical rethinking of the place of the spectator within the play, often requiring theater practitioners to break the fourth wall and invite the audience to collaborate in the performance� Some critics have even come to argue that “the nineteenth century was a century of actors. The twentieth century was a century of directors. The twenty-first century is a century of spectators” (Burzyńska 9). This may sound a bit too pat, since all three of these forces have played equally important parts throughout the history of theater� 1 It is apparent, however, that especially during the last few decades spectatorship has risen to remarkable prominence in the theater world: there seems to be a genuine desire among theater makers and performers to initiate a dialogue with their audiences and, increasingly, to involve them in the dynamics of plays, sometimes to the point of transforming spectators into co-writers� 2 In Joined Forces: Audience Participation in Theatre (2016), Anna Burzyńska explains this contemporary trend toward participatory spectatorship by pinpointing two decisive factors in its inception� First, the advancement of new media has substantially changed the ways in which information and entertainment are received, introducing more direct, selective, and interactive forms of Lay Judges and Lay Actors� Emancipating the Spectator 111 consumption� Second, at a time when democracy, activism, and civic-mindedness have become endangered values, theater has engaged more and more with contemporary political and social issues, thus becoming “a kind of ‘rehearsal space’ for democracy, a place where one is encouraged not only to observe, but to be critical, active, and responsible for what is happening” (Burzyńska 9). Asking the audience to shape a performance by participating in it therefore means making spectators aware not only of the transformative potential of (political) theater but also of their own ability to have an impact on real life by ceasing to be passive bystanders and becoming responsible citizens� This essay examines two examples of contemporary attempts at “staging justice” that expressly require an emancipated spectatorship, though in distinct ways: the courtroom drama Terror by Ferdinand von Schirach and the Strafkammerspiel (literally, a “penal chamber play”) Zeugen! by performance collective Rimini Protokoll� The present analysis dissects the aesthetic and discursive strategies through which both texts portray the world of justice on stage and outlines their political relevance by describing the specific ways in which they each thematize the theatricality of legal processes and the relationship between fiction and reality, simulation and veracity. Ferdinand von Schirach’s Terror premiered simultaneously on 3 October 2015, German Unity Day, at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin under the direction of Hasko Weber and at the Schauspiel Frankfurt under the direction of Oliver Reese� It was arguably the most successful play of the season in Germany and went on to enjoy remarkable international success: Terror has been staged over 2,500 times across the globe and was adapted as a film for television by Tatort director Lars Kraume in 2016� 3 The following discussion is based primarily on the script that was published in 2016 and rapidly translated into several languages� 4 Rimini Protokoll’s Zeugen! was first staged on 10 January 2004 at HAU 2, a smaller venue of the Hebbel am Ufer theater in Berlin, under the direction of all three members of the performance collective: Helgard Haug, Stephan Kaegi, and Daniel Wetzel� Unfortunately, there is no complete footage of this production� The materials available for examination - thanks to the help of Rimini Protokoll themselves - include an advance script of the play (dated 28 December 2003 and presenting several gaps as well as spaces for improvisation), a few video clips of the premiere, and video interviews with the protagonists, who are not professional actors but, as is explained below, amateur performers the collective refers to as “experts�” 5 Terror is the first theatrical endeavor of criminal defense lawyer and best-selling novelist Ferdinand von Schirach� 6 To some extent, Schirach represents a modern incarnation of the traditional figure of the Dichterjurist (see Bauer), a 112 Daniele Vecchiato legally trained author whose fiction often originates from juridical cases or is inspired more broadly by questions of justice and, as in this case, moral philosophy� The play is a paradigmatically constructed courtroom drama focused on the fictional case of a German fighter pilot, Lars Koch, who decided to shoot down a hijacked aircraft against the orders of his superiors to prevent it from crashing into a football stadium� This act killed all 164 passengers on the plane but probably saved the lives of many of the 70,000 people who had gathered in the stadium to watch a Germany vs� England match� Koch opted for the lesser of two evils and does not regret his decision; at the same time, he is tried in a court of law because he acknowledges having committed multiple murders� During the trial, the moral question of whether it is permissible to kill innocent people in order to save other innocent people arises, as does whether the rightness or wrongness of the act is a question of numbers: “Lassen sich Leben […] gegeneinander rechnen, wenn für den Tod eines Menschen 400 andere gerettet werden können? ” (Schirach, Terror 115)� 7 How this question is answered and whether the pilot is indicted for committing a crime through his conduct or not is for the audience to decide� Schirach in fact wrote two alternative endings to be performed based on the decision made by the majority of the spectators at each performance� Depending on the production, spectators are either issued electronic devices to register their vote or are asked to exit the theater from one of two doors to decide upon the acquittal or conviction of the pilot� At the end of the play, the judge reads out the corresponding verdict by this jury-audience, and the results of each vote are gathered in the statistics on a website that is updated constantly� 8 Terror is clearly not a piece of documentary theater but is rather a fictional text concerning an invented trial� 9 However, there are two real-world legal texts to which the play constantly refers that anchor the core dilemma of the fiction in the real threat of terrorism during the post-9/ 11 era. The first of these texts is a judgment that was handed down by the German constitutional court ( Bundesverfassungsgericht ) in 2006, which declared the 2005 Aviation Security Act ( Luftsicherheitsgesetz ) to be unconstitutional (see Stenzel 209)� The act had originally been written in a manner that granted the Bundeswehr permission to use weapons against commercial airliners, should a plane be turned into a weapon over the course of a hijacking; the act was later invalidated by the constitutional court and revoked� The second text is the Grundgesetz , the German Constitution, whose Article 1 famously protects the inviolability of human dignity: “Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar�” 10 In the words of the Federal Constitutional Court, this article dictates that a human being may never be turned into a mere object of action by the state: “Ein Mensch dürfe niemals zum bloßen Objekt staatlichen Handelns gemacht werden” (Schirach, Terror 120)� If, Lay Judges and Lay Actors� Emancipating the Spectator 113 as in the case of Koch and his difficult choice, decisions are made about any person over which they can have no influence, then they become an object. Since every individual possesses the right to be a subject, not an object, neither the state nor anyone else may ever value one life over another, nor even a hundred lives over a single life, as human life cannot be measured in numbers: “Leben kann nicht in Zahlen gemessen werden” (Schirach, Terror 121)� Even if pragmatic moral accounting could justify the killing of a smaller number of people to save considerably more, according to the law a mathematical or utilitarian justification for the taking of innocent lives is never permissible. This intricate discussion - on the legal implications of the principle of human dignity, substantiated by references to Immanuel Kant and to contemporary philosophers Hans Wenzel and Judith Thomson - constitutes the legal core of the play, which unfolds as an actual trial, reproducing on stage the exact language of legal bureaucracy and the dramaturgy of justice. From the identification of the defendant to the reading of the accusation; from the interrogation of two witnesses to the closing statements of the state prosecutor and the defense counsel; from the final words of the defendant to the pronouncement of the verdict: the whole ritual of the legal process is acted out so as to make the audience feel that they are part of the trial - and to enable them to decide, conscientiously, its outcome� For the duration of the play, the spectator becomes a juror, the performance space a courtroom� At the beginning of the drama, before the actual start of the trial, the presiding judge appeals to the responsibilities of the spectators, addressing them directly: Nur Sie sind dazu berufen, hier zu urteilen, Sie sind die Schöffen, die Laienrichter, die heute über den Angeklagten Lars Koch zu Gericht sitzen� Das Gesetz stattet Sie mit der Macht aus, über das Schicksal eines Menschen zu entscheiden� Bitte nehmen Sie diese Verantwortung ernst� Sie werden ausschließlich über das urteilen, was Sie hier in der Verhandlung hören� […] Am Ende des Prozesses werden Sie Ihre Stimme abgeben müssen, und ich werde das Urteil verkünden, das Sie finden werden. […] Urteilen Sie also ruhig und gelassen� (Schirach, Terror 7—9) Abstention is not an option: the spectators may not refrain from expressing their opinion on the case� By immediately putting the audience in the position of a real jury, whose members must articulate a verdict, Schirach makes them feel the gravity and seriousness of their task� Of course, in the context of this play, the spectators’ verdicts do not affect anyone’s destiny - it is a fictional trial. But the simulation alone is an effective way to evoke the power of law. Another important passage in the judge’s speech refers to the theatricality of the trial, which he explains is meant to reenact the event in order to assess 114 Daniele Vecchiato it legally� The judge thus draws a neat boundary between courtroom and stage, denying the fictionality of the procedure at which audience members are to assist with a slightly ironic effect: “In einem Gerichtsverfahren spielen wir die Wirklichkeit nach, das Gericht ist eine Bühne� Natürlich führen wir kein Theaterstück auf, wir sind ja schließlich keine Schauspieler: Wir spielen die Tat durch Sprache nach, das ist unsere Art, sie zu erfassen” (Schirach, Terror 8)� This idea of a trial as a form of reenacting, through language, the purported crime and the contexts in which it occurred 11 is borrowed from Cornelia Vismann’s Medien der Rechtsprechung (2011), a work Schirach knows well enough to mention in one of his essays� 12 Exploring the institutional affinity between theater and courtroom, Vismann notes that: sämtliche Gerichte machen dasselbe, wenn sie Gericht halten� Sie konvertieren das strittige Ding in eine aussprechbare Sache� Diese Konversion von Ding in Sache ist der performative Kern allen Gerichthaltens� Dinge, die zur Sache geworden sind, sind im Recht angekommen� Über sie kann man reden, man kann darüber entscheiden oder andere Rechtsfolgen daran knüpfen� (Vismann, Medien 20) In her analysis, Vismann names this performative dimension of legal proceedings the “theatrical dispositif ” ( theatrales Dispositiv ) of justice, as it focuses not on the judgment but rather on the Verhandlung as a linguistic elaboration of the events and conflicts around which the trial revolves, aimed at conferring an order and a symbolic value upon them� By contrast, Vismann speaks of an “agonistic dispositif ” ( agonales Dispositiv ) to indicate the final verdict of the trial, which requires a clear-cut decision between two opposing options� 13 While the theatrical component of justice is characterized by a dialectical interaction of the parties, the agonistic is based on a logic of binary decision making in which spectators play a pivotal role (Vismann speaks of the “konstitutive Funktion der Zuschauer für die Entscheidungsfindung,” Medien 81)� As a paradigmatic courtroom drama, Terror contains both elements: the two acts of the play are concerned with the conversion of events into language; the final judgment from the audience concludes the performance with an irreversible sentence� Schirach, however, is resolute in stressing that the play is not just about the pronouncement of a verdict on the legal issue posed by the case of Lars Koch� As he explains in an interview with Alexander Kluge, Die Abstimmung im Stück dient der Anregung […]� Ich habe erlebt, wie Zuschauer nach der Aufführung nicht zum Essen gingen, sondern im Foyer blieben und weiter diskutierten� Jeder wusste natürlich, dass er nicht wirklich über [die] Schuld eines Menschen entschieden hatte� Aber alle redeten über den Staat, über unsere Gesellschaft und unsere Zukunft, die Verfassung wurde plötzlich lebendig� (Schirach and Kluge 110) Lay Judges and Lay Actors� Emancipating the Spectator 115 The ultimate aim of this successful - and much debated - experiment in audience participation is therefore to create a forum for discussion, to foster a reflection on the part of audience members not only on how to live (and judge) in times of terror but also on how justice and democracy work, who makes legal and moral decisions, and on what basis� Schirach aims at transforming the space of the theater into a republican forum, in which “die ‘res publica,’ die öffentliche Sache, wird verhandelt” (Schirach and Kluge 110)� The intent of his drama is to contribute to shaping an informed polis , to emancipate spectators, and to activate their critical capacities by making them responsible for the course of the action onstage while further inviting them to continue their reflections and discussions after the show - and thus in the real world� At the same time, the play more subtly seeks to make audience members aware of the contradictions and conflicts that are inherent in the legal system: the fact that Schirach offers two plausible outcomes of the trial - accompanied by equally convincing arguments - demonstrates the aporias and fallibilities of judicial knowledge in the face of complex moral dilemmas� Rimini Protokoll’s Zeugen! offers a different perspective on justice and its practitioners� Like other projects by the theater collective, the play is conceived as a laboratory - a research performance that brings specialists in a certain topic on stage so as to have them share their knowledge and experience with the audience� Rimini Protokoll refuses to call these lay actors “amateurs”: even though they are not professional performers, they have special expertise in the areas of knowledge around which the play revolves� Instead of amateurs, they are considered “experts of the everyday” ( Experten des Alltags ) who “embody a certain part of society, a certain profession, or a certain competence, which has molded them, which informs their thinking and even the way they look” (Boenisch 110—11)� 14 In Zeugen! the protagonists include experts on justice from the criminal court in Berlin-Moabit: a barrister, a juror, two former defendants, a courtroom drafter, and a volunteer court companion who helps victims of domestic violence endure difficult trials. More eccentric characters are also present, for instance an elderly man who spends his days as a spectator at trials and even writes protest letters to the judges when he does not agree with their verdicts; and a carpenter who builds part of the stage set during the performance and gives accurate descriptions of the seating order in a courtroom as well as of the types of wood used in the different rooms of a tribunal according to each wood’s symbolic importance. Thus different kinds of expertise are represented on stage. The play is conceived as a sort of theatrical ready-made in which “real” people who are alien to theater productions come to “play” themselves and contribute their own textual materials� Rimini Protokoll, whose members essentially 116 Daniele Vecchiato treat these “experts” as co-writers, try to ensure they are as “authentic” and unpolished as possible: ideally, they should have no interest and no experience in performance, and they do not receive any vocal or acting training during rehearsals� They are cast in order to bring their testimony to the stage, to stand in for who they actually are and for what they do in real life, and to confront the audience with firsthand information and anecdotes. 15 In a way, this is a radical form of documentary theater consisting not in the verbatim staging of authentic sources but rather in the assembling of human material in a performance space so as to voice their life, experience, and knowledge� The “experts” reconstruct reality and its rules by transferring that reality onto the stage; they restage aspects of legal dramaturgy with the same interest of witnesses reconstructing the act of the crime (see Müller-Frank)� It is as though the experts are the direct witnesses of justice, such that each spectator become a witness ‘twice over’: the imperative in the title of the play, Zeugen! with its exclamation mark, suggests that the audience is being invited to bear testimony to what it sees on stage� Unlike Terror , Zeugen! presents not the unfolding of a specific legal case but rather a collage of texts that, in the spirit of postdramatic theater, are disconnected from one another though all revolve around the same topic, namely the rituals of justice and the quest for truth� The framework Rimini Protokoll uses to communicate these materials to the audience is offered by the typical pattern of criminal trials: the structure of the performance retraces the traditional dramaturgy of a trial from the opening to the accusation; from the testimonies to the prosecutor’s closing argument; from the defendant’s last words to the final verdict� Each of these sections, however, is replete with heterogeneous texts that range from autobiographical anecdotes to historical curiosities and vertiginous lists of legal terms� At the same time, the play strongly emphasizes the spectacle-like quality of trials� It opens with a monologue by the compulsive court visitor, who explains his fascination for trials as a mixture of voyeurism and the need for entertainment� The description of his everyday courtroom experience is familiar to any theatergoer: Im Foyer steht ein gutes Dutzend Menschen� Wenn drinnen noch nicht alles bereit ist, schlüpft der Kartenabreisser mehrmals hinaus, um uns zu vertrösten� Schliesslich werden die Zuhörer über einen Lautsprecher eingerufen� Die Karten werden vom uniformierten Einlasser nicht gerissen, sondern eingezogen� Drinnen ist freie Platzwahl� Bühne und Zuschauerraum sind hell, getrennt nur durch einen Zaun auf Hüfthöhe� (Rimini Protokoll, Zeugen! 1) Further allusions to the theatricality of trials are made throughout the play, including reference to the judges’ gowns as stage costumes (see Rimini Protokoll, Lay Judges and Lay Actors� Emancipating the Spectator 117 Zeugen! 4) and the last words of the defendants, described as the cathartic pinnacle of the play (see Rimini Protokoll, Zeugen! 19)� The strategy of highlighting the affinity of theater and trial by putting the processes of justice on stage has a rich tradition in German cultural space, as the contributions to this special issue evidence� The unique take of Rimini Protokoll is its members’ disruption of spectators’ expectations through the inclusion of these same “experts on justice” in the performance� The very act of calling amateur performers “experts” subverts the hierarchy of art and life as it is commonly established on stage: Rimini Protokoll’s interest lies primarily in reality, not in artistic fiction. However, in this production, the collective plays with the idea of what constitutes expertise to require spectators to reflect on (and reconsider) the boundaries between fiction and authenticity both in theater and in justice. At the end of the performance, two of the protagonists - Franziska Henschel, the courtroom drafter, and Fabian Gerhardt, one of the defendants - take off their wigs and reveal themselves as professional actors who were only posing in the role of experts� 16 The spectator is therefore left to wonder retrospectively who was and who was not “real” in the play, to question the authenticity of the stories recounted onstage, and to try to discern where legal expertise gave way to imaginatively composed theater� This unexpected plot twist subverts the dramaturgy of the experts that has become a signature of Rimini Protokoll’s theater, engendering a feeling of disorientation� What audience members conventionally consider acceptable - an actor playing a fictional character on stage - appears to be an outright lie or at least an act of deceit when included in a performance that is supposed to consist of real-life testimonies� 17 As Vismann points out in a review of the play, the audience’s discovery of the fake experts (i�e�, of the professional actors) provokes a switch from the “ludic code” of drama to the “verifying code” of justice, and the role of the judge - which eloquently remains unoccupied in the play - becomes implicitly assigned to the spectator, who must distinguish theatrical simulation from the spontaneity of the experts (see Vismann, “Neulich im Theater”)� In this oscillation between truth and mise-en-scène , the testimonies rendered on stage suddenly appear to be simultaneously real and suspicious� As Milo Rau observes in another review: “Nicht eine vorgegebene Dramaturgie sichert die Unterscheidung von Kunst und Wirklichkeit, sondern der Beobachter selber wird zum Spezialisten, der den Kriterien für Authentizität und Inszenierung auf die Spur kommen muss” (Rau)� Once again, spectators are placed at the center of the production and are directly confronted with the mechanisms of justice� This happens in a less explicit way than in Terror , as the audience is not asked to pronounce a final verdict but is rather encouraged to observe and then judge the materials presented by the so-called experts� As in Schirach’s 118 Daniele Vecchiato project, the boundaries here between actor and spectator are blurred, and the engagement and responsibility of all participants are required to make sense of the performance� The expectation of engagement and responsibility determines the political nature of both Schirach’s and Rimini Protokoll’s dramatic endeavors� Indeed, the plays differ considerably in structure, aesthetic purpose, and dramaturgy: Terror is a conventionally constructed courtroom drama (“ein in sich geschlossener Spielvorgang, der vor den Zuschauern - wie in einem Guckkasten - abläuft”; Brauneck 56), whereas Zeugen! presents traits typical of postdramatic theater, including a radical “irruption of the real” that causes a “suspension of the clear line between reality […] and ‘spectatorial event’” (Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre 103). And yet, even though they can be ascribed different aesthetics, both dramas bring about productive forms of audience involvement, promoting the concept of theatrical experience as a social praxis that connects all the participants - actors and spectators alike� As Hans-Thies Lehmann remarks in his essay “Unterbrechung� Wie politisch ist postdramatisches Theater? ” (2002), contemporary theater - as opposed to forms of political theater from the first half of the twentieth century - does not try to propagate political messages in an agit-prop fashion, thematizing politically provocative subject matters on stage, but rather seeks moments of interruption ( Unterbrechung ) that (ideally) enable sociopolitical discourses to filter down into the plays in an indirect way, “modo obliquo,” developing strategies that can help spectators form their own critical opinions (Lehmann, “Unterbrechung” 16)� 18 The metareflective staging of a trial or of everyday juridical life can certainly be considered a moment of Unterbrechung 19 aiming at fostering a reflection not only on fiction vs. reality but also on how justice is administered, on what processes are involved in the investigation of truth, and on what higher issues are at stake when a legal (or moral) judgment is made. Though with different dramaturgical tools and with almost antithetical aesthetic programs, therefore, both Terror and Zeugen! attain this Unterbrechung through the implementation of comparable forms of nonprofessionalism (the lay judges in Terror and the lay actors in Zeugen! ) that trigger different sorts of audience participation: on the one hand, a vote that determines the end of the play (and the verdict of a fictional trial), and on the other, a mental process that questions the reliability of individual parts of the performance, as if each were a witness deposition� Terror can be considered a participatory play in which the spectator is “offered an exemplary dilemma, similar to those facing human beings engaged in decisions about how to act” - a dilemma that can help each audience member “hone his own sense of the evaluation of reasons, of their discussion and of Lay Judges and Lay Actors� Emancipating the Spectator 119 the choice that arrives at a decision” (Rancière 4)� Zeugen! , by contrast, is an investigative play in which the spectator is “shown a strange, unusual spectacle, a mystery whose meaning he must seek out” (Rancière 4)� Both modes encourage spectators to stop being passive viewers and to become “agents of a collective practice” (Rancière 8)� What counts in this process of activation and emancipation of the spectator is not the answer each member of the audience finds for themselves at the end of the investigation, or when making a decision, but rather the troublesome perception of how uncertain each individual’s own judgment can be - the feeling of disorientation each person experiences when faced with the complexity of the real� Notes 1 Recent scholarship has demonstrated that spectatorship as a cultural and social practice was extremely influential in the development of innovative dramaturgies even in early modern Europe (see Gvozdeva et al�; Korneeva)� 2 See in particular Hochholdinger-Reiterer et al� for fresh perspectives on the aesthetics of interactive, immersive, and participatory performances in contemporary German theater� 3 The film was titled TERROR - Ihr Urteil and starred popular actors such as Florian David Fitz, Martina Gedeck, Burghart Klaußner, and Lars Eidinger; spectators could vote from home to determine the end of the trial� 4 The English version is by David Tushingham� 5 The present analysis is principally based on these materials; there also exists a radio drama called Zeugen! Ein Verhör that aired for the first time on Deutschlandradio Berlin in December 2004� Even though this audio rendition of the play provides further insights into the project and its aims, it in fact constitutes a separate text with a different structure and specific medial prerogatives, akin to the screen adaptation of Terror � The audio play is available online for download at https: / / www�hoerspielpark�de/ website/ titel/ zeugen� 6 Terror is the first part of a not yet completed dramatic trilogy in which the audience has a say in each outcome� The second play, Gott , was published in 2020 and presents a controversial case of euthanasia� 7 For a philosophical reading, see Hübl 49—59� 8 See https: / / terror�theater/ � By 1 October 2021 nearly 550,000 spectators from all five continents have seen the play. Apart from in Japan, where spectators voted for the pilot’s conviction in the majority of performances, the verdict was almost always 60: 40 for acquittal. When the film was screened on Das Erste , spectators could vote too, via telephone and the internet: the result 120 Daniele Vecchiato was 86�9% for acquittal in Germany, with similar numbers in Austria and Switzerland. A political talk show was screened at the end of the film and the conversation continued on social media under the hashtag #TerrorIhrUrteil , creating an online community that seemed to emerge as a surrogate for the exchange that normally unfolds after an in-theater show� 9 Any effort to look at the play from a strictly legal perspective - as criminal lawyer Wolfgang Schild, for example, attempted (see Schild 7—47) - thus remains unsatisfactory� 10 The debate on human dignity in times of terror is something Ferdinand von Schirach has dealt with in other writings, for example in the essay “Die Würde der Menschen ist anstastbar” (Schirach, Würde 5—17) and in the speech “Machen Sie unbedingt weiter,” which he gave when presenting the M100 Sanssouci Media Award to Charlie Hebdo and which is printed as a paratext to Terror in the German edition of the play (Schirach, Terror 149—64)� On the concept of Menschenwürde in Terror , see Graff 10—13. 11 Schirach returns to this in an interview on Terror when asked about the appropriateness of drama as the form for the content of his play: “Ein Gerichtsverfahren eignet sich für die Bühne, weil im Grunde jedes Strafverfahren einem Bühnenstück ähnlich ist� Es folgt einer Dramaturgie, Theater und Gericht haben nicht zufällig die gleichen Ursprünge� Auch heute ‘spielen’ die Beteiligten in einem Gericht die Tat nach - natürlich nicht durch Handlung, aber durch Sprache” (Schirach and Baur 28)� 12 The reference can be found in Schirach’s essay on Leo Rosenthal, “Die Bühne der Weimarer Republik” (Schirach, Würde 52—53)� See Stenzel 214� 13 Cf� Vismann, Medien 17—96� For a broader discussion of Vismann’s categories in relation to Schirach’s drama, see Canaris 293—95 and Stenzel 214—17� 14 The “experts of the everyday” have become a defining element in Rimini Protokoll’s theater (see Dreyesse and Malzacher; Rimini Protokoll and Marié)� For an overview of the collective’s dramaturgy, see the edited volumes by Fournier et al� and Birgfeld et al� 15 One of the few video clips of the performance available, which shows a timid courtroom drafter introducing herself to the audience, provides a good example of how these “experts” take the stage: “Ich bin Constanze Schargan� Ich habe bis vor zwei Jahren Graphik studiert und arbeite seitdem als Gerichtszeichnerin und illustriere auch Kinderbücher� Was mich im Zeichnen besonders interessiert, ist die Abbildung von Wirklichkeit, d�h� meine eigene persönliche künstlerische Freiheit stelle ich gerne in den Dienst der Wahrheit� […] Vor Gericht genau zu zeichnen und realistisch, ist natürlich besonders wichtig, weil ich das Bild herstelle, was die Menschen Lay Judges and Lay Actors� Emancipating the Spectator 121 hinterher von einem anderen haben werden� Dies hier zum Beispiel war ein Bahnunglück� Das ist der Angeklagte […]� Hier steht ungefähr die Pressebank, dann geht der Raum insofern weiter, als dass dort die Richterbank steht; und hier ist die Seite der Staatsanwaltschaft, bzw� die Gutachterseite� Von hier hat man einen nicht besonders guten Blick auf den Angeklagten, man sieht ihn nur seitlich oder sogar von hinten, und deshalb versuche ich, so oft wie möglich in die Gutachterposition zu kommen, dann sitze ich dem Angeklagten direkt gegenüber und habe auch besseres Licht […]� Im Gericht zu zeichnen ist insofern einfacher als an anderen Orten, weil die Angeklagten sehr oft an einer ganz bestimmten Position verharren und man sie dort ganz gut zeichnen kann�” File schargan-erklaert-bilder.mov provided by Rimini Protokoll, Min� 00�00—00�27; 00�43—01�50� 16 See Kohse� Other reviews of the play highlight the element of rupture and surprise in the drama; see for example Barth, Mansmann, and Kickau� 17 In a follow-up interview to the project, actress Franziska Henschel, who played the courtroom drafter in the performance (see note 15), observed that “Lügen vor Gericht ist ja eine Straftat, wie ein Lügen im Theater eine Verabredung ist� Wenn ich mich auf die Bühne stelle und sage, ‘Guten Tag, ich bin die Jungfrau von Orleans und ich komme gerade aus der Schlacht,’ dann ist das erstmal eine Verabredung, die niemand in Frage stellt� Da meldet sich niemand aus dem Publikum und sagt, das stimmt doch gar nicht […]� Während, wenn ich mich ins Gericht stelle und sage, ‘Ich bin die Jungfrau von Orleans,’ dann ist das einfach eine Lüge� Und das fand ich sozusagen spannend�” Unpublished interview of 16 January 2004, provided by Rimini Protokoll� 18 This seems to be a key element for Rimini Protokoll� As collective member Daniel Wenzel stated in an interview, “the political element in these projects is a kind of disorientation� We agree when working together that there’ll be no statement, no message, no stance with respect to the topic in hand” (Boenisch 112)� 19 See Canaris for a discussion of the category of Unterbrechung as it relates to Terror � Works Cited Barth, Siegfried� “Das Gericht ist ein Theater� Das große Justiztheater: Die Gruppe Rimini-Protokoll bringt ‘Zeugen! ’ nach Hannover - eine Ko-Produktion mit dem Hebbel-Theater Berlin�” rimini-protokoll.de � Rimini Protokoll, 30 Jan� 2004� Web� 6 Oct� 2021� 122 Daniele Vecchiato Bauer, Manuel� “Der geschundene Mensch� Ferdinand von Schirach oder Der Anwalt als Erzähler�” Dichterjuristen. Studien zur Poesie des Rechts vom 16. bis 21. Jahrhundert � Ed� Yvonne Nilges� Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2014� 281—96� Birgfeld, Johannes, Ulrike Garde, and Meg Mumford, eds� Rimini Protokoll Close-Up. Lektüren � Hannover: Wehrhahn, 2015� Boenisch, Peter� “Other People Live� Rimini Protokoll and their Theatre of Experts�” Contemporary Theatre Review 18�1 (2008): 107—13� Brauneck, Manfred� “Ein Spiel, nicht mehr und nicht weniger� Dramaturgische Anmerkungen�” Terror. Das Recht braucht eine Bühne. Essays, Hintergründe, Analysen � Ed� Bernd Schmidt� München: Btb, 2020� 49—66� Burzyńska, Anna R., ed. Joined Forces. Audience Participation in Theatre � Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2016� Canaris, Johanna� “Mit der Politik ins Gericht gehen� Die politische Dimension des Gerichtsdramas am Beispiel von Ferdinand von Schirachs Terror (2015) und Elfriede Jelinkes Das schweigende Mädchen (2014)�” Das Politische in der Literatur der Gegenwart � Ed� Stefan Neuhaus and Immanuel Nover� Berlin/ Boston: De Gruyter, 2019� 291—308� Dreysse, Miriam, and Florian Malzacher, eds� Experten des Alltags. Das Theater von Rimini Protokoll � Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2007� Frieze, James, ed� Reframing Immersive Theatre. The Politics and Pragmatics of Participatory Performance � London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016� Fournier, Anne, Paola Gilardi, Andreas Härter, and Claudia Maeder, eds� Rimini Protokoll � Bern: Peter Lang, 2015� Graff, Max. Literarische Dimensionen der Menschenwürde. Exemplarische Analysen zur Bedeutung des Menschenwürdebegriffs in der deutschsprachigen Literatur seit der Frühaufklärung � Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 2017� Gvozdeva, Tanja, Tatiana Korneeva, and Kirill Ospovat, eds� Dramatic Experience. The Poetics of Drama and the Early Modern Public Sphere(s) � Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2016� Hochholdinger-Reiterer, Beate, Géraldine Boesch, and Marcel Behn, eds� Publikum im Gegenwartstheater � Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2018� Hübl, Philipp� Die aufgeregte Gesellschaft. Wie Emotionen unsere Moral prägen und die Polarisierung verstärken � Sonderausgabe� Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2020� Kickau, Ulrike� “Wahrheit oder Täuschung? Rimini Protokoll im Frankfurter Mousonturm�” rimini-protokoll.de � Rimini Protokoll, 15 Oct� 2004� Web� 6 Oct� 2021� Kohse, Petra� “Die Rollenspiele am Landgericht Moabit� Am Berliner Theater am Ufer werden Gerichtsrituale erforscht: ‘Zeugen! ’ heißt das neueste Stück der Realitätstheatergruppe Rimini Protokoll�” rimini-protokoll.de � Rimini Protokoll, 13 Jan� 2004� Web� 6 Oct� 2021� Korneeva, Tatiana� The Dramaturgy of the Spectator. Italian Theatre and the Public Sphere (1600 - 1800) � Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2019� Lehmann, Hans-Thies� “Unterbrechung� Wie politisch ist postdramatisches Theater? ” Das Politische Schreiben � Berlin: Theater der Zeit, 2002� 11—21� Lay Judges and Lay Actors� Emancipating the Spectator 123 ---� Postdramatic Theatre [ Postdramatisches Theater , 1999]� Transl� Karen Jürs-Munby� London/ New York: Routledge, 2006� Malzacher, Florian� Gesellschaftsspiele. Politisches Theater heute � Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2020� Mansmann, Nora� “Zeugen! Ein Strafkammerspiel�” rimini-protokoll.de � Rimini Protokoll, 12 Jan� 2004� Web� 6 Oct� 2021� Müller-Frank, Stefanie� “Zeugen des Alltags� Sie heißen Rimini-Protokoll und wollen mehr Wirklichkeit im Theater� Morgen startet ihr ‘Strafkammerspiel’�” rimini-protokoll.de � Rimini Protokoll, 9 Jan� 2004� Web� 6 Oct� 2021� Rancière, Jacques� The Emancipated Spectator [ Le spectateur emancipé , 2008]� Transl� Gregory Elliott� London: Verso, 2011� Rau, Milo� “Wir sind alle Spezialisten� Rimini Protokoll und die Rekonstruktion der Wirklichkeit�” rimini-protokoll.de. Rimini Protokoll, 17 Feb� 2004� Web� 6 Oct� 2021� Rimini Protokoll� Zeugen! Ein Strafkammerspiel. 28� Dezember 2003 . TS� Personal collection of Rimini Protokoll� ---� Zeugen! Ein Verhör. Deutschlandradio, Berlin, Dec� 2004� Radio� Rimini Protokoll, and Caroline Marié� “Professioneller Dilettantismus�” rimini-protokoll. de � Rimini Protokoll, 7 Sept� 2010� Web� 6 Oct� 2021� Schild, Wolfgang� Verwirrende Rechtsbelehrung. Zu Ferdinand von Schirachs “Terror.” Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2016� Schirach, Ferdinand von� Terror. Ein Theaterstück und eine Rede � München: Btb Verlag, 2016� ---� Die Würde ist antastbar. Essays � München: Btb, 2017� ---� Gott. Ein Theaterstück � München: Luchterhand, 2020� Schirach, Ferdinand von, and Alexander Kluge� “Terror oder die Klugheit des Rechts�” Die Herzlichkeit der Vernunft � München: Luchterhand, 2017� 105—33� Schirach, Ferdinand von, and Detlev Baur� “‘Als Helden bleiben nur das Recht und die Moral�’ Über das Theater, die Kritik und die Gesellschaft�” Terror. Das Recht braucht eine Bühne. Essays, Hintergründe, Analysen � Ed� Bernd Schmidt� München: Btb, 2020� 27—36� Schmidt, Bernd, ed� Terror. Das Recht braucht eine Bühne. Essays, Hintergründe, Analysen � München: Btb, 2020� Stenzel, Julia� “Die Polis im Netz� Verhandlungen von Ferdinand von Schirachs Theatertext TERROR �” Inszenierung von Recht. Funktionen - Modi - Interaktionen. Ed� Laura Münkler and Julia Stenzel� Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2019� 208—32� TERROR - Ihr Urteil � Dir� Lars Kraume� Perf� Burghart Klaussner, Martina Gedeck, Florian David Fitz, Lars Eidinger, Jördis Triebel, and Rainer Bock� Constantin Film, 2016� DVD� Vismann, Cornelia� “Neulich im Theater� Warum muß Hamlet sich vor keinem Gericht verantworten, für seinen zweifachen Mord, an Polonius und an Claudius? ” rimini-protokoll.de � Rimini Protokoll, 2004� Web� 6 Oct� 2021� ---� Medien der Rechtsprechung � Ed� Alexandra Kemmerer and Markus Krajewski� Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2011� Between Theater and Courtroom: Theatricality, Performativity, and Citational Practices in Milo Rau’s Die Zürcher Prozesse Richard McClelland University of Bristol Abstract: Since founding his production company The International Institute of Political Murder in 2007, Swiss-born director Milo Rau has produced critically acclaimed and award-winning theater� Rau’s dramaturgy centers on the effort to engage with the real, to uncover the hidden patterns and processes that underpin contemporary reality, and in turn to open these up to future engagement� In Die Zürcher Prozesse (2013), Rau facilitated a trial in which the Swiss weekly magazine Die Weltwoche was charged with infringing the Swiss constitution� In this analysis, I consider what implications the theatrical framework has in an event that purports to “put reality on trial”� Drawing on theories of citation proposed by John Langshaw Austin and Jacques Derrida, I examine the role of performativity in the production to demonstrate how the theatrical frame creates a rich citational interplay that destabilizes the relationship between the production and reality� In turn, this raises questions about the nature of contemporary life - an issue that lies at the heart of Rau’s dramaturgical practices� Keywords: Milo Rau, John Langshaw Austin, Jacques Derrida, citation, speech act theory, Die Zürcher Prozesse, justice on stage Over three days in May 2013, the Swiss weekly magazine Die Weltwoche was put on trial for overstepping the limits of journalistic freedom to the detriment of third parties and civil society� The three articles that formed the case against the publication were each based on a specific infringement of the Swiss Criminal Code: “Schreckung der Bevölkerung” ( Schweizerisches Strafgesetzbuch , Art� 258); “Diskriminierung und Aufruf zu Hass” (Art� 261); and “Gefährdung der verfassungsmässigen Ordnung” (Art� 275)� Though these supposed constitutional infringements were real, the trial itself was not: it carried no legal weight and 126 Richard McClelland was, in fact, a piece of theater� Die Zürcher Prozesse , as the event was known, was the latest production by Swiss director Milo Rau and the courtroom was a stage inside Zurich’s Theater Neumarkt� During the production, lawyers and specialist witnesses, acting in their real-life professional capacities and not performing a theatrical role, were called to the dock in hearings that took place over three afternoons, each dedicated to one of the constitutional infringements listed above� Each day, both the prosecution - acting on behalf of the Swiss population - and the defense - representing the Weltwoche - presented evidence as part of the case; wide-ranging discussions questioned the role of the press in contemporary life, the protection of minority groups within civil society, and the potential limits of free speech� While this took place, a representative seven-member jury, drawn from the wider population of Zurich, weighed up the evidence that was presented to them and considered whether a point should exist at which freedom of expression should be curtailed to protect society as a whole� The jury delivered its verdict on the third and final day of the trial: the Weltwoche was acquitted by six votes to one� The jurors were clear: “Die Meinungsfreiheit und Meinungsvielfalt erachten wir als ein sehr wertvolles Gut” (Rau, Die Zürcher Prozesse 154)� Employing an analogy drawn from soccer, the foreperson Erika Nart explained: “Der Ball hat die Linie berührt, diese aber nicht übertreten” (154)� In short, though the prosecution had raised important truths about the role of the press in contemporary Switzerland, they were found to be too insubstantial; freedom of expression, itself enshrined in the Swiss Constitution ( Bundesverfassung der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft, Art� 16), was found to be paramount, even in the face of the perceived hurt caused by the Weltwoche ’s alleged infringements of the Swiss Criminal Code� Had the publication been found guilty, however, the legal outcome of the trial would have been the same� As a theatrical event, Die Zürcher Prozesse carried no legal weight� Though it followed Swiss legal proceedings, centered on apparently real charges and featured individuals performing in their professional and official capacities, the event was a construct that simulated court proceedings as closely as possible� It is important to stress, however, that Rau’s production was no mere diversionary entertainment� In fact, Die Zürcher Prozesse responded to a perceived frustration with the Swiss justice system: real-life efforts to bring action against the Weltwoche on similar grounds had been rejected before they came to trial (see Bossart 6)� In this way, Die Zürcher Prozesse mirrors Rau’s theater as a whole� In all of the work that he has produced with his company, the International Institute of Political Murder (founded in 2007), Rau has engaged synecdochally with wider problems perceived to exist in contemporary society� In his productions, theater functions as an arena in which to explore Between Theater and Courtroom: Milo Rau’s Die Zürcher Prozesse 127 the patterns and processes that underpin and shape our understandings of contemporary reality, and the political implications that recognizing these might have� What is especially important in Rau’s project is that these theatrical interrogations of contemporary life often possess a utopian element� For Rau, his productions are not simply the negotiation of past events in the present, but rather represent the future-becoming of discourse and our potential responses to how the future might take shape (see Rau, Was tun? )� Considered in this way, Die Zürcher Prozesse becomes not simply an opportunity to discuss the Weltwoche ’s supposed past constitutional infringements� Rather, the production is an opportunity to generate a broader, future-facing discussion on the limits and responsibilities of individuals and the media regarding freedom of expression as this intersects with other legally protected rights� Die Zürcher Prozesse gestures therefore beyond its potentially narrow foundations to broader societal concerns� As Rolf Bossart states: “ Die Weltwoche ist nur Anlass und Ausgangspunkt, um ein politisch-mediales System in einem Zeitalter sich verhärtender ideologischer Fronten und eines wegbrechenden Wertekonsens zu untersuchen” (8)� Moreover, in the Swiss context the role of the production takes on a greater importance because the state is a direct democracy in which media outlets represent an important platform in the formation of public opinion� As Bossart continues: “Es geht um die Untersuchung eines viel größeren Systems - des Systems Schweiz� Panorama, Panoptikum, Schaulager” (9)� By facilitating an alternative forum in which a potentially necessary public debate could take place that had been denied in reality, then, the event in fact acted as a supplement to reality itself� As outlined above, although Die Zürcher Prozesse is framed as a theatrical event, both the materials that form the basis of the investigation, and the bodies that participate through their presence on the stage, are real� This means that Die Zürcher Prozesse is marked by a blurring of the real and the fictional that not only has an impact on how the audience should understand the production, but also on how participants should approach their involvement� It is precisely this blurring of the real and the fictional that meant that not all invited parties felt that the production was an appropriate forum in which they could participate� One such individual was Roger Köppel, who became the Weltwoche ’s chief editor in 2001 and has been its publisher since 2006� In an interview originally published in the Weltwoche , Köppel justified his refusal to participate by stating: “Der echte Roger Köppel kann nicht vor einem falschen Gericht stehen” (Bandle et al� 21)� 1 The present paper takes this statement as its point of departure to explore both the relationship between non-representational theater and reality, and how such theater can contribute to social debates� At the same time, it considers why the courtroom is a productive forum for the study of these dynamics� 128 Richard McClelland The first part of the article examines how Rau deliberately and provocatively plays with the inherent theatricality of the courtroom in a way that destabilizes the opposition that Köppel asserts between the real and the fictional and upon which he bases his opposition to participation in the production� The second part extends the discussion to J� L� Austin’s speech act theory (1962) to consider the performative dynamics of the real courtroom scenario as this relates to the theatricalized one in Die Zürcher Prozesse � The third part turns to Jacques Derrida’s discussion of Austin in his essay “Signature Event Context” (1988) to destabilize further the perceived binary opposition between the real and play in Rau’s production� Using Austin and Derrida in this way not only facilitates the deconstruction of the relationship between the real and the fictional as manifest in Rau’s production, but also brings into focus how Die Zürcher Prozesse opens up a space for debate that might be precluded in closed, dramatic courtroom theater. Finally, the study considers the potential efficacy of Rau’s production as a piece of theater without legal weight as it relates to the broader societal debates that Rau seeks to provoke through his productions� As demonstrated throughout, the deconstruction of the binary opposition between the real and the theatrical in Rau’s production results in a rich citational interplay that has bearing on everyday reality� This raises the question: does the theater quote the practices of the courtroom, or the courtroom the practices of the theater? By investigating this question through a non-representational production that places a theatrical frame around the real without fictionalizing it, this paper argues that Die Zürcher Prozesse facilitates a productive, alternative public forum that gives space to a key debate that affects contemporary life not just in Switzerland, but across the globe� Theatricality is an integral part of public life� It is often used to aid the conceptualization of abstract notions to the individual, including abstract categories such as “nation,” “monarchy,” and “freedom” - as well as the law (see Nield 284)� As the contributions to this special issue attest, there is a well-established link between the theatrical and the legal that has brought the latter to the stage numerous times� This also works in reverse, however� The British judiciary, for example, abounds with the theatrical both in practice and in the popular imagination� From the set roles and blocking of the courtroom itself to the dull swishes of black gowns and horsehair wigs, the court is a highly theatrical space� It is important to note, however, that the connections between the two institutions go much deeper� Theatricality and performance are inherent features of the legal process and a vital part of its claims to legitimacy� As Karen Crawley and Kieran Tranter outline, “the criminal trial is a complex performance of space and bodies, of forms and formalism, of words spoken and ritual undertaken” Between Theater and Courtroom: Milo Rau’s Die Zürcher Prozesse 129 (621)� What is more, the high level of theatricality and the public-facing position this facilitates are an integral part of the legal process� As Crawley and Tranter continue: “visuality is considered a hallmark of a just, functioning criminal law” (622)� This is supported by Nield, who states that the traditions of the courtroom “imbue the process with dignity and authority, they make up the ‘face’ of the legal process itself, and it is through these signs and signifiers that the public recognizes its legitimacy” (287)� Likewise, Graham White, speaking of the Hague Tribunals, highlights that “the ‘play’ of the courtroom is crucial to the reception of the event’s significance outside of the space” (79). Die Zürcher Prozesse reflects the theatricality of the courtroom in a number of ways� At the same time, however, these conventions are adapted to make concessions to theatrical spectatorship� The particular mise-en-scène of the production manifests the blending of the real of the court and the fictional of the theater that I outline above, while drawing on the theatricality of both� For example, participants are placed on the stage in a semi-circle (as one moves from stage right to stage left: the jury, the witness stand, the judge’s bench, the prosecution, and the defense) and so the focal point falls center stage, directly in the audience’s line of sight� Though this arrangement restructures the courtroom for the stage, such deliberate theatrical framing may have had little impact on how participants behaved during the production� Images of the event show participants addressing the jury or other members of the production from this central focal point, but often facing away from the audience� This suggests the presence of a fourth wall that simultaneously separates the participants from the spectators, while also acknowledging a spatial co-presence with a requisite audience, as can be recognized in the public gallery in an actual courtroom� More overt theatrical features included a glass interpreter’s box (from which Swiss German was interpreted into High German), cameras and screens that were used to project footage of the trial above the stage, and a clapperboard used to mark the start and end of individual sessions� The presentation of these media elements mirrors Rau’s other theatrical projects; presenting materials in this way not only draws attention to the role of the media in the dissemination of the legal process, but also serves to increase the considered theatricality of Rau’s production beyond the theatricality of the courtroom itself� The inclusion of an on-stage jury during Die Zürcher Prozesse provided an interesting dynamic that contributed to the theatricality of the production� The seven-member panel were present on the stage during the three hearings and delivered the final verdict on the third day. Though juries had been a feature of Swiss criminal courts in the past, they were abolished in 2011 (see Hürlimann)� Rau’s choice to include a jury in Die Zürcher Prozesse two years later raises the question of his dramaturgical intent� On the one hand, if one considers that the 130 Richard McClelland telos of the theatrical production, as with a real-life trial, is the final judgment, then the jury’s presence is potentially redundant� After all, the judge could reach a verdict without their participation� On the other hand, the jury serves an important, dual dramaturgical function: not only does its presence on the stage highlight that this trial is, in fact, theater, but this presence potentially extends a frame of participation outwards to the spectators seated in the auditorium� As Rau notes, the jury is a concession to the audience to maintain a different level of interest beyond that of the trial proper (see Das geschichtliche Gefühl 108)� During the trial, the jury received information and heard statements at the same time as the audience� This shared experience of events provides the individual spectator with an opportunity to link their own interpretation of proceedings with that of the public voice present on the stage� This adds weight to the outcome: as a supposedly representative group of people (though Rau does not go into further detail), the prospect of the jury’s decision at the end of the production incorporated a level of tension into proceedings� This tension can be seen in the press coverage of the production, which emphasizes the outcome of the production over the content of the discussions that took place during it (see Müller)� The clear, but ultimately open, teleology of Die Zürcher Prozesse does, of course, mirror actual legal trials: the simultaneous pronouncement and enactment of justice at the end of a trial is the decisive factor of the proceedings� Dramaturgically, however, there is also a clear affinity between the flow of Die Zürcher Prozesse and more traditional dramatic structures� One can see this at a basic level insofar as the production can be understood as the unfolding of action through conflict that results in a resolution. That there are deeper structural affinities to drama is explored by Rau in the third of the lectures that he gave when he held the Saarbrücker Poetikdozentur für Dramatik in 2017� As he outlines, there are clear parallels between the different stages of the production and those of a traditional five-act tragic drama: “Die Eröffnungssitzung (Exposition), die drei Fälle (in ansteigender Intensität), schließlich die Schlussplädoyers und die Urteilsfindung (Auflösung)” ( Das geschichtliche Gefühl 113)� This structure is emphasized through the arrangement of the trial across three consecutive days: the opening session was held on the evening of the first day, beginning at 19: 15; on day two, sessions covered the first and second charges against the Weltwoche ( Schreckung der Bevölkerung and Rassendiskriminierung ) with an interval of an hour between the two; and the third day opened with the final charge ( Gefährdung der Verfassungsmässigen Ordnung ) before moving in the afternoon to the closing session and statements and, from just after 19: 00, sentencing� The potential link to dramatic structure is emphasized in the official publication and transcript of the production, which includes frequent references to moments of Between Theater and Courtroom: Milo Rau’s Die Zürcher Prozesse 131 tension and audience anticipation that rise and fall across each of the individual sessions, as well as to the potentially cathartic effect of the final outcome of the event� 2 As Rau continues, this structure has an important effect in relation to the production as it emerges as a piece of theater: “Was entsteht, ist nichts weniger als ein Live-Archiv der agonalen Gesten einer bestimmten politischen Fundamental-Differenz” ( Das geschichtliche Gefühl 113)� Here one can identify why the debate is more important for Rau than the outcome - a point discussed below� The theater, as an agonistic space lacking a legally binding outcome, has facilitated a dialogue between opposing parties that would be impossible in reality. In this respect, the theater has effectively supplanted official court proceedings� It is clear from the above discussion that the courtroom is a highly theatricalized space� Rau’s Die Zürcher Prozesse plays with this by producing a heightened judicial theatricality� That is, the production layers the theatricality of the theater over that of the courtroom through the dramaturgical structures that the director employs, not least through the inclusion of a jury in the event� What is more, parallels between the five-act structure of tragic drama and Die Zürcher Prozesse serve to heighten the dynamic of productive exchange between the prosecution and defense, which, through the very fact of it taking place at all, potentially surpasses the courtroom itself� There is an important distinction to be drawn between strictly theatrical events that take place in the theater itself and theatricalized processes as more broadly conceived and which happen in the real world outside the theater� In what follows, this difference is articulated through a consideration of performance and performativity as behavioral and speech categories that are simultaneously part of, and different to, the theatrical. As Julie Stone Peters outlines, theater differs from performance both “analytically” and “ontologically�” That is: “Where theatre is mimesis (imitation), performance is methexis (participation); where theatre is pretending, performance is real” (184)� In this argument one can recognize a justification for Köppel’s assertion that he cannot participate in the production as a “real man” (see Bandle et al� 21): that is, even if performativity is embedded in everyday life, at a fundamental level this is different to the theatrical framework that is applied to the courtroom in Die Zürcher Prozesse � However, the role of the theatrical in the performative processes of a real courtroom cannot be underestimated� This is echoed by Nield, who argues that theatricalized events in society entail “both presentation and execution […] performance […] [and the] fact of the event” (284)� This undoubtedly holds true for the law� It is the performative process that underpins the complex of legal theatricality that is important here because it has a direct effect on the individual. As Stone Peters 132 Richard McClelland states, “it has been argued [that] law is the ultimate performative institution: producing the framework of subjecthood and subjectivity through discursive acts” (185)� Both performance and performativity, are therefore essential categories of any legal proceeding, as Arjomand (1) argues� The role and function of the performative as an essential feature of the legal process is outlined by J. L. Austin in his influential text How to do Things with Words , originally delivered as a series of lectures at Harvard University in 1955� In Austin’s definition, the performative is that category of “utterances” that function in such a way that they “do not ‘describe’ or ‘report’ what the speaker means to convey” (5)� Rather it is their utterance that “is, or is part of, the doing of an action” (5)� The classic example given by Austin is the Christian wedding ceremony’s proclamation “I do (sc� take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife)”: by pronouncing these words the action that they represent comes into effect (5). When applied to the courtroom, the “performative utterance” is the judgment pronounced at the end of the trial� Though the judgment and its legal consequences for the bodies in the courtroom have been decided in advance, it is only in and through the act of pronouncing the judgment that it becomes legally binding� Austin goes on to state that, while the performative utterance is an integral part of the enacting of the act itself, this is not the sole contributing factor to it taking effect (8). The performative is not only dependent upon the “circumstances” of the utterance being “appropriate,” but also upon the performance of an accompanying gesture� When one considers that Die Zürcher Prozesse is a theatrical production that reproduces the procedures of the courtroom within a clear theatrical frame, it is clear that the circumstances appropriate to the performativity of the trial are not met� As a result, the theatrical framework precludes legal implication - a reality that was decided in advance and is clear to all participants� Likewise, the theatrical frame means that, while any supposedly appropriate gestures enacted by participants are in fact performance, they are crucially not performative� Die Zürcher Prozesse , then, by virtue of its very nature as a theatrical event, is not a sham precisely because it does not deny that it is theater� Austin explicitly mentions the stage as one of a number of fictional frameworks that render the performative as “hollow or void” (22)� He does so in his presentation of the so-called “doctrine of the Infelicities ” (Austin 14—15; emphasis original), a seemingly exhaustive list that outlines how the uttering of a performative can go wrong� The stage, for Austin, produces circumstances in which language is used in a non-serious way, which he states to be “parasitic” upon its normal usage� That is, an utterance made on the stage undermines the pure use of language that Austin requires for the performative to be enacted by Between Theater and Courtroom: Milo Rau’s Die Zürcher Prozesse 133 fictionalizing it deliberately. If this aspect of Austin’s argument is applied to Die Zürcher Prozesse , it would follow that Rau’s staged courtroom and any performativity that might occur during the production feeds on and exploits the pure usage of language that Austin demands� However, Rau’s production actually undermines Austin’s notion of parasitic language itself� This rests on the fact that the production is not simply a piece of dramatic theater� As outlined in the introduction, the individuals who appear in the production are performing in their real-world competencies in a self-conscious way� In Stone Peters’ sense of the term, the lawyers performing in Die Zürcher Prozesse behave as they do on the stage because it is their job� They act in a way that emulates real-life processes. What is more, there is a fundamental difference in form and nature between this production and famous courtroom scenes from dramatic literature� This is an open-ended production: neither the procedures, though shaped by Rau in advance, nor the outcome, are fully and exclusively pre-determined by him� That is, though participants in Rau’s production are fully aware that they are taking part in a theatricalized courtroom event with no legal weight, the words and actions they perform are not scripted as they would be if they were actors performing in a drama� Their use of language is not, therefore, parasitic as Austin describes it, precisely because this is not pre-scripted dramatic theater� But this does not mean that performative language features in the production as it would in real life. As described above, the efficacy of the performative is negated in this production because of the theatrical context� Die Zürcher Prozesse is, after all, theater� Participants’ speech and actions might not be performative, but they are performance� Jacques Derrida deconstructs Austin’s concept of parasitic language in his essay “Signature Event Context” (1988)� He does so by looking at language and communication through two interrelated lenses� First, that of iterability: the ability of a sign (i�e�, a written or spoken word) to be repeatable in new contexts as a marker of its very status as a sign� Second, that of absence: the ability of a sign to function, and thereby communicate meaning, even when the speaker or writer is not present (see Derrida 5)� Put in other words, this is the ability of writing to communicate meaning to an addressee even if both partners are not in the same physical space� Derrida extends this further, stating that, in order for writing to be able to function fully as a carrier of meaning, it must be able to communicate meaning even in the absence or non-existence of the addressee� As he states, “writing that is not structurally readable-iterable-beyond the death of the addressee would not be writing” (7)� Derrida’s deconstruction of speech act theory and the prominence he places on iterability as part of the process of communication has several implications 134 Richard McClelland for our understanding of the theater� As Kevin Halion highlights, the theatrical spectator is only able to recognize that an actor is acting as though he is doing something because of the inherent iterability of language and its ability to communicate meaning (162)� That is, because language is repeatable in new contexts, we are able to understand that what happens on the stage is a play version of real life� To make such a recognition is to acknowledge the mimetic quality of the stage: the language spoken by the actor on the stage has been spoken previously outside of the theater and is now being reproduced in front of the audience� As Halion states, “any pretended act is logically posterior to some instance of the act it pretends to be” (162)� The act of citation has further implications for Derrida’s argument� In his discussion of Austin, Derrida does not distinguish between supposedly proper and supposedly parasitic usage of language� For Derrida the pure context that Austin demands for a performative utterance to be valid does not, and cannot, exist� To illustrate his point, Derrida demonstrates that, as a result of iterability, communication can work in both the absence of the referent (one can say “the sky is blue” and understand what is meant without seeing the sky) and, following Husserl’s understanding of crisis of meaning (that is, instances in which meaning is deliberately de-objectified or made incoherent, such as the sentence “the circle is squared”), in the absence of the signified (Derrida 11). By pushing the implications of this idea to its limit, Derrida demonstrates that there is no such thing as improper usage of language� There are no situations in which pure or parasitic language can occur, and so speech is always already simply speech� Citation is key here: through this process, one can quote signs in an infinite number of contexts. This act places, as it were, quotation marks around a sign to cite it� As Derrida continues, “in so doing it can break with every given context, engendering an infinity of new contexts in a manner which is absolutely illimitable” (12)� Whereas Austin sees speech acts determined, then, by the context in which they are said, Derrida argues that no such context exists� As outlined above, by implication there is no specific context in which an iteration can take place that has precedence over other iterations� Following this line of argument, to hear something said on stage is no longer to hear a parasitic utterance of a pre-existing, extra-theatrical, and supposedly pure utterance� Rather, it is but one iteration of an utterance among equals� Furthermore, owing to the absence of a pure context, one can no longer ascertain whether one is interpreting “play” or not� If there is no longer any objectively “parasitic” utterance, then there are no longer any objectively parasitic contexts: the boundary between the real and play breaks down� Between Theater and Courtroom: Milo Rau’s Die Zürcher Prozesse 135 That the boundary between the real and play might break down in this way is of importance when considered in relation to Die Zürcher Prozesse � As outlined above, for Austin, the context of the production would not be pure because it takes place within a theatrical framework and therefore all language uttered on the stage would be “parasitic�” In this view, the production feeds on and makes hollow the real-world courtroom� One could even expand Austin’s line of argument to categorize not just the on-stage language, but also the performance more generally, as parasitic� That is, the gestural mimesis that takes place on stage not only mimics supposedly real-life behavior, but also the contexts in which the performative (as defined by Austin) might manifest. This can be seen in Die Zürcher Prozesse in the pronouncement of the trial outcome, for example� If one brings Derrida’s argument into consideration, however, the very nature of the performance as play comes into question� As stated above, the participating lawyers and other experts (who are no less real that Roger Köppel himself) perform their real-life competencies during the production, but they do so within a clear theatrical framework� However, if the boundary between the real and play is broken down, then the spectator can never be sure that what is being performed on the stage is true to real life or true to theatrical representation� One might assume that a lawyer is acting as they would in a real criminal trial, but this cannot be taken for granted� It is significant here that the production does not carry legal weight because, even if participants were surpassing the boundaries of their normal behavior, this would carry no implications because their actions are not taking place under oath (itself another example of performative language)� They are free, in effect, to behave and act at will. At the same time, if this were a real trial, then the opposite is also true: as Halion outlines, even in a genuine court event, one can still not guarantee that all utterances are truthful (170)� That is, while no oath took place before Rau’s production, that one is taken in a courtroom is no guarantee of truth� It follows then that the absence of an oath in Die Zürcher Prozesse should therefore not be taken as an automatic marker of falsehood� As Halion argues, in the courtroom “any apparently normal promise may turn out not to be a promise, or to be a false promise or a non-serious promise, on consideration of different features of the context” (170). Halion goes on to extend this further, and effectively argues that the non-discernibility of pure context and truthful intent applies to all aspects of life� A key feature of this is the inherent theatricality that one finds in places like the courtroom: An utterance iterated on stage, during a play, is different from that same utterance made in the course of legal arguments in court� But in court the theatrical, the ritualistic, and the non-theatrical and non-ritualistic are often hard or impossible to tell 136 Richard McClelland apart� And it is not only on stage that there is pretence and play-acting; and it is not only in courts of law that there is unthinking ritual speech� […] One can [never] be sure that one has left play-acting behind� (170) Within the parameters of Derrida’s argument, then, it is impossible to differentiate between supposed fact and constructed fiction in Die Zürcher Prozesse � What is more, this can be extended to life more generally: one can potentially never differentiate between truth and play in a real courtroom. Köppel’s bombastic assertion, then, that he as a real man cannot appear before a false court, is revealed to be misguided because the opposition between such categories has been effectively deconstructed. The blending of the theatrical and the real in Die Zürcher Prozesse engenders a level of uncertainty in the production; both participants and spectators alike cannot be entirely certain that the events happening during the production are real or false� This should not be taken as grounds for dismissing the charges that form the heart of the accusations levied against the Weltwoche , however� As outlined at the start of this paper, Die Zürcher Prozesse facilitates a parallel forum in which debates precluded in real life can take place, and this remains the case in spite of the deconstruction of the truth/ play binary in and through the production� This is touched upon by the Austrian journalist and writer Robert Misik, who participated in the production as an expert witness for the prosecution. On the third and final day of the production, Misik made the following appeal to the members of the jury: Ich habe […] in meinem Einleitungsplädoyer gesagt, was wir hier erleben, ist einerseits Fiktion, weil es eine Theaterproduktion ist, aber andererseits ist es auch real� Und das heißt, das Urteil, vor dem Sie stehen, oder die Entscheidung, vor der Sie stehen, für die gilt dasselbe� Es ist rechtlich völlig bedeutungslos, aber es ist nicht irrelevant! Sie senden hier ein Signal� (Rau, Die Zürcher Prozesse 139) On the one hand, Misik is correct to state that the production delivers a message that is potentially of importance for the real world: though this is a theatrical production, the outcome (regardless of what this may have been) would have been disseminated and debated in the press, and potentially altered attitudes towards permissible topics and stances in journalism in Switzerland� On the other hand, while Misik’s statement carries a certain weight, not least as an appeal to those individuals who debated and made the decision, it downplays the importance of the trial as process� Rau himself argues that it is not so much the judgment reached by the jury that is important but rather the process that takes them to this point (cf� Müller 11)� Between Theater and Courtroom: Milo Rau’s Die Zürcher Prozesse 137 In this way, it is possible to link Die Zürcher Prozesse to other examples of heightened judicial theatricality from theater and dramatic history� In each case, rather than the outcome being important, what matters is the debate that is facilitated and, in turn, the potential pedagogical function that this might have� The journalist Tobi Müller, for example, links Die Zürcher Prozesse to Brecht’s didactic Lehrstücke of the 1920s and 30s (Müller 11)� For Müller, what is important is that both Rau and Brecht generate, or seek to generate, meaning through an experiential process� 3 That is, in both Brecht and Rau it is an individual’s participation in the theatrical event that is important� In the case of Brecht’s mass workers’ choirs, participation can or should result in a heightened or transformed political consciousness� In Rau’s production participation by the real individuals who form the jury or perform in their professional capacities on the stage might alter how they see and understand contemporary reality� While the experience of process is an important aspect of how these different theater events work, there is, however, a notable and major difference between a Lehrstück and Die Zürcher Prozesse � As commented above, the dramaturgy of Rau’s production is open, whereas that of Brecht’s plays is effectively closed. The Lehrstücke are enclosed textual objects that are performed on the stage; the realization that is encoded in them and enacted through participation is predetermined by the dramatist himself� 4 No such predetermination has taken place in Die Zürcher Prozesse � In the conversation held between Rau, Roger Köppel and the journalist Rico Bandle, the question of show trials is raised regarding Die Zürcher Prozesse and Rau’s earlier Die Moskauer Prozesse (2013) . Köppel and Bandle link the production to the show trials of the twentieth century, most notably those ordered by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s� 5 Rau states that, in their USSR context, such trials performed a political service in terms of the publication and dissemination of expected behavior and political attitudes (see Bandle et al� 20)� At the same time, however, he acknowledges that they represent a travesty of justice because their outcome was predetermined� By contrast, Die Zürcher Prozesse is dramaturgically open-ended and the comparison that Köppel and Bandle draw might be interpreted as a crude dismissal of Rau’s left-wing politics by the populist, rightwing press� What is important here is that, as Arjomand highlights, the term ‘show trial’ was not originally pejorative, but intended to highlight the didactic quality of the trials: “[The term ‘show trial’] conveyed two meanings at once: the courtroom as a didactic space (a space to show something) and as a theatrical space (a space for shows )” (3)� When Die Zürcher Prozesse is understood in this way, one can recognize how the production facilitates a space in which the debates surrounding the Weltwoche might be shown and explored in a public forum, which, as outlined above, has been denied outside of the theatrical context� 138 Richard McClelland As Rau discusses in his lectures for the Saarbrücker Poetikdozentur , the importance of the production as process is clear because of the potential didactic function that is serves� As he outlines, the structure of the courtroom, which brings together two opposing parties, was the perfect forum in which such a debate could take place. In his justification of the production, Rau outlines that the two parties - the Weltwoche and its supporters on the one hand, who see the publication as a bastion of liberalism and free speech, and those who oppose what they see as its populist tubthumping on the other - did not engage in debate (see Rau, Das geschichtliche Gefühl 112)� That is, the two parties talked about, but never with, each other� The production facilitates this engagement in two ways� First, it gives the debate a political exigency by placing it into a public forum� And second, that this public forum is the theater and not the court means that the legal immediacy of a real trial is negated and, as a result, the debate (and not any potential outcome) takes on an enhanced importance� As outlined at the start of this paper, Rau’s theater centers on the effort to present alternative visions of society to the public that are intended to trigger a debate on the nature of contemporary reality� It is clear that Die Zürcher Prozesse achieves this in two ways� First, the production questions both the role of the media in contemporary society and how this relates to the question of potential limitations on free speech� Second, the production can be considered as emblematic, insofar as the debate it facilitates can serve as a model for future engagement between antagonistic parties� Bossart relates this back to the role played by the actual courts themselves, highlighting in particular their role in the “Veröffentlichung von geschehenem bzw. vermutetem Unrecht” (7). That perceived injustice is made public and discussed is a key aspect of Rau’s theatrical project� This presents something of a paradox� On the one hand, the theater is potentially more efficacious than the courtroom despite its absolute legal impotence because it has facilitated a public debate� In Die Zürcher Prozesse , the nature of this debate is rooted in the temporality of the theatrical event, which happens in real time in front of an audience, and which works towards a future resolution for the conflict being discussed. The courts, however, seek resolution in the present for events that have already taken place� The court is not directed towards the future, but to the past� Theater of this kind therefore has an advantage over the courtroom� As Arjomand argues, “while legal judgment can only address the past, theater can teach judgment as a continual process” (6)� On the other hand, that Rau’s production does not carry legal weight potentially diminishes its ability to influence those involved. The lack of a binding judgment means there is no real reason for the individual, or the organizations they represent, to change� After all, one would not incur punishment by ignoring the Between Theater and Courtroom: Milo Rau’s Die Zürcher Prozesse 139 outcome of the event� Responsibility to act is therefore invested in the individual and not enforced by an external legal reality� This relates, for example, to Joe Kelleher’s belief that theater can never have the same effect on an individual as a real-life situation, even if they portray the same material (23)� One should keep in mind an important aspect of Rau’s production, however, when considering this opposition between the efficacy of the theater and that of the courtroom. As demonstrated, the relationship between the real and the fictional is destabilized throughout Die Zürcher Prozesse in multiple ways� Though Rau’s production draws attention to the theatricality and performativity intrinsic to legal processes, it is possible to see how notions of real and play intertwine fully in everyday life, as Halion argues� Multiple layers of theatricality and multiple forms of performativity affect and shape our relationship to a discernible reality� By revealing this to audience scrutiny, then, Rau’s production potentially facilitates the negotiation of a theatricalized, performative ‘real’ that marks experience outside of the theater� If this is the case, then, Roger Köppel is no less real, and no less false, than Die Zürcher Prozesse � Notes 1 It is important to note that, while Köppel refused to participate in the production, he did not refuse to have anything to do with it, as this interview and the coverage of the event in Die Weltwoche attests� In his statement, we can see Köppel taking the event at face value in a way that is both engaged and reactionary; he knows that the event will generate debate that he can spin to sell more copies of his magazine, but the dynamics of the production and his right-wing views means that he cannot participate in events directly (doing so would concede, perhaps, that there is some truth to the accusations being levied against his publication)� The interrelation of politics and the media in Switzerland mentioned above has intensified since the production: in 2015 Köppel became a member of the National Council for the right-wing Schweizerische Volkspartei � 2 For example, on the first evening of the production, the official transcript of the proceedings (which again mirrors legal practice) notes that “alle warten gespannt” (Rau, Die Zürcher Prozesse 28)� 3 For more information on Brecht’s Lehrstücke and the political theories that underpin this form of dramatic theater, see Mueller� 4 Admittedly Brecht did alter the texts of his Lehrstücke in response to audience feedback (as Mueller outlines)� However, this process still entails the pre-determination of action towards a fixed realization on the part of the 140 Richard McClelland participant� Neither the route to the outcome nor the outcome itself was fixed in this way in Rau’s production. 5 Rau’s 2013 Moscow-based production, Die Moskauer Prozesse utilizes the courtroom format discussed here� It provided a forum to discuss both sides of the Russian culture war as epitomized in the arrest and imprisonment of the band Pussy Riot in February 2012, and the subsequent international debate that this caused� Works Cited Arjomand, Minou� Staged: Show Trials, Political Theater, and the Aesthetics of Judgment. New York: Columbia UP, 2018� Austin, J� L� How to Do Things with Words � Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1962� Bandle, Rico, Roger Köppel, and Milo Rau� “Und dann ab in den Pranger�” Die Zürcher Prozesse � Ed� Milo Rau� Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag, 2014� 16—23� Bossart, Rolf� “Prolog� Die Weltwoche vor Gericht? ” Die Zürcher Prozesse � Ed� Milo Rau� Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag, 2014� 6—9� Bundesverfassung der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft , 18 April 1999� fedlex.admin.ch � Fedlex, n�d� Web� 18 July 2022� Crawley, Karen, and Kieran Tranter� “A Maelstrom of Bodies and Emotions and Things: Spectatorial Encounters with the Trial�” International Journal of Semiotic Law 32 (2019): 621—40� Derrida, Jacques� “Signature Event Context�” Limited Inc. Transl� Samuel Weber� Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1988� 1—23� Halion, Kevin� “Parasitic Speech Acts: Austin, Searle, Derrida�” Philosophy Today 36 (1992): 161—72� Hürlimann, Brigitte� “Der letzte Akt des Geschworenengerichts�” nzz.ch � Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 Sept� 2011� Web� 1 Oct� 2019� Kelleher, Joe� Theatre & Politics � Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009� Mueller, Rosawitha� “Learning for a new society: das Lehrstück �” The Cambridge Companion to Brecht. Ed� Peter Thompson and Glendyr Sacks� Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2006� 101—17� Müller, Tobi� “Das Theater als unmoralische Anstalt�” Die Zürcher Prozesse � Ed� Milo Rau� Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag, 2014� 10—15� Nield, Sophie� “How does theatricality legitimize the law? ” Thinking Through Theatre and Performance � Ed� Maaike Bleeker et al� London/ New York: Methuen Drama, 2019� 284—95� Rau, Milo� Das geschichtliche Gefühl. Wege zu einem globalen Realismus. Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2019� ---� Die Zürcher Prozesse � Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag, 2014� ---� Was tun? Kritik der postmodernen Vernunft. Zürich/ Berlin: Kein & Aber, 2013� Between Theater and Courtroom: Milo Rau’s Die Zürcher Prozesse 141 Schweizerisches Strafgesetzbuch , 21 Dec� 1937 (1 June 2022)� fedlex.admin.ch � Fedlex, n�d� Web� 1 Oct� 2019� Stone Peters, Julie� “Legal Performance Good and Bad�” Law, Culture and the Humanities 4 (2008): 179—200� White, Graham� “Witnessing Proceedings: The Hague War Crimes Tribunal, Narrative Indeterminacy, and the Public Audience�” The Drama Review 52 (2008): 75—87� Verzeichnis der Autor: innen Prof. Matthew Bell King’s College London Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures 22 Kingsway London WC2B 6LE United Kingdom matthew�bell@kcl�ac�uk Prof. Laura Bradley University of Edinburgh School of Literatures, Languages & Cultures 50 George Square Edinburgh EH8 9LH United Kingdom laura�bradley@ed�ac�uk Dr. Sophia Clark University of Central Oklahoma Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies 100 N University Dr Edmond, OK 73034 USA sclark45@uco�edu Dr. Richard McClelland University of Bristol School of Modern Languages 17 Woodland Road Bristol BS8 1TE United Kingdom richard�mcclelland@bristol�ac�uk Prof. Stefania Sbarra Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Culturali Comparati Dorsoduro 1405 - Fondamenta Zattere 30123 Venezia Italy stefania�sbarra@unive�it Prof. Benedict Schofield University of Bristol School of Modern Languages 17 Woodland Road Bristol BS8 1TE United Kingdom benedict.schofield@bristol.ac.uk Prof. Daniele Vecchiato Università degli Studi di Padova Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Letterari Via E� Vendramini 13 35137 Padova Italy daniele�vecchiato@unipd�it Prof. Benjamin Wihstutz Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz Institut für Film-, Theater-, Medien- und Kulturwissenschaft Jakob-Welder-Weg 18 55128 Mainz Germany wihstutz@uni-mainz�de BUCHTIPP Forum Modernes Theater untersucht das Theater in seinen kulturellen, ästhetischen und geschichtlichen Erscheinungsformen und gibt dabei allen Facetten der Fachdiskussion einschließlich kultur- und medienwissenschaftlicher Ansätze spartenübergreifend Raum. 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KG \ Dischingerweg 5 \ 72070 Tübingen \ Germany Tel. +49 (0)7071 97 97 0 \ Fax +49 (0)7071 97 97 11 \ info@narr.de \ www.narr.de ISSN 0010-1338 Themenheft: Staging Justice: Trials and the Law on the German Stage Gastherausgeber: Matthew Bell und Daniele Vecchiato Matthew Bell and Daniele Vecchiato: Staging Justice: Trials and the Law on the German Stage Matthew Bell: Society and the Sources of Legality in Goethe’s Die natürliche Tochter Stefania Sbarra: Kleists Käthchen von Heilbronn als Litotes von Goethes Grethchen in Faust. Ein Fragment Sophia Clark: Applause from the Jury: Büchner’s Dantons Tod Benedict Schofield: Displacing Justice? Looking for the Law in Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten Laura Bradley: Watching Spectatorship and Judgment: Trial Scenes in Brecht’s Epic Theater Benjamin Wihstutz: On Truth and Politics in German Documentary Theater of the 1960s: Hannah Arendt and Peter Weiss Daniele Vecchiato: Lay Judges and Lay Actors: Rimini Protokoll’s Zeugen! and Ferdinand von Schirach’s Terror Richard McClelland: Between Theater and Courtroom: Milo Rau’s Die Zürcher Prozesse narr.digital
