Theatre in Occupied Poland

This essay discusses the role of German language theatre in occupied Poland with a specific focus on the Gautheater in Posen/Poznań and the state theatre in Krakau/Kraków. In the first part of this essay, HEINRICH looks at the role of Poland in German discourse after 1918 with a specific focus on right-wing claims as to the continuing German character of large parts of the country. He then turns to Heinrich von Kleist’s role in Nazi Germany, an aspect WEIGEL discusses in greater detail in the following. He looks at his play Prince of Homburg in particular and the ways in which the Nazis attempted to incorporate the play into their ideology.