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In this play, Linney scrutinizes Hitler’s infamous second-in-command, Hermann Goering, behind the scenes at the Nuremberg trials. The trials against the leaders of Nazi Germany are about to begin. Hermann Goering, in the place of Adolf Hitler, leads the accused, and with his German counsel, Goering prepares his defense. Drug free and healthy from a spartan imprisonment, Goering is once again the formidable man who more than any other made Hitler Chancellor of Germany and built the engines of the Third Reich. He defies the tribunal with wit and ferocity, refuses to blame Hitler for his actions, denies the right of any conqueror to fairly prosecute the conquered, and foretells a disturbing future for crimes of war. As the horrors of what he is responsible for come to light, he demonically refuses to accept them as anything but the natural consequences of human conflict. After manipulating his own suicidal escape from hanging, he asks the audience, “What do you think men are?”

Format: Full-length drama

Cast Size: 9M/1F/1 girl

Running Time: 45–50 minutes

Original or Prominent Production:
Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays, 1990. Primary Stages, NYC, May 1995.

Original Source Material: Nuremberg trials

Original Language: English

Publisher:

Published as part of Six Plays by Romulus Linney, Theater Communications Group, 1993.

Production Rights Holder:

Visit the Concord Theatricals website: concordtheatricals.com

Experience(s) Chronicled: Germany, Hitler and the Growth of Nazism | Perpetrators, Bystanders and Collaborators | Nazi War Crimes and Judgement | Reactions to the Holocaust | Deniers and Denial