A Message from Arnold Mittelman After a career in not-for-profit and commercial theater spanning more than 40 years I was honored in 2007 to found the National Jewish Theater / Foundation and in 2010 to assume leadership of its Holocaust Theater International...
The Captain of Köpenick
Author(s): Carl Zuckmayer
Wilhelm Voigt is freed from prison after fifteen years but doesn’t have proper registration papers so he is unable to find a job. He moves in with his sister and her husband but is desperate to find papers to be legitimized. He stumbles upon a military uniform and discovers that the city is ready to obey his commands when he puts in on. Now in charge, he overtakes the government and embezzles the money from the treasury. Eventually, his real identity is discovered and he is arrested.
Format: Satirical play
Notes:
Zuckmayer described the story as a “German fairy tale.” The play has been adapted for film and television several times. The first film in 1931 was Der Hauptmann von Köpenich starring Max Adalbert and Paul Wagner. Notable was the 1956 version, starring Heinz Rühmann. The most recent was a TV movie version made in 2005.
Snapshot
Original or Prominent Production:
London, 1953
London, 1953
Original Source Material: Based on a true event that happened in 1906. The plot heavily emphasizes (and satirically criticizes) the proverb "Kleider machen Leute" (English: "Clothes Make the Man") in the context of the German Empire's militarized society, in which the high military gets all the social privileges while the little man is left with nothing. In exploring the case of a town duped by a character impersonating an authoritative figure, the play bears some resemblance to Nikolai Gogol's Russian classic, The Government Inspector (1836). Friedrich Dürrenmatt used a similar dramaturgical structure—a visitor of a provincial town—to satirical ends in The Visit (1956).
Nationality of Author: German
Original Language: German
Experience(s) Chronicled: Allegoric or Metaphoric Representations | European Jewry Before the Holocaust
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Views, reference and research of interest.
Lifetime Achievement Award
The National Jewish Theater Foundation presented its 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award to Alfred Uhry. The presentation took place as part of the Lincoln Center Library event on January 27th 2025 in commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on the 80th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz
Lifetime Achievement Award
On September 30, 2024, French playwright, Mr. Jean Claude Grumberg received the Lifetime Achievement Award. It was presented by NJTF HTII President, Arnold Mittelman with Dominique Trimbur, PhD-Manager for the History of Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, Teaching of the Holocaust of Fondation Pour La Memoir de la Shoah Project.