ROLF HOCHHUTH
369
MARX:
Granting the fact that the Nazis might have retaliated, do you
feel that the Pope should have protested anyway?
HOCHHUTH:
Absolutely. And I would say this not merely off the top
of my head but out of the very reasons which Riccardo cites in his
conversation with his father in the second act of my play. This is
emphatically substantiated in the play, always presupposing that one
takes the office of the Pope seriously, and that one is really ready to
measure this man by his own pretensions, which are of course enormous.
MARX:
Was the Pope then under a different kind of moral obligation
toward his fellow man than a man of another faith?
HOCHHUTH:
Well, the Catholic Church lays claim to being the only
church that bestows salvation. It should naturally devolve on it to
feel responsible for all human beings, all religions, all races. This is
all the more so--though many Catholic priests deny it-because Pius
XII had without doubt no anti-Semitic feelings. You might be inter–
ested, if we have a little time, in hearing an anecdote which was
actually the most terrifying experience I had since the publication
of my play.
I received a visit one day from a very intelligent, older, and
quite well-known Jesuit priest, who spent an entire Sunday with my
wife and me, chatting. What this man said so enormously frightened
me that twice I countered him with a quotation which stands at the
very beginning of my play, and comes from Bernard Shaw, "Beware
of the man whose God is in Heaven." This Jesuit father spoke to me
as follows:
"If
humanism were right, but humanism is only a fashion,
then you too would be right in your play. For man is not really the
measure of alI things. Antiquity is wrong when it asserts that man is
the measure of all things." And he went on, literally: "Man is excre–
ment, at least in the aspect of eternity."
And that, presumably, is to this day-much more than she admits
it-the view of the Church. The Jesuit went on, "Certainly it is fright–
ful, what was done to the Jews and to the 56 million people of all
faiths who were devoured by the Second World War, but then again
it is not
so
frightful, because all of them are with God, not one of
them was lost. They are all preserved. No soul is lost, not even that
of Hitler or of Himrnler. Before God this will all someday become
unsubstantial and forgiven." And he went on, "The Bible has an
example ready which really cuts the ground out from under
The
Deputy."
And he said, "Jesus did not lift a finger to have St. John the
Baptist rescued from Herod's prison, for obviously Jesus must have
felt that this man had fulfilled his mission on earth." I, on the other
hand, not being conversant with the historical circumstances of that
