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PATRICIA MARX
But as long as we have the courage or the brutality to bring children
into this world, a world which, for example, has an atom bomb in itJ
for that long we must not reckon in terms of eternity, and, out of
regard for eternity, neglect our earthly involvements.
MARX:
Mr. Hochhuth, would you care to define or describe your own
religious views?
HOCHHUTH:
At the utmost, I can quote a saying of Bismarck's, which
has perhaps been made use of all too little, even though it should
be of help to the intellectuals.
A friend once asked Bismarck how he had overcome the radical
nihilism of his youth. He said, "I recalled the advance patrols of my
doubts, which had ventured too far forward, with all firmness." In
other words, an act of the will, and probably that is the only way
it can be done. One cannot wait for grace to bestow faith upon one.
MARX:
Do you mean that it's a matter of will to quell doubts and to
accept a faith?
HOCHHUTH:
I think that absolutely, that it is an act of the will, because,
after all, we are daily attacked by doubts and could not live if we
did not chase them back into the corner.
MARX:
Is there any principle that guides you in regard to what things
you will choose to believe in?
HOCHHUTH:
I don't believe so, but I haven't thought enough about it.
I think that the personal experiences of every individual life, which
will be different from one person to another, must be the determining
factor.
MARX:
Mr. Hochhuth, you were only fourteen at the end of the war.
How do you feel that you would have behaved if you had been a
responsible adult during the war?
HOCHHUTH:
I would have behaved just as well or as badly as all other
contemporaries. I am sure that I would not have been a particularly
brave fellow. I think it also depends on whether one has a family
or not. I find that there are many excuses, very legitimate excuses,
for fathers of families, who know that they have children, that they
have a wife, who will be killed if they, the men, dare go too far.
That should not be overlooked by us today.
MARX:
Mr. Hochhuth, were the actions of Riccardo, the central figure
of the play, the ones that you respect the most? Was his behavior,
leading to his martyrdom, the only right way to act?
HOCHHUTH:
For artistic reasons I tried of course, to make Riccardo
a living human being, with all the contradictions that entails.
He
was not to become a mere moral trumpeter, but a human being who
