124
BETTY FALKENBERG
One more meaningless resolution? In a country where intellectuals
were once silent too long, even a gesture of watchfulness must
be
applauded.
If
one can imagine a Schiller without the poetry, a Shaw without
the wit, then possibly one can see what the critics were driving at when
they called on those venerables by way of praising Rolf Hochhuth's new
play,
Soldaten.
(World premiere was in Berlin, October 9.) But it is
almost impossible to discuss the artistic merits of this play (a play which
raised more dust before it even reached the stage than possibly any
other drama in recent years ) before considering its historical thesis.
Hochhuth wanted to write a play about the senselessness and
brutality of air war, a plea for an extension of the Geneva Convention
to
include air war. In the course of his research, he became more and
more absorbed in the figure of Churchill, his role in the bombing of
Dresden and his
alleged
role in the death of General Sikorski.
The Polish Prime Minister was agitating bitterly for action against
Stalin. Churchill feared that antagonizing Stalin might bring about a
separate peace between Hitler and Stalin. Sikorski remained adamant.
Then, in July, 1943, Sikorski was killed when his plane crashed off
Gibraltar. The accuracy, or even credibility, of the thesis - that Churchill
planned the death of Sikorski, indeed that he had no alternative in
view
of his ultimate goal - is, first of all, a matter for historians.
Hochhuth collaborated in his research on the Sikorski Affair with
David Irving, whose book,
Accident: The Death of a General,
came
out in England the very week
Soldaten
saw its first performance in
Berlin. In his review of Irving's book for
The Observer,
A.
J.
P. Taylor
had the following to say : "Sikorski was not the principal obstacle in
the way of Soviet-Polish agreement. On the contrary, he was the best
hope for the agreement, and his death, which strengthened the Polish
Right Wing
in
exile, was a disaster for the British policy of conciliation.
Churchill would have been foolish as well as wicked if he had planned
Sikorski's death."
But why not take the legend as legend and move on to the play
itself? Is it mere wincing at a cherished image defiled? In a letter
to
Encounter
-
Soldaten
was banned in Britain - Leo Labedz writes:
"Once upon a time a legend was a legend, a myth a myth, and all
historical uncertainties were in fact legitimate subjects for playwrights'
dramatic reinterpretations. But what was legitimate for Shakespeare is
not legitimate for Hochhuth. Why? Because in our time he is not just
dealing with different versions of what he and his viewers
may
regard
as possible historical truth, but with a deliberate falsification of history."
One cannot substitute psychology for fact, nor deduce the deed from the
