Representing Shylock: The Performance History of Shakespeare’s Jew as an Indicator and Instigator of Cultural Change

Meliora ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Rubenstein
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Performance History ◽  
Cultural Attitudes ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Almost All

Since its earliest performances, The Merchant of Venice garnered attention for its depiction of Shylock, the greedy Jewish moneylender who takes the protagonist of the play to court, demanding a pound of flesh. Over the centuries, depictions of this character have varied as much as the critical and popular reception to him. In the hands of each actor who newly embodies the character, Shylock can take the shape of a grotesque antisemitic caricature or a sympathetic anti-hero speaking truth to power. While Shylock began as a comic villain whose defeat allows the comedic resolution, almost all modern directors, actors, and audiences are forced to reckon with the cruel antisemitism voiced by the play’s protagonists. In tracing the performance history of this character from the turn of the 17th century, to the Third Reich, to his most recent incarnations, this research resists reducing Shylock to any single interpretation. Instead, this essay argues that Shylock serves as a reflection of the place and time in which he is performed, both an indicator of cultural attitudes and a potential instigator of cultural action towards oppression, justice, and representation of those deemed outsiders.

Polish Police of the General Government in the Occupational Security System of the Third Reich

2021 ◽  
Vol 143 (3) ◽  
pp. 50-67
Author(s):  
Henryk Ćwięk
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Population ◽  
Dark Period ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The Third ◽  
General Government ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Resistance Movement

After the defence war in 1939 was lost, the authorities of the Third Reich forced Polish State Police offi cers to serve in the occupier’s security structures in the General Government. This formation was used to implement various activities directed against the Polish nation. The policy of the Nazi authorities varied depending on the existing priorities in this regard. The Germans carried out brutal pacifi cation operations directed mainly against the Jewish population using Polish police. One should not forget about the harmful actions of Polish policemen against Jews. The tragic part of the occupation history of the Polish police was their participation in operations against the resistance movement. Collaboration in the Polish police was a part of this phenomenon in the General Government. The cooperation of Polish policemen with the resistance movement deserves attention. They made a signifi cant contribution to the preparation and implementation of subversive actions as well as the execution of attacks and sentences. They were present on almost all fronts of underground activity. Knowledge of the role of the Polish police in the dark period of the occupation is not satisfactory and requires further research.

scholarly journals Powstanie kawalerii SS Totenkopf i jej rola w niemieckiej polityce okupacyjnej na ziemiach polskich w latach 1939–1941

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 72-88
Author(s):  
Jarosław Dybek ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Third Reich ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
The Third ◽  
General Government ◽  
History Of ◽  
Polish Language ◽  
False Image ◽  
The Third Reich

The topic of the article is one of the German SS regiments stationed in occupied Poland and its role in The German occupation policy. While the history of the SS formation is very well known in both academic and popular science literature, its cavalry has not been elaborated in great detail thus far. Although this topic seems interesting, it has not yet been discussed in any book in the Polish language. Most of the literature related to this topic was published in German and English. The 1st SS Death’s Head Cavalry Regiment operated primarily in the General Government and was under the Higher SS and Police Command. Some of its squadrons also operated in areas annexed to the Reich, i.e. the Warta Voievodship (Reichsgau Wartheland). From this article we will learn about the formation of the SS Death’s Head cavalry and its gradual inclusion in the brutal occupation policy of the Third Reich in Poland. In the case of its formation, we are dealing with tasks such as combating the early partisan units, searching for weapons, participating in the creation of ghettos, or helping to eliminate Polish levels of the intelligentsia. Noteworthy is the participation of this unit in the production of the propaganda film “Kampfgeschwader Lützow”, in which Polish cavalrymen were presented attacking German tanks with sabres. This false image was reproduced after the war in some movies or books, and contributed to the distorted presentation of Polish soldiers in the defensive battles of 1939.

scholarly journals Von «grossen Deutschen» und «stolzen Wipfeln» - Die Lehrbücher der deutschen Medizingeschichte und die Pathologie (1858 bis 1945)

Gesnerus ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 54 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 194-218
Author(s):  
Cay-Rüdiger Prüll
Keyword(s):  
Third Reich ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
German History ◽  
Scientific Medicine ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of Pathology ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Cellular Pathology

Textbooks on German medical history are a valuable source when analyzing the discipline's view on the foundation of scientific medicine. This paper deals with descriptions of the history of pathology found in textbooks between 1858 and 1945: In particular, pathological anatomy and Rudolf Virchow's "cellular pathology" were the cornerstones of the foundation of modern medicine in the 19"* century. The way textbooks deal with the history of pathology mirrors the development of German history of medicine: Since the turn of the century the latter felt devoted to an ahistoric teleological approach which did not change in the "Third Reich". This situation hampered a critical histonography which would show relations of the history of pathology to cultural, social and political history.

Ostmark

2021 ◽  
pp. 268-287
Author(s):  
Helen Roche
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
World War ◽  
Terrorist Activity ◽  
Religious Buildings ◽  
Security Services ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Third Reich

Following Austria’s annexation by the Third Reich, the NPEA authorities were eager to pursue every opportunity to found new Napolas in the freshly acquired territories of the ‘Ostmark’. In the first instance, the Inspectorate took over the existing state boarding schools (Bundeserziehungsanstalten/Staatserziehungsanstalten) at Wien-Breitensee, Wien-Boerhavegasse, Traiskirchen, and the Theresianum. Secondly, beyond Vienna, numerous Napolas were also founded in the buildings of monastic foundations which had been requisitioned and expropriated by the Nazi security services. These included the abbey complexes at Göttweig, Lambach, Seckau, Vorau, and St. Paul (Spanheim), as well as the Catholic seminary at St. Veit (present-day Ljubljana-Šentvid, Slovenia). This chapter begins by charting the chequered history of the former imperial and royal (k.u.k.) cadet schools in Vienna, which were refashioned into civilian Bundeserziehungsanstalten by the Austrian socialist educational reformer Otto Glöckel immediately after World War I. During the reign of Dollfuß and Schuschnigg’s Austrofascist state, the schools were threatened from within by the terrorist activity of illegal Hitler Youth cells, and the Anschluss was ultimately welcomed by many pupils, staff, and administrators. August Heißmeyer and Otto Calliebe’s subsequent efforts to reform the schools into Napolas led to their being incorporated into the NPEA system on 13 March 1939. The chapter then treats the Inspectorate’s foundation of further Napolas in expropriated religious buildings, focusing on NPEA St. Veit as a case study. In conclusion, it outlines the ways in which both of these forms of Napolisation conformed to broader patterns of Nazification policy in Austria after the Anschluss.

Suicide in Nazi Concentration Camps, 1933-9

2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 628-648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Goeschel
Keyword(s):  
Political History ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Concentration Camp ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Power Struggle ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
And Control ◽  
Good And Evil

Too often histories of the concentration camps tend to be ignorant of the wider political context of nazi repression and control. This article tries to overcome this problem. Combining legal, social and political history, it contributes to a more thorough understanding of the changing relationship between the camps as places of extra-legal terror and the judiciary, between nazi terror and the law. It argues that the conflict between the judiciary and the SS was not a conflict between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, as existing accounts claim. Rather, it was a power struggle for jurisdiction over the camps. Concentration camp authorities covered up the murders of prisoners as suicides to prevent judicial investigations. This article also looks at actual suicides in the pre-war camps, to highlight individual inmates’ reactions to life within the camps. The article concludes that the history of the concentration camps needs to be firmly integrated into the history of nazi terror and the Third Reich.

Ägyptologen im Dritten Reich: Biographische Notizen anhand der sogenannten „Steindorff-Liste“

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 120-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Schneider
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Second World War ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
John Wilson ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Second World

Abstract The history of Egyptology in the Third Reich has never been the subject of academic analysis. This article gives a detailed overview of the biographies of Egyptologists in National Socialist Germany and their later careers after the Second World War. It scrutinizes their attitude towards the ideology of the Third Reich and their involvement in the political and intellectual Gleichschaltung of German Higher Education, as well as the impact National Socialism had on the discourse within the discipline. A letter written in 1946 by Georg Steindorff, one of the emigrated German Egyptologists, to John Wilson, Professor at the Oriental Institute Chicago, which incriminated former colleagues and exonerated others, is first published here and used as a framework for the debate.

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