Happy Days at Obersalzberg

Last night, Red Baron went to the Theater der Immoralisten, a well-known stage in Freiburg, to see Happy Days at Obersalzberg, written and directed by Manuel Kreitmeier. Why the title of this typically German play was in English goes over my head.

The play is set in 1944 and features the Führer Adolf Hitler, his mistress Eva Braun, Hitler's personal physician Doctor Morell, and architect and armaments minister Albert Speer. Later, SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler makes a short appearance.

Those pre-war years. Hitler reads the local newspaper Berchtesgadener Anzeiger at his Berghof.
A photo taken in late 1938s (©LIFE Picture Collection)

With the curtain still down, the play begins with a few remarks from a guide who explains to us, the tourists, what it looked like on the Obersalzberg back then when Nazi celebrities went in and out of the Berghof. Historical film footage by Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress, and a trained film assistant, is projected onto the curtain and shows the Führer's and his entourage's life at the Berghof.

At times, the performance reminded me of the alienated scenes in Bert Brecht's Mr. Puntila and his servant Matti. 

A quote from the great German playwright fits here, "The great political criminals must be exposed, and especially ridiculed. For they are, above all, not great political criminals but the perpetrators of great political crimes, which is something quite different."

Manuel Kreitmeier has exploited precisely the stylistic element of comedy to gain access to the incomprehensible events of the Third Reich. However, unlike Chaplin's The Great Dictator, the focus is on the bourgeoisie life in Hitler's Berghof.

Hitler and Eva Braun eat Linzer Torte.
An allusion to Adolf's dream of Linz as Germany's cultural capital (©Manuel Kreitmeier)

There are the recurring afternoons with coffee and cake, Hitler's monologues, and finally, the daily excursions to the Mooslahner Kopf.

Albert Speer stands a little awkwardly on the terrace of the Berghof
(©National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized)

On those walks, Hitler's repetition of the question, "What have I done wrong?" is particularly striking. No one around him dares to give him weighty answers. Only Albrecht Speer finally squeezes out, "Dunkirk* perhaps?"

*At "Dunkirk, after the Blitzkrieg against France, the Wehrmacht failed to destroy the British bridgehead, so the encircled troops could escape to England, for the most part, by adventurous means in small boats.

Following this answer, Hitler collapses, and birdshit* lands on his uniform. 

*In 2018, AfD chairman Alexander Gauland described the Nazi era as being just a "birdshit" of German history.

Der Führer with Eva and German shepherd Blondi at the terrasse of the Berghof
 (©Federal Archive)

Later, Speer drowns Blondi's puppies because, in Hitler's opinion, they will not make it over the winter; they are not worth living. This is reminiscent of Governor Kristi Noem, but it is more obvious an allusion to the death of the forced laborers employed in Germany's armaments industry, whose inhumane conditions only became known after Speer's death.

During the performance, Hitler frequently looked at his wristwatch, which stopped not at five minutes to twelve but at four to twelve.  

©Manuel Kreitmeier

Then he addresses his physician, "Our last afternoon, doctor. Your steroids and vitamins could not avert the inevitable: Germany has failed! It must fall down." Hitler leaves. 

The end is near when Eva prepares her luggage to join her "Führer" in the Berlin bunker. 

Today's right-wingers advertise the seemingly "good old days" when all was right with the world. The author counters this at the end of the play, "Don't do as we did!"

Applause, applause, and thank you!

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