Gerhart Hauptmann ist bei uns zu Hause : zur Rezeption der sozialkritischen Dramen Gerhart Hauptmanns in der DDR

In the Autumn of 1945, Johannes R. Becher, the late Minister of Education of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), convinced the playwright and Nobel prize winner Gerhart Hauptmann to become the honorary president of the cultural association‚ ‘Kulturbund zur demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands’. With this, he became a mentor in the cultural re-construction of Eastern Germany. Hauptmann’s readiness, as well as the high esteem he had earned in the USSR, contributed to the fact that his plays were very successful in the early days of the GDR. Hauptmann was considered the ‘second Goethe’ and therefore became a prestigious and integral figurehead for all those who still believed in the liberal-conservative ideas of the Weimar Republic. In their eyes, Hauptmann seemed to guarantee the continuity of their values and therefore contributed to the acceptance of Soviet rule. In this way, Hauptmann’s humanistic authority helped to disguise the lack of legitimacy that surrounded the Soviet zone of occupation and later the GDR. When Hauptmann died on June 6th 1946, these interpretations and considerations did not come to an end. His burial, which was at-tended by prominent Communist leaders of the Soviet zone of occupation (later involved in the GDR), was one of the first official occasions where Hauptmann’s work was appropriated for the validation of the ‘New Germany’, as the GDR designated itself. The main focus of the dissertation is to investigate patterns in the interpretation of Hauptmann’s work and the strategies that influenced its reception in the GDR. Taking the cultural and educational policy into consideration, the way plays were produced and received is analysed by exploring the reaction of theatre critics and examining theatre schedules and programmes. Furthermore, it is argued that the cultural and educational policy of the GDR exploited the anniversaries of Hauptmann and his memorial sites in order to present the GDR as the caretaker of German cultural heritage. Taking examples from theatres across the GDR, this thesis interrogates the way in which the self-perception of the GDR influenced the pro-duction and interpretation of Hauptmann’s plays.