The carnival of the perpetrators

Carnival of the Perpetrators is dedicated to 15 people from the field of theater and literary studies who made a career under National Socialism. They contributed to the development of National Socialist theater studies. In research on perpetrators, such individuals are considered to have profited from an inhuman system based on stigmatization and exclusion. 

Theater studies was one of the academic disciplines that enjoyed increased attention from Nazi policy. In 1943, Martin Miederer, Ministerialrat in the Office of National Education, SS Sturmbannführer and member of the SD, gave a lecture in Frankfurt on "Theater studies as a science". In his remarks he spoke about ‘Theater Studies in the National Socialist State’.
Nazi theater studies required a new historical model based on the criteria of excluding non-German culture, on the formulation of the characteristics and forms of the German all to underpin the Germans' “claim to leadership” in the world.

These scholars were all interconnected and involved in the development of National Socialist theater studies. This is reflected in mutual appraisals, recommendations and joint publications.
Heinz Kindermann, Hans Heinrich Borchherdt, Willy Flemming, Franz Koch and Joseph Gregor were working on a new model of Nazi theatre history and literary history
The defamation and labeling of the Jewish and the non-German was the ground work for exclusion and as the result for the Holocaust. The anti-Semitic and racist writings of Elisabeth Frenzel, Heinz Kindermann, Margret Dietrich and Carl Niessen should be mentioned here.
Aspiring theater scholars worked on the development of guidelines for National Socialist theater and film production. Vagn Börge, Carl Niessen and Otto zur Nedden should be mentioned here.
Their work concerned theater administration and proposed a new dramaturgy and new forms of theater as well as new assessment criteria for theater critics. 
Artur Kutscher, Heinz Kindermann, Vagn Börge and Herbert and Elisabeth Frenzel focused on the formulation of an NS theater and film canon. Ultimately, the aim was to develop new research and study apparatuses for this Nazi theater studies.  Carl Niessen, Heinz Kindermann, Rolf Badenhausen, Edmund Stadler and Joseph Gregor were involved in the creation of ideologically inspired collections and archives. The theft of books and artifacts played an important role in this.

The victory of the Allies in 1945 formed the starting point for the masking and deception strategies of the perpetrators mentioned here.
In the course of the investigation of denazification and rehabilitation efforts, it becomes clear that the majority of theater scholars who had been accused of Nazi engagement used comparable strategies.
Most of them were removed from their posts for the time being, some were banned from their professions, some did not attract any further attention, such as Margret Dietrich; in most cases, this can be traced through the files of the denazification authorities, except in the case of Elisabeth and Herbert Frenzel, whose files have disappeared.

Carl Niessen and his Munich colleague Artur Kutscher linked their Nazi Party membership to acts of resistance: Niessen explained that he only joined the so-called Stahlhelm in 1933 because he “was hoping for a resistance movement“.

"There is no formal burden: I was never a member of the Nazi Party and was transferred from the Stahlhelm, which I joined in 1933 because I was hoping for a resistance movement from there, to Sa-Res." (sic!), which I left shortly after, before I had appeared publicly in this organization. So that's more of a plus than a minus, because the Berlin Ministry of Education asked me very sharp questions about why I had left, which I attributed to a lack of time."
(Carl Niessen, Entnazifizierungsakten des NRW Landesarchivs; NW 1037-8 III / 6278 / 002-009, Entnazifizierungs-Berufungsausschuss des Regierungsbezirks Köln, Fragebogen-Nr. 4864, 9. September 1949).

Artur Kutscher's numerous memberships in the Nazi Party, the NSV, the Kriegerbund, the Lehrerbund and the German Academy were explained by a witness (Mr. ULMER) with the (quote) “insubordination of National Socialist students and their leadership”. They had complained about the, „ victim's unreserved support for the Jewish director Max Reinhardt and wanted to dictate to him what he should teach and what he should cover in his seminar. In order to successfully counter this disobedience and to assert his authority, he decided, in desperation, to join the party.“ ( Staatsarchiv München, Spruchkammerakten SpKA_K_2568 Kutscher Artur, Bescheid Spruchkammer Traunstein vom 23. Dezember 1946 (Blatt 0001-0002).

In 1946 the denazification agency classified Hans Heinrich Borcherdt in Group 1. In the process this was reduced to Group 3 as a minor offender.
The high classification is due to his teaching activities for the Ordensburg Sonthofen Adolf Hitler School. In 1938 and 1939, he gave 35 lectures there on the history of literature and German drama.
The intellectual elite of the Nazi state was to be educated in Sonthofen. A lasting inner commitment to the regime and unconditional obedience to the orders of the party leadership were required. The teaching was consistently anti-Semitic, anti-Bolshevik, and anti-democratic. However, in his defence statement, Borcherdt described himself as a well-known party opponent who suffered disadvantages in his university career.
He camouflaged his teaching activities for Sonthofen as neglectful lecturing for the Adolf Hitler schools, which he had to do on behalf of the Ministry of Culture and the university.