Khokhut [Chochuth, Chochuth-Ahlsen], Rol´f [Rolf] (1931) Viererbe, Victoria, Dr., translator	Noch´ Effi. Riga, Retorika A, [2011] 112 p., chronological bio-bibliography.	€12,00

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8 vo., publisher´s multi-color cardboard covers designed by P. Kliavinsh, photograph by D.Günther. 1000 copies printed. MINT. FIRST RUSSIAN EDITION OF TWO PLAYS: Effis Nacht (1998) and Berliner Antigone [Élo Antigoné] (1968) by a controversial German playwriter and author. Rolf Hochhuth is a German author and playwright. He is best known for his 1963 drama The Deputy and remains a controversial figure for his plays and other public comments, such as his insinuation of Pope Pius XII's indifference to Hitler's extermination of the Jews in the 1963 play The Deputy and his 2005 defense of Holocaust denier David Irving. He is descended from an old-established Protestant Hessian burgess family. During World War II, he was a member of the Deutsches Jungvolk, a subdivision of the Hitler Youth. In 1948 he did an apprenticeship as a bookseller. Between 1950 and 1955 he worked in bookshops in Marburg, Kassel and Munich. At the same time he attended university lectures as a guest student and began with early attempts at writing fiction. Between 1955 and 1963 he was a lector at a major West-German publishing house. Hochhuth's plays include his 1963 drama Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel (The Deputy, a Christian Tragedy, translated by Richard & Clara Winston, 1964), that caused controversy because of its criticism of Pope Pius XII's role in World War II. The play was subsequently published in the UK in Robert David MacDonald's translation as The Representative (1965). Although the play has never received serious praise as either literature or history, its publisher Ed Keating and journalist Warren Hinckle, who themselves considered it 'dramaturgically flawed,' organized a committee to defend the play as a matter of free speech. In 2007, Ion Mihai Pacepa, a former Romanian spymaster, alleged that the play was part of a KGB campaign to discredit Pius XII. A leading German newspaper opined 'that Hochhuth did not require any KGB assistance for his one-sided presentation of history. The unedited version of the play is over five hours long and includes the true story of Kurt Gerstein. Gerstein, a devout Protestant and later a member of the SS, wrote an eyewitness report about the gas chambers and, after the war, died as a POW. The play was first performed in Berlin on 20 February 1963 under the direction of Erwin Piscator. It received its first English production in London by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre in 1963 in a translation by Robert David MacDonald. It was directed by Clifford Williams with Alan Webb or Eric Porter as Pius XII, Alec McCowen as Father Fontana and Ian Richardson. In the United Kingdom it has since been revived at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, in 1986, and at the Finborough Theatre, London, in 2006. An abridged version opened on Broadway on 26 February 1964 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, with Emlyn Williams as Pius XII and Jeremy Brett as Father Fontana. The play ran for 316 performances. The Deputy was made into a film Amen by Costa Gavras in 2002, which focused more on the story of Kurt Gerstein. In 1978, his novel A Love in Germany about an affair between a Polish POW and a German woman in World War II stirred up a debate about the past of Hans Filbinger, Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg who had been a Navy lawyer and judge at the end of World War II. The affair culminated in Filbinger's resignation. For A Love in Germany, Hochhuth was awarded the Geschwister-Scholl-Preis in 1980. In 1983 Andrzej Wajda, the latter Oscar winner, made the story into a film 'Miłość w Niemczech'. His 1987 drama Alan Turing featured one of the fathers of modern computer science, who had made significant contributions to breaking German ciphers during World War II. The play also covered Turing's homosexuality, discovery of which resulted in his loss of career, court-ordered chemical castration, depression, and suicide. In 2004, he again caused controversy with the play McKinsey is Coming, which raises the questions of unemployment, social justice and the 'right to work'. A passage in which he put the chairman of the Deutsche Bank in one line with leading businessmen who had been murdered by left-wing terrorists and also with Gessler, the villainous bailiff killed by William Tell, was widely seen as advocating, or at least excusing, violence against leading economic figures. Hochhuth vigorously denied this. In March 2005, Hochhuth became embroiled in controversy when, during an interview with the German weekly Junge Freiheit, he defended David Irving, describing him as a 'pioneer of modern history who has written magnificent books' and an 'historian to equal someone like Joachim Fest'. When asked about Irving’s statement that 'more women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz', Hochhuth dismissed it as provocative black humour. Paul Spiegel, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, argued that with these statements Hochhuth himself was denying the Holocaust. After weeks of uproar, Hochhuth issued an apology. In 2008 Irving self-published Banged Up, an account of his recent imprisonment in Austria, in which he writes 'Since January 1965 a close friendship has bonded me with... Rolf Hochhuth' and describes a phone conversation between them in 2005.[ See: http://catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0003.html; Warren Hinckle, 'The Year They Tried To Block 'The Deputy' (Excerpt from If You Have a Lemon, Make Lemonade, 1974), The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities, Volume XIII, Number 3, Fall, 1997; Ion Mihai Pacepa, Moscow’s Assault on the Vatican, National Review Online, 25 January 2007; http://www.perlentaucher.de/feuilletons/2007-04-26.html (German); Thomas Brechenmacher, Hochhuths Quellen. War der 'Stellvertreter' vom KGB inspiriert?, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 26 April 2007 (German); 'The End of the Pius Wars', Joseph Bottum, First Things Magazine, April 2004, retrieved 1 July 2009. Literary Prizes [Auszeichnungen] 1963 – Berliner Kunstpreis 1976 – Kunstpreis der Stadt Basel 1980 – Literaturpreis der Stadt München und des Verbandes bayerischer Verleger 1980 – Geschwister-Scholl-Preis [38] 1981 – Lessing-Preis der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg 1990 – Jacob-Burckhardt-Preis der Basler Johann Wolfgang von Goethe-Stiftung 1991 – Elisabeth-Langgässer-Literaturpreis 2001 – Jacob-Grimm-Preis Deutsche Sprache 2002 – Cicero-Rednerpreis Bibliography: Emanuela Barasch-Rubinstein: The devil, the saints, and the church: reading Hochhuth's The deputy. New York: P. Lang, 2004. Eric Bentley: The storm over The deputy. New York: Grove Press, 1964. Lucinda Jane Rennison: Rolf Hochhuth's interpretation of history, and its effect on the content, form and reception of his dramatic work. Durham: University of Durham, 1991. Kathleen Tynan: The file on 'Soldiers': historical notes on Rolf Hochhuth's play. London: Battley Bros., [1968]. Margaret E. Ward: Rolf Hochhuth. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1977.