Fritz Kortner and other German-Jewish Shylocks before and after the holocaust

Ever since its first German-language performance in Hamburg in 1777, The Merchant of Venice has been one of Germany’s favorite Shakespeare plays, ranking, during some periods, second only to Hamlet. The importance of The Merchant for German audiences and scholars becomes even more interesting once we place it within its broader local context as the dark cousin of Gotthold Lessing’s 1779 play, Nathan der Weise (Nathan the Wise), written, in part, in reaction to the German Merchant of 1777. Lessing’s staunchly philo-Semitic play, inspired by the personality of his close friend, the German-Jewish philosopher and emancipator Moses Mendelssohn, was first performed in Berlin in 1783 and nearly non-stop thereafter. Indeed, from the late eighteenth century until today, these two opposed aspects of the stage Jew – Shylock and Nathan – have been dialectically inseparable. Over the last two centuries, many of Germany’s most important actors, Jewish and Christian alike, have prided themselves on having played both characters. Fritz Kortner was not one of them. Although repeatedly encouraged by his wife, the actress Johanna Hofer, to play Nathan, Kortner rejected the idea. Marianne Brün-Kortner, his daughter, suggests – convincingly – that “possibly, Nathan was too unambiguous, too good for my father´s taste.” I have chosen to present the history of twentieth-century German-Jewish Shylock-actors using the actor Fritz Kortner as our “guide.” There are many reasons for emphasizing Kortner (1892–1970). Kortner is considered one of Germany’s most important twentieth-century theater figures, actor and director. He appeared in the role of Shylock in three major pre-war productions, between 1923 and 1928, including a Reinhardt revival of his renowned 1905 production. Kortner was one of the actors of the period most identified with Shylock because he played him so often, but also because his own Jewishness could not be ignored: it was carved into his body and sculpted the lines of his face. Square and stocky, with dark eyes, a broad, flat nose, thick lips, and curly dark hair, Kortner had nowhere to hide except, perhaps, in plain sight. His thrusting gestures and trumpeting voice – as critics would testify – fueled his fame as an expressionistic actor and transformed his “too Jewish” physique into a site of power, passion – and rebellion; characteristics well fitting Shylock. In addition, Kortner was the only important Jewish “Shylock-actor” to return to the German stage after 1945.