Politics of the Oberammergau Passion Play: Tradition as Trademark [1 ed.] 9781003106319, 9780367617400, 9780367617448

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Politics of the Oberammergau Passion Play

This collection provides a comprehensive overview of the Oberammergau Passion play and its history from the 19th century onwards. Specialists in theatre and performance studies, comparative literature, theology, political studies, history, and ethnology initiate an interdisciplinary discussion of how Oberammergau has built a trademark from tradition. A  typological and historical outline of this development is followed by detailed analyses of the blending of spaces, temporalities, and cultures, through which Oberammergau as an institution is stabilized while at the same time remaining open to the dynamics of historical change. The authors comprise the formation of a theatrical public sphere, literary imaginations, and layers of authenticity in modern practices of distributed communication that culminate in the notion of tradition as trademark. This collection is analysed from a wide spectrum of cultural historical perspectives, ranging from literary studies, theatre and performance studies to theology, political studies, and ethnology. Jan Mohr is Assistant Professor for Medieval German Literature at LMU Munich, Germany. Julia Stenzel is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Mainz, Germany.

Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies

This series is our home for cutting-edge, upper-level scholarly studies and edited collections. Considering theatre and performance alongside topics such as religion, politics, gender, race, ecology, and the avant-garde, titles are characterized by dynamic interventions into established subjects and innovative studies on emerging topics. Rechoreographing Learning Dance As a Way to Bridge the Mind-Body Divide in Education Sandra Cerny Minton Politics as Public Art The Aesthetics of Political Organizing and Social Movements Martin Zebracki and Zane McNeill Lessons for Today from Shakespeare’s Classroom The Learning Benefits of Drama and Rhetoric in Schools Robin Lithgow Notelets of Filth An Emilia Companion Reader Laura Kressly, Aida Patient, and Kimberly A. Williams Transcultural Theater Günther Heeg Shakespeare and Cultural Appropriation Vanessa I. Corredera, L. Monique Pittman, Geoffrey Way Politics of the Oberammergau Passion Play Tradition as Trademark Jan Mohr and Julia Stenzel For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Advances-in-Theatre – Performance-Studies/book-series/RATPS

Politics of the Oberammergau Passion Play Tradition as Trademark Edited by Jan Mohr and Julia Stenzel

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Jan Mohr and Julia Stenzel; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Jan Mohr and Julia Stenzel to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-367-61740-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-61744-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-10631-9 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003106319 Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Acknowledgementsviii List of Figuresix List of Tablesxi List of Contributorsxii   1 How to Become a Trademark: An Introduction

1

JAN MOHR AND JULIA STENZEL

PART I

Being a Trademark – Typological and Historical Outlines17   2 Comparing Singularities: The Passion Play and the Papacy

19

MARIANO BARBATO

  3 Tradition, Authority and Autonomy at the Oberammergau Passion Play, 1860 and 1890

36

ROBERT D. PRIEST

PART II

Assembly, Community, Society – Negotiating the Theatrical Public Sphere51   4 Pilgrims and Tourists: On the Journey to the Passion Play JAN MOHR

53

vi  Contents

  5 Seven Ways to Get to Oberammergau: Travel Dispositives of the Tricentenary of the Passion Play

70

DOMINIC ZERHOCH

  6 Quoting the Passion: On Oberammergau’s National-Socialist Afterlife

92

EVELYN ANNUß

 7 Volksschauspiel as Trade Mark: The Oberammergau Passion Play as a Paradigm of Imagined Folk Play

108

TONI BERNHART

PART III

Layers of Authenticity121   8 “Jesus-Casting” as a Public Event: Oberammergau’s Wilhelm Tell (2018)

123

CÉLINE MOLTER

  9 Let it Grow: The Holy Hairstyles of Oberammergau

144

JULIA STENZEL

PART IV

Compliance and Transgression – Literary Imaginations165 10 Work on Myth, Work on the Institution: On Narrating Oberammergau (19th–21st Centuries)

167

JAN MOHR

11 Constructions and Enactments of the Christ Figure in Literary Passion Play Scenarios

183

MARTIN LEUTZSCH

12 “What Kind of Man Must This Christ Be?”: A Male Body and Its Remains, Oberammergau, 1890 JULIA STENZEL

208

Contents  vii

13 Playing With Traditions: A Summary and a Glance at the Passion Play 2022

225

JAN MOHR AND JULIA STENZEL

Index234

Acknowledgements

Most of the chapters in this volume were selected from contributions written for a conference on the Oberammergau Passion Play funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) as part of a larger project (2017–2022). After about a year and a half of project work, this conference was intended to place our studies on the Passion play and its village in a broader context – disciplinary, theoretically, and historically. Unfortunately, in times of a pandemic, the editing and completion of this volume took much longer than planned. Thus, first, we wish to thank all contributors for their patience. The conference took place from 12 to 14 September 2018 at the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung, Nymphenburg Castle, Munich. We would like to thank our host, the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung, for its extraordinary hospitality, and especially Gudrun Kresnik who assisted us in all stages of planning. In organizing the conference, we were supported by Katharina Schweigart. Anna-Dorit Lachmann and Laura Benetschik proofread the contributions, and Markus Kubesch helped with editing and formatting. It is our pleasure to thank all of them for their engagement. Our special thanks go to the team of our DFG project, Céline Molter and Dominic Zerhoch, who also contributed to this volume, for their years of trustful cooperation. Last but not least, we thank Laura Hussey and Swatti Hindwan at Routledge, who patiently awaited the manuscript.

Figures

4.1 Welcome to Oberammergau, Simplicissimus 26/53, 29 March 1922, extra issue: On to Oberammergau! (Auf nach 54 Oberammergau!), title page 5.1 Official poster to advertize the Passion play 1934 ( Jupp Wiertz) 71 5.2 English version of the official poster for the Passion play 1934 73 5.3 Cover of the booklet by Business Management Catholic Tours 80 Division for the Passion play 1934 5.4 Cover of the booklet by ARO Ackermann Travel Service 83 Oberammergau for the Passion play 1934 5.5 Swastika flags and a banner express the community’s support for Hitler prior to the German referendum in 1934 86 5.6 “Entering Oberammergau”: Hitler visits the Passion play in August 193486 5.7 “Crucify him”. Mass scene to advertize the Passion play in 1934, official brochure 87 5.8 Hitler visiting the players backstage at the Passion Play Theatre 87 6.1 The good shepherd: Jesus entering Jerusalem, Passion play, 2010 Oberammergau 94 6.2 Official advertisement of the Passion play in Oberammergau in 1934 96 6.3 Deutsche Passion 1933, Reichsfestspiele Heidelberg 1934, Schlosshof, Director: Hanns Niedecken-Gebhardt 99 6.4 Advertising the first Thing-Season in 1934: cover of the journal Die Spielgemeinde101 6.5 Deutsche Passion 1933, Thingstätte Halle-Brandberge 1934, Director: Günther L. Barthel 103 8.1 Spielerwahl: waiting for the players’ names to be written on the chalk board 124 8.2 Children’s choir 137 8.3 Invitation to motto party on the election of Passion play performers 138

x  Figures

9.1 Hair hunters: satirical response to the notorious fascination with the long-haired Passion players 9.2 The museum’s new dress: outer view of the Oberammergau Museum during the temporary exhibition (IM)MATERIELL, 2022 9.3 The hairy thread guiding the visitors through the exhibition, (IM)MATERIELL show, Oberammergau Museum 2022 9.4 Double helix made of hair, (IM)MATERIELL show, Oberammergau Museum 2022 9.5 ‘We are connected’ – lettering in the penultimate room of the (IM)MATERIELL show, Oberammergau Museum 2022 9.6 Assemblage of photographs, hair, and other objects connected to the Passion, (IM)MATERIELL show, Oberammergau Museum 2022 9.7 Collage: hair on photograph, (IM)MATERIELL show, Oberammergau Museum 2022 12.1 Christ side saddle riding on the donkey 12.2 Magdalen, played by Bertha Wolf, at the Oberammergau Passion play, 1900

153 155 156 157 159 159 160 211 217

Tables

11.1 Literary Passion Play Scenarios, 1831–2022

184

Contributors

Evelyn Annuß is a theater and literature scholar serving as Professor of Gender Studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw). She obtained her PhD from the University Erfurt (Elfriede Jelinek. Theater des Nachlebens, Fink 2007) and her habilitation from Ruhr University Bochum (Volksschule des Theaters. Nationalsozialistische Massenspiele, Fink 2019). Her research interests include cultural gender and performativity studies, (post-) colonial critique and the global history of performative cultures, theories of performativity as well as the relation of politics and aesthetics. Currently, she works on dragging from creolized carnival to Corona demonstrations. Upcoming publication: “Racisms and Representation. Staging Defacement in ­Germany Contextualized”, in Priscilla Layne/Lily Tonger-Erk (eds.): Staging Blackness, University of Michigan Press. Mariano Barbato is Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Passau and DFG Heisenberg Fellow at the Center for Religion and Modernity, WWU Münster, Germany. He obtained his doctorate in political science, history and philosophy at the LMU Munich and his habilitation in political science at the University of Passau. He published widely on religion and politics and is currently the principal investigator of the DFG-funded project “Legions of the Pope. A Case Study in Social and Political Transformation”. Toni Bernhart is a researcher in Modern German Literature at the University of Stuttgart. His research focuses on folk and popular theater, history of digital humanities, and aurality and literature. His recent publications include Volksschauspiele. Genese einer kulturgeschichtlichen Formation, Berlin, Boston 2019; (with Sandra Richter) Frühe digitale Poesie. Christopher Strachey und Theo Lutz, Informatik Spektrum 44 (2021): 11–18; (with Julia Koch) Blowing ‘The Boy’s Magic Horn’. Popularised and Synthesised Romanticism, AnneSophie Bories, Petr Plecháč, Mari Sarv (eds.): Popular Voices (forthcoming). Martin Leutzsch held the Chair of Biblical Exegesis and Theology in Protestant Theology at the University of Paderborn from 1998 until his retirement

Contributors  xiii

in 2022. He is a New Testament scholar and author of numerous publications on social-historical questions of biblical cultures, on the ecclesiology of ancient Christianity, on the reception history of the Bible, and on the theory and practice of Bible translation. Jan Mohr is Assistant Professor of Medieval German Literature at the Department of Language and Literature Studies, LMU Munich, and currently serving as Deputy Professor at the University of Bielefeld. With Julia Stenzel, he led the DFG-funded project “The village of Christ. Institutionaltheoretical and functional historical perspectives on Oberammergau and its Passion play, 19th–21st centuries” (2017–2022). Jan obtained his PhD in Modern German Literature and wrote his habilitation on Middle High German Minnesang. In addition to the Oberammergau Passion play, his research interests include courtly epic poetry, namely Arthurian romance, historical narratology, and devotional practices in the early modern period. Céline Molter is Research Assistant at the Institute for Anthropology and African Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. She is working on her PhD on the Oberammergau Passion play in the global context of Christian theming as a member of the DFG research project “The village of Christ. Institutional-theoretical and functional historical perspectives on Oberammergau and its Passion play, 19th–21st centuries” (2017–2022). She is also a member of the DFG network “Key Concepts in Theme Park Studies”, writing about religion and worldviews in theme parks. Her research interests focus on the anthropology of religion, tourism, and theming. Robert D. Priest is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. He is the author of various works on nineteenth-century cultural and intellectual history, with a particular interest in religion and secularization. His first book, The Gospel According to Renan, explored the popular reception of religious criticism in nineteenthcentury France through the lens of the readers of the controversial Life of Jesus that Ernest Renan published in 1863. He is currently writing a book for Oxford University Press on the transnational history of the Oberammergau Passion play from the Enlightenment until the interwar period. Julia Stenzel is a Junior Professor of Theatre Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. She deputized as a Professor of Theatre Studies at LMU Munich (2021/2022) and of Religion Studies at the Forum International Research (FIW, Bonn University) in 2019. With Jan Mohr, she led the DFGfunded project “The village of Christ. Institutional-theoretical and functional historical perspectives on Oberammergau and its Passion play, 19th–21st centuries” (2017–2022). Julia works on theater and media history, theater theory, and theater and society. Her current research focuses on theater of/in Iran, theater and religion, transformations of ancient theater, and scenographies of demagoguery.

xiv  Contributors

Dominic Zerhoch is a researcher at the DFG-funded project “The village of Christ. Institutional-theoretical and functional historical perspectives on Oberammergau and its Passion play, 19th–21st centuries” (2017–2022) and is currently working on his PhD at the Institute of Film, Theater, Media and Culture Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. He worked as director and assistant director. He co-founded the international and interdisciplinary PhD-Network DIS(S)-CONNECT focusing on media research. His research interests include Oberammergau and its Passion play, corporality and theories of embodiment, methodology of theater historiography, spatial theory and scenography.

1 How to Become a Trademark An Introduction Jan Mohr and Julia Stenzel

1. “Anticipation!” Vorfreude – anticipation! Thousands of merchandise bags intended for the Oberammergau Passion play season 2020 have to be reprinted. The closing “0” is crossed out and replaced by a “2”, and the print is complemented by a handstamped “Vorfreude”, or “g’sund bleiben, g’sund werden” – “stay healthy, get healthy” (local pharmacies sell these last ones). Anticipation is half the pleasure, it is said. However, the other half is postponed to an uncertain day after tomorrow. The grammatical tense of the worldwide COVID-19 crisis seems to be the future II: When Corona will be over, people will enter shops, theatres, and museums without masks, universities will completely reopen, and the Passion play will take place without any restrictions. Although it is far from sure that there is an “after Corona” that allows for a “back to normal”, the futurologist view is complemented by a very different engagement with society’s challenges. In March and early April  2020, as the pandemic caused by a novel Coronavirus accelerated, it felt like dancing around an empty centre: Day after day, we were told about festivals, exhibitions, sports events, conferences, and theatre performances that should have taken place but did not. Instead, theatres were streaming past legendary productions. Despite things changing since the first pandemic months, the grammatical tense of pandemics is not only the future. It is also the past irrealis. The 42nd season of the Oberammergau Passion play should have started on May 16, 2020. Moreover, when news of a highly contagious and potentially deadly virus made its rounds in early February of that year, we, as presumably all too many people worldwide, did not consider this might concern us, let alone the playing season. However, things already looked different four weeks later. In mid-March, the virus, which by then had taken the dimensions of a pandemic, thwarted the Passion play schedule drastically. After the Corona case numbers rose significantly in the Bavarian Oberland and neighbouring communities reported the first cases, the Passion 2020 was postponed by two years. One could see director Christian Stückl struggle to hold back the tears when announcing this at a press conference on March  19. Later, one could hear that the Passion play directory had doubted relatively long only to wait DOI: 10.4324/9781003106319-1

2  Jan Mohr and Julia Stenzel

for instructions of the district administration, which would disburden the village community from any claims of compensation after postponing the playing season. And wisely did they delay it by two years, as we can see by now. In March 2019, a kind of interlude began in Oberammergau, the start of which was not only determined by the reversal of thousands of already purchased tickets and packages but also by an aestheticization of latency. The remains of the play that never took place were modified and brought to life beyond theatre situation: the costumes that were not worn, the fabrics that were not used become merchandise items, such as key rings, on which the double reference to the cancelled and the new season is partly inscribed, partly not. Online shoppers are invited to equip themselves with relics of a Passion play season that never took place, such as shirts and backpacks. If there is one, even the act of redesigning and repurposing is staged. The press office publishes short video clips on social media showing people reworking the aforementioned canvas bags, adding the handwritten-looking stamp print: “Anticipation!” As is well known, the playing tradition in Oberammergau goes back almost 400 years. When the plague ravaged the Bavarian Oberland in 1633, the village, well shielded by mountain ranges, was able to keep it at a distance for a long time. But finally, a labourer, who wanted to return home to his family, crossed the mountains on hidden paths and managed to overcome the barriers, and in no time, the disease spread through the village. According to tradition, more than 80 people had died when the community elders gathered to make the famous oath: If God spared the town from the plague, they would perform the play of the life and death of our Saviour every ten years. Since 1634, the play has been performed regularly in Oberammergau, with only two cancellations (in 1770, when driven by Enlightenment thoughts, the Bavarian government tried to stop all superstitious traditions, and in 1940 during World War II) and few postponements. During this long period, the cultural parameters in which the play was situated shifted considerably. The Passion play stands in the tradition of Catholic religious drama and sacred representations, which flourished especially in the late Middle Ages. In the 17th century, dozens of such local play traditions existed in the Alpine region and all over Europe. However, hardly any of them can show continuity up to the present day, and among the few, Oberammergau is unrivalled in fame. Not only has the text of the play changed, but of the oldest surviving text (1662), only the basic framework is preserved, which is ultimately already derived from the Gospel accounts. Fundamental revisions took place in the middle of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. Finally, in two attempts in 1850 and 1860, the historicist form was created to be the textual basis for another 100 years. Since 1990, stage director Christian Stückl and his team have worked consistently to purge the text of anti-Semitic tendencies and recall the political and social background of biblical events. The stage design has changed significantly over the decennials, but the theatre house would also be rebuilt several times. Whilst the plays were first performed in the cemetery directly in front of the village church, in 1830, a

How to Become a Trademark  3

new stage was constructed at the Northern edge, followed by new and everlarger stage buildings in 1890, 1900, and 1930. This was also necessary. Since 1850, one has become aware of the play in German countries and beyond. Since Thomas Cook set up a temporary office in Oberammergau in 1879, the play has been well-developed for mass tourism. In 1880, the British ethnographer and explorer Richard Burton could book the trip with his wife conveniently from England, and as early as 1871, a travelogue published in an American magazine reported that the journey was of a “fatal facility” (Conway 1871: 618). The community also consistently geared its media self-presentation to an international audience. In the late 19th century, short series of periodicals were printed for the seasons to inform international audiences about the Passion play, the village and its environs; the Oberammergauer Fremdenführer in 1880 (Hännssler 1880) and the Oberammergauer Blätter in 1890 (Calwer 1890), the latter trilingual (English, German, French). The promotional tours of recent times have their prominent antecedent in the trip that the Jesus actor Anton Lang made to the United States in 1923/1924 to promote a peaceful, liberal, and hospitable host country – and not least to merchandise the local woodcarvers’ products to help his village to cope with the inflation in the aftermath of the World War (on Lang’s journey, Spear 2011; Molter 2022). In recent seasons, trailers have been shot to break up the traditional ban on filming; the Passion play homepage has grown several times over in recent years and now offers visual material that only a few years ago one had to search for in the Oberammergau municipal archive. Moreover, significantly since the lockdown in early 2020, the activities on social media have grown once again. The Passion play moves with the times, and it always has – in the play texts, in costuming, self-presentation, and self-marketing. The Oberammergau Passion play stands in a tension between tradition and innovation that has often been mentioned. However, things allow for a more specific perspective on this context.

2. Trademark In the expression “Tradition as Trade Mark”, we combine two terms, each of which is suitable for itself to meet the tension we claim to be characteristic of the Oberammergau Passion play. In “Tradition”, the connection between the centuries-long continuity of the play and the constant redesigning and updating is addressed. Thus, change paradoxically contributes first and foremost to ensuring and stabilizing continuity. The metaphor “trademark” hints at aspects of recognition, meeting expectations, and reliability, but also quality standards that can assume the character of unique selling points. The economic and legal contexts in “trademark” are not unfounded either: the self-description of the Oberammergau Passion play as a genuinely non-economical affair generates an economically effective and globally successful “trademark” on the one hand and makes strategic marketing for self-preservation necessary on the other. Historically, the reference is appropriate insofar as the later 19th century

4  Jan Mohr and Julia Stenzel

also witnessed the development of brand awareness and trademarks (Errichiello 2017: 22–33) – precisely the period in which the Passion play came to the attention of an international audience and was opened up for visitors from abroad in terms of tourism, marketing strategy, and media. Trademarks promise more than the merely economic exchange of goods for money. The exchange is semantically charged, and different aspects can complement and support each other. Trademarks promise either sheer quality (compared to competing products) or an attitude to life that can supposedly only be achieved with this brand, but at the same time, they claim that such an impression has a foundation in the product itself. A trademark promises, paradoxically, defined production standards that ensure high quality, but simultaneously, a uniqueness; trademark products are singularities that stand out from the mass of similar products (on the sociological concept of singularities, see Mariano Barbato’s contribution in this volume). Thus, trademarks create affective and emotional bonds between product and buyer. In this way, they establish continuities in a flexible capitalist market, even if they are continuously developed further – or combined with other brands. Like all outstanding products, trademarks seek each other out as they support and authorize each other. When the British icon James Bond drives a particular car brand, this is more than just one-way product placement, and the result of such cross-promotion is more than merely an economic factor. When a crime novel from the year 2000 interweaves a murder in Oberammergau with the Israeli Mossad, the city of New York, and the “mad” Bavarian King Ludwig II into one story, associations with the picturesque sceneries of the fairy-tale king and the Passion Village are expanded at the same time. Oberammergau moves up into a league with must-see places in the world (see Mohr: Myth). On all levels, such and similar figures of justifications, evocations, and semantic accretions can be observed around Oberammergau and its Passion play, as several contributions trace (see Annuß, Bernhart, Molter, Stenzel: What Kind of Man, Zerhoch). A final thought on trademarks leads to the theoretical background underlying the conception of this book. Trademarks often have or are identified with a pictorial sign that makes them recognizable at a glance; a distinctive shape, a lettering, a logo, a colour combination, or even an acoustic sign (one recognizes Ennio Morricone’s film score in seconds). All imputed qualities and exceptional characteristics are condensed in this iconic tangibility and become associable for the consumer. Trademarks can be conceived as moments of institutionality.

3. Practicing and materializing social order: institutional theory There are numerous notions of institution and institutionalization (at a glance, Esser 2005; Scott 2001). Even within sociology, the concept has a history of over a hundred years, ever since Émile Durkheim placed institutions at the

How to Become a Trademark  5

centre of sociological analysis (Durkheim 2013 [1895]). Since then, sociology has undergone various internal differentiations, and most have furthered the diversification of “institution” as a concept. Moreover, the number of works that presuppose a concept of “institution” but do not disclose it is almost incalculable. Nevertheless, the various approaches have in common that they distinguish between institutions and any pragmatic frameworks that might be labelled “organization”; thus, they deviate from everyday semantics. “Institution” does not mean “authority”, “office”, or “corporation”, but complexes of rules, roles, and scripts of conventionalized action patterns (Scott 2001: 57–8). Current institution theories emphasize an action-regulating power of institutions: Institutions offer orientation, establish expectations, and counteract behavioural uncertainties. More specifically, in recent sociological theory, “institutionality” has been regarded as a moment in which the normative foundations of social orders become perceptible. In historical research, this view on institutions has proved to be particularly useful, among other things, where social orders have been examined in historical change (Melville 1992; Rehberg 1994; Melville 2001; Melville and Vorländer 2002; Melville and Rehberg 2012). In this perspective, it goes beyond the established practices and processes that allow an organization to work smoothly and efficiently. Social structures maintain stability not only by functioning successfully but also by making their meaningfulness tangible. According to this notion, specific institutional stability of social structures exists when an abstract order is (re)presented in embodiments or sign systems so that concepts of meaning and value standards can be experienced. We assume that such institutional moments can be observed in all organizational constellations, making their normative foundations “symbolically” perceptible (cf. Rehberg 2001, esp. 21–35): “What is institutional about an order is the symbolic representation of its principles and claims to validity” (Melville 1997: 16). The institutional pre-structures action and communication processes; simultaneously, “the assertion of the intrinsic value and the intrinsic dignity of an arrangement of order is increased and enforceable” (Rehberg 1994: 56). According to this notion, institutional mechanisms can be analysed in symbols in which the norms and values presupposed in the background come to the fore (Rehberg 2012: 425). First and foremost, institutionality implies the collective claim and performative affirmation of proper times (Eigenzeit; cf. Rehberg 2012: 433–7) and spaces (Eigenraum; cf. Rehberg 2001: 39–43). This concept of institutionality is highly applicable to the case of Oberammergau as the “village of the Passion”. It just takes a short town walk and a certain amount of awareness to see how the entire village relates to the Passion play and its history. The names of Passion playwrights, stage composers, biblical characters, and their impersonators in historical playing seasons appear on street signs, walls of buildings are painted with biblical scenes and historical architecture, the Passionsspielhaus, which is, topographically, located at the margins of the village marks the topological centre of Oberammergau. So it seems that the village’s spatial logic develops from the Passion play, as the village seems to tell

6  Jan Mohr and Julia Stenzel

its history in parallel with the history of the Passion. However, Oberammergau is not only chrono-topologically entangled with the Passion play; the decennial rhythm of play seasons and latency periods entangles individual biographies and family histories. Social time in Oberammergau is structured by specific cycles, from the decennial performances to the ushering of each season with the ritual announcement to the actors to have their hair and beards grown (Haar- und Barterlass). The growing hair changes the image in the village, thus indicating not only the state of exception but also that this state extends into the time between the Passion years, making everyday life qualifiable as a latency period. It also makes different gradations and variances of belonging visible at a glance: those who do not appear on stage may wear their hair as they wish. The recent postponement due to COVID-19 may illustrate how the need to cope with latency periods contributes to the specific processes of institutionalization that characterize Oberammergau as the village of the Passion play. Not least in the last two years, this perspective has become apparent. It is not without a sense of irony that the play lauded for the ravaging plague had now to be postponed because of a viral pandemic. However, even in this unforeseen circumstance lies the potential to build on its tradition. The postponed season coincides with the 100th anniversary of another postponement from 1920 to 1922 after WWI. Due to casualties in the war – too many male villagers had fallen; the play directory faced a shortage of performers and orchestra players. It is only since 2020 that an epidemiological reason has also been given for the postponement one hundred years earlier: The Spanish Flu, which ravaged Europe from 1918 to 1920 and claimed many lives, especially among 20–40 year olds. Institutionality becomes particularly visible when the institution it presupposes is called into question and comes into crisis. It is enacted and acted out when it includes the crisis – ex-post – in its own logic and derives it from its own history: Figures of institutionality always generate new significances and self-justifications, for example, as COVID starts to threaten the 2020 Passion play. However, the two-year delay of the 1920 season had been explained with reference to WWI ever since the 1920 and 2020 postponements now become explicitly paralleled. Nowadays, this postponement is contextualized with the Spanish flu. Whether this recent explanation can be proven or not, the time it comes into play is overtly significant. It is paradigmatic for how Oberammergau continues to narrate itself by claiming both the repetitive character and singularity of its tradition: Thus, the contingency of the pandemic-driven postponement is now narrated as a common thread of the Passion play tradition. By integrating it into the narrative and material practices that help institutionalize Oberammergau as the unique “Town of the Passion”, the latency of two years is transformed into the chrono-logic of Oberammergau as the implied institution. It is precisely in its ability to bridge non-playing years and cancellations that the singularity of the Oberammergau Vow play lies: As early as 1920, a pandemic played a role in the decision to postpone to 1922 – thus, the recent delay can be reformulated

How to Become a Trademark  7

as the establishment of another cyclical structure, reenacting the founding history of the playing tradition. The entanglement of the Passion play with the individual passions of the villagers, the visitors, and the world, spiritual healing and the illnesses of humanity is actualized again. Thus, the specific aesthetics of Oberammergau’s institutionality emerges as the appearance of configurations of sense and their constant transformation. This also applies to how individual biographies – overtly fictional as well as historical narratives by visitors as well as villagers – converge with the ­chronotopology of the Passion play: Although the decennial production of the Passion of the Christ continues to be perceived and conceived as a charismatic, even more as a singular event, the obedience to the plague vows is less ­dispensable as an individual confession of each spectator. The play remains meaningful, but the history of salvation becomes more and more open to individual or collective reformulation, transformation, and re-application.

4. Religion and secularity “What isn’t Religion?” Kevin Schilbrack makes this polemic question the title of a considerable article that tackles the challenges that emerge with the postcolonial and critical occidentalist approaches that have been characterizing the study of religion at least since the middle of the 20th century. Schilbrack names the theoretical and methodical dilemma of contemporary religion studies that aim to establish “religion” as a concept open to non-monotheistic, non-European practices and epistemologies. Instead of supporting the deconstruction of the very category of “religion” as proposed, for example, by McCutcheon (McCutcheon 1997), he tries to evaluate the analytical and descriptive options that emerged with religion as a field of study different from the theologies. To balance the rather sociological assumption of religion as a field of social practice with semiological and experientialist or phenomenological approaches, Schilbrack conceives religion as a social practice involving the participant’s belief that this practice engages a community of believers as well as superempirical entities, beings, or logics, that is transcendence (Schilbrack 2013). As Schilbrack and others argue, religion manifests itself in practices and processes of mediation (Meyer 2020), for the encounter with the superempirical, the holy, the gods, ghosts, or inner self implies the bridging of a gap, the handling of a metaxy, the channelling of divine energy, or the emergence of a former invisible “beyond”. Against the background of this conceptual scaffold, the specificity of the Catholic Passion play tradition manifests as a medial configuration that allows for the encounter with the numinous in a human body embodying the Son of God. The audacious claim underlying the theatrical re-enactment of the Passion – “look at me, I am Jesus Christ” – presupposes a media practice characteristic of Catholic Christianity. Through the words of the eucharist, spoken in the liturgy by the priest, Jesus is not only represented in the bread and wine but is actually present. This fundamental assumption of the Catholic concept of God makes a conceptualization of the Passion play as “more-than-theatre”

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plausible in the first place: as the bread and wine, the actor’s body on stage can also be experienced as more than an arbitrary embodiment of Jesus. The claim that the histrionic Jesus speaks and acts with divine charisma for the duration of the Passion play underpins numerous travelogues and fictional narratives since the middle of the 19th century, as the Passion play begins to attract audiences from all over Germany, Europe, and the world. At first glance, it seems irritating that the international career of the Oberammergau Passion play starts in a historical situation conventionally associated with the macro-historical process of secularization, conventionally understood as the separation of state and church, individualization of belief and religious practice, a decrease of religious traditions entangled in societal and political institutionalization. Actually, only six years after the duchy (Herzogtum) Bayern became a kingdom (Königreich Baiern), a far-reaching expropriation of the church (Säkularisation) in the early 19th century profoundly influenced the social and public spheres and the cultural life of its inhabitants. Trying to observe and evaluate this irritation, its implicit presumptions come into sight, and it can be shown that the popular micro-history of the Passion play, declaring Oberammergau as one of the last residuals of pre-modern religious theatricality in Europe, is deeply indebted to the meanwhile notorious concept of secularization as established by Émile Durckheim. Durkheim’s secularization thesis (Säkularisierungsthese) describes the modern evolution of the state and the church as separate institutions, fueled by the enlightenment and nearly completed in the 20th century. In Durckheim’s sense, secularization suggests a historical process of demystification and disenchantment (Entzauberung der Welt), profoundly transforming European societies. In the process of secularization, transcendental foundations of “man” and “world” are substituted by narratives of rationality and efficiency; in this perspective, modernity and secularity are co-evolving and intertwined. In the modernization process, secular and religious domains are separated, and the state emancipates itself from the church’s power, structurally and institutionally. When “secularization” is understood as a notion implying disenchantment, the disappearance of transcendence, or profanation, the different conceptual pairings deriving from this notion meet in one aspect: The history of secularization can only be told in terms of either emancipation or loss. However, such a narrative tends to invisibilize that processes of rationalization/modernization and religious vitalization or revitalization are not mutually exclusive. Accordingly, the concept of secularity has repeatedly been criticized, albeit rather cursory (Arnal and McCutcheon 2013: xv). Thus, it has been argued with good reason that religion has not lost its significance in Western Europe but only transformed. However, a secularization thesis that focuses on the historical sequence of a non-secular pre-modernity and secular modernity cannot adequately comprehend individualized, syncretic, non-institutionalized forms of religiosity. As with “religion”, “secularity” should also be spoken of in plural (Führding 2015). Accordingly, as a historiographical concept, secularization

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also implies no dichotomous opposition between religion and the profane or the secular. It rather presumes manifold differentiations and internal differentiation of social fields. Thus, the increasing international success of the Passion play since the middle of the 19th century is far from surprising. Moreover, its success is related to the fact that it occupies a specific niche of cultural practice in which it does not serve as a surrogate for religious contexts of practices but instead provides meaning precisely in its specific blending of “the spiritual” and “the profane”. Instead of the challenged notion of secularization as the replacement and emancipation of secular spheres from religious institutions and norms, we apply a model of multiple secularities as proposed by Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchardt (2017) and Wohlrab-Sahr and Kleine (2021) to tackle the relation of religion and other societal fields. Departing from Shmuel Eisenstadt’s more established model of multiple modernities (Eisenstadt 2000), Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchardt differentiate between secularism as a bundle of ideological presumptions and embodied practices connected to epistemological colonialism and occidentalist hegemony and secularity as a sociological concept: While secularism stands for an ideology of separation (religion vs state, privacy of faith vs secular public sphere), secularity as a concept, in contrast, allows for describing the diverse forms of differentiation and entanglement between religion and other societal fields of practice. Moreover, unlike “secularism” and even “secularity in singular”, the concept of multiple secularities does not imply a unilateral or teleological process of modernization that makes religious practice disappear from the public sphere. Instead, it aims at establishing a typology open for historical and cultural comparatistics and not restricted to Western modernity (Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchard 2011: 71). Thus, applying this model implies material and discoursive histories as well as questions of institutionality and institutional aesthetics. Thus, the history of the Oberammergau Passion play is not at all opposing macro-historical evolutions. Instead, its survival and transformation in the “long” 19th century can be seen as symptomatic of the multiplication and diversification of religion and secularity. In Oberammergau’s history over the last 200 years, the detachment of previously religious practices from their underlying cultural frameworks becomes observable. For example, out-oftown visitors still refer to the journey to the Passion play venue as a pilgrimage. The pilgrimage narrative, however, is overlaid with the practices and semantics of tourism; in addition to deeply religious people, those seeking recreation and those interested in culture also travel to Oberammergau, and accordingly, advertising prospects try to address these different segments of guests (cf. Zerhoch, Mohr: Pilgrims and Tourists). The vow play no longer finds its ultimate justification in a vertical axis, towards God, but in a horizontal one, when the community is considered the ultimate inescapable value. It is no longer transcendentally justified but immanently when tradition is considered the ultimate value. When the main actors engage in their characters, the embodiment of the sacred figures connects with personal life experiences and is thus subject to

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new forms of authentication – the religious and the worldly (the secular, the profane) condition and contour each other. Oberammergau is associated with narratives, stories, perceptions, and patterns of action that have solidified on the one hand over the last 200 years and, on the other hand, have become further differentiated. With them, the Passion play village occupies a position in a field determined by multi-layered intersections of religious, spiritualistic, touristic, cultural-critical, and ethnological interests, in which the villagers and the out-of-town visitors partly meet and partly stand out decidedly from each other. As this mélange is specific and probably unique, it seems justified to address the phenomenon of Oberammergau as a trademark.

5. On the parts and chapters How to become a trademark? The first part proposes a typological and a historical answer about Oberammergau. Based on German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz’s singularity model, Mariano Barbato (Politology, Passau) contrasts Oberammergau with the (current) papacy. From this perspective, both institutions consistently work on validating the plausibility of their uniqueness. Furthermore, Barbato outlines that both had a pronounced constancy – which also means that they were successful in their aspirations – and works out structural parallels and differences in the respective possibilities and strategies of a self-removal. Complementarily, Robert D. Priest (History, London) reconstructs the manifold and changing alliances that could be formed in the debate about the Passion play and its performance from a historical perspective. Based on thorough archival work, Priest analyses in two synchronous cuts (1860, 1890) the social and institutional tensions that characterized the Oberammergau Passion play in the 19th century – among the citizens as well as between parish, church, the various legal institutes, the (Free) State of Bavaria, and the Bavarian king. In 1860, the text produced by Alois Daisenberger 1850 was revised once again to make a profound impression on foreign visitors. In 1890, the Gospel tradition and the ecclesiastical-theological position opposed the local traditions in Oberammergau and the Daisenberger version of the text. Again, the village could assert itself against demands for a revision. The village community’s consistent reference to its tradition is interpreted as a strategy to preserve autonomy in dealing with its passion play – a perspective that, as the following chapters show, could easily be extended to developments in the 20th and 21st centuries. In Part II, we focus on the emergence of a theatrical public sphere (Balme 2014), in which the institution of Oberammergau is approved and stabilized. A considerable part of this public sphere is formed by travellers – which means that it is constituted in the process of the travels itself. Secondly, through the theatrical and dramaturgical peculiarities of the play, the audience is formed into a community; nothing shows this more clearly than the attempts of Nazi ­propaganda to adopt the formal characteristics of the Passion play for its own

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forms of theatre-based mass direction. Finally, scholarly discourse also contributes to stabilizing collective notions of Oberammergau – whether the underlying criteria are justified or not. Jan Mohr (Medieval German Literature, Munich/Bielefeld) analyses travelogues to Oberammergau in magazines, travel reports, and memoirs. He traces narrators’ rhetorical and narrative strategies to make their journeys sound more like pilgrimages and set themselves apart from the set of “others” looked down upon as mere tourists. Dominic Zerhoch (Theatre Studies, Mainz) follows that line up to the 20th century and provides a theatrical perspective on this historical period. Based on archival research, he examines the spatial representation of Oberammergau in travel brochures of the 1934 Passion play. In an extended scenographic perspective, he shows how textual and pictorial strategies ascribed specific characteristics to the already hybrid space, thus evoking ideas (“geocodes“) and generating expectations even before the physical appropriation of space. The hybridization of the Oberammergau scenography allowed various actors to characterize Oberammergau as a Catholic place of pilgrimage but also as the destination of an alpine adventure holiday and to instrumentalize it for propagandistic purposes, thus addressing heterogeneous target groups. Evelyn Annuß (Gender and Performance Studies, Vienna) traces the afterlife of the Passion play in the form of Nazi Thing plays (Thingspiele) in the early 1930s. In the structure of a pastoral dramaturgy, the planners of the Thingspiele perceived impulses for their concept of unifying the audience in a homogenous mass that could be ideologically governed and controlled. Just as the Passion play at least suggests the abolition of a boundary between players and spectators, the Thingspiele aimed at performative inclusion. The fact that drinking, smoking, and applause were explicitly undesirable – albeit not to be suppressed – was intended to steer the perception away from individual needs and towards the depicted homogenized mass in which a popular body (Volkskörper) was pre-figured. The concept of the Thingspiele ultimately failed after a short time while radio as a new and more effective mass medium entered the stage. Nevertheless, during the consolidation phase of Nazi power, substantial functional loans could be made to the Oberammergau Passion play before the cinema was largely established as the new leading medium of Nazi propaganda from 1936 onwards. Based on the Oberammergau Passion play, Toni Bernhart (German Literature, Stuttgart) discusses and deconstructs the term Volksschauspiel (community play), common in cultural studies. Intuitively, the term is likely associated with collective production and/or reception modes. However, it has never been systematically and descriptively clarified. By the Oberammergau Passion, often seen as the paradigmatic folk play, Bernhart shows that the concept, suffering from its ideological prehistory in the 18th and 19th centuries, has never been clarified in German Studies. The chapter also points out the discrepancy between scholarly categorizations that are backgrounded by assumptions of structural literacy and prevailing oral traditions. In tracing the term folk play (Volksschauspiel ) and examining its development and application in German

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Literature and Cultural Studies, the attribution of “old” becomes crucial. Conceived in the sense of “pre-historic” or “pre-historiographical” (which is, evading historiographical determination of origin), the attribute of age, which has advanced to become an essential characteristic and unique selling point of the Oberammergau Passion tradition, can serve different expectations and is open to different cultural-historical modellings. In Part III, we tackle how the authenticity of Oberammergau and its Passion play is produced and perceived on stage and in medial responses to on- and offstage presentations of the Passion play. Finally, we ask how the Passion play practices both forms and is formed by the self-fashioning of the social image and political community. Céline Molter (Ethnology, Munich/Mainz) analyzes the casting of actors for the Passion play 2020, which took place in the summer of 2018. Using the example of the media reception of the Oberammergau Wilhelm Tell production of 2018, she describes the multi-layered production of space and meaning in the Passion play Theatre in the run-up to the coming Passion play season and showed how the preparation for an actor’s choice for Passion play took place as an interplay of on- and offstage discourses. The tendencies that became clear during the Wilhelm Tell performances have been confirmed later, as the players cast for prominent roles would also occupy leading roles in the 2020/2022 Passion. Julia Stenzel (Theatre Studies, Mainz) engages with the techniques, practices, and materialities involved in the reenactment of sacred suffering and bodily stigmatization in and beyond the Passion play. The chapter investigates the materiality of human body hair and its potential to be charged with charisma deriving from the performance of the Passion and the sacred figures embodied on stage. Since the early 19th century, the aforementioned hair and beard decree (Haar- und Barterlass) obliges the impersonators of the biblical figures in Oberammergau to letting their hair and beards grow from Ash Wednesday of the year before each Passion play season until the dernière. The chapter considers how the presumed “naturalness” of hair has been generating authenticity and materializing devotion, thus functioning as an interface of holiness and a reservoir of time. To explore how the hair of Oberammergau matters beyond the Passion play, the chapter discusses an exhibition in the context of the 2022 Passion play season, resulting from an artistic research project involving the last season’s performers’ hair. Part IV traces the critical issues in the field of the literary imaginary in which a collectively shared knowledge about Oberammergau and its Passion play can be repeated, varied, and functionalized, be it conservatively or subversively. Thus, literary works contribute to institutionalizing the village and its play. With German philosopher Hans Blumenberg’s study Work on myth as a starting point, Jan Mohr outlines four major modes in which the traditional motifs of the Oberammergau story are varied, combined, and told anew. Blumenberg determines the myth in its cultural, functional value, which lies in the myth ordering the disordered and unmanageable diversity of the world and

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making it accessible to a description. In this sense, Jan Mohr interpreted various approaches to the Oberammergau theme as work on the unclarified origins and institutional tensions of the Passion play. For example, the tradition of the historical persons who brought the plague into the village provides contradictory information. A group of literary debates with Oberammergau begins with these contradictions by inserting the historical persons into fictional stories and thus making suggestions on “how it might have been”. When the unity of village and passion play represents an established institution, it can embody cultural-critical alternative concepts. These can be used for moralizing, and ultimately restrictive role, family, and social models, as in a post-war narrative explicitly addressed to the “young generation”. In addition, with a complementary yet slightly different focus, Martin Leutzsch (Protestant Theology, Paderborn) provides an overview of fictional passion play narratives throughout Europe. Based on this overview, which is stupendous in its breadth and unprecedented so far, he examines commonalities of literary passion play constructions in a discourse-historical approach. The leading question aims at moments of similarity between the respective Christ actor and his ‘historical’ model. Such parallels can be designed not only in a physical sense but also as a personal attitude, leading to social marginalization. From a gender-theoretical perspective, Leutzsch focuses on historically changing ideals of masculinity and shows how historical ideas of Jesus and the fictional construction of the Jesus actors converge in the Passion play texts. Jesus’ succession, it could be summed up, is designed in the Passion play stories as a performance achievement, in the narrated play itself, as well as beyond it. Departing from one of the most popular novels on Oberammergau around 1900, Julia Stenzel furthers this gender-theoretical approach. Whilst Leutzsch shows how historical ideas of Jesus and the fictional construction of the Jesus actors converge, in a lecture of Wilhelmine von Hillern’s On the cross (1890), Stenzel focuses on how the intersections of masculinity and divinity are performed and challenged in fictional refigurations of the Oberammergau Jesus. In the 19th century, triggered by Bible historiography and new perspectives on gender, the Jesus on stage, identified as the Son of God, also qualifies as a model for multiple masculinities. Complementary, the female figures of the gospels lose their self-evidence as models for femininity. Thus, the male body of Jesus must be read in correlation to the multiple female bodies surrounding him. The critical-ness of Jesus, the man, and Mary (Magdalene), the woman, are involved in the diversification of the Passion play, especially when it comes to its popularization and distribution. This volume was initiated before the 2020 Passion play season, and most of its contributions deal with a pre-pandemic view on Oberammergau. However, given the situation of the postponement, the approaches and attempts the chapters propose, the questions they arise, and the contexts they deal with acquire a new relevance. Since the mid-19th century, it has been an asserted potential of the Passion play to assemble people from all over the world with different cultural, social, and since the mid-20th century, even religious backgrounds.

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Since the logic of physical involvement in the ephemeral community gathering in the Passion theatre has been interfering with the biopolitical requirement of physical distancing, the connection of (mental, spiritual) health and hail has been complemented by the question of hygiene as physical health. How can gathering people from diverse cultural spheres and heterogeneous backgrounds be connected to the idea of spiritual, religious, and even bodily well-being and healing? The Oberammergau Passion play has always shown its ability to cope with external obstacles as well as internal inconsistencies (esp. Barbato, Priest), to integrate heterogeneous influences and secondary traditions (Molter, Zerhoch), and to fuel collective as well as individual imaginations (Leutzsch, Mohr: Work on Myth, Stenzel: What Kind of Man). Facing the pandemic crisis, the officials of Oberammergau worked on integrating the threat of COVID into the story and history of the play. As we initially sketched, continuities of discontinuation were introduced, and the inevitably prolonged phase of latency leading to the 2022 season was functionalized in different ways. Conjuring up chances and challenges to refound a community of the Passion and reinvent its tradition, the story of the Passion play, once again, evidenced its potential to integrate, diversify, and confront heterogeneous ideas of its future. The success of the Oberammergau trademark lies in the capacity to endure and perpetuate this tension.

Works cited Arnal, W. and R. T. McCutcheon. 2013. The Sacred Is the Profane. The Political Nature of “Religion”. New York: Oxford University Press. Balme, Ch. 2014. The Theatrical Public Sphere. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. Calwer, R. (ed.). 1890. Oberammergauer Blätter. Oberammergau Weekly News. Revue d’Oberamm­ ergau. Bad Kohlgrub: Faller, Buchmüller & Stockmann. Conway, M. D. 1871. A  Pilgrimage on the Ammer. Frazer’s Magazine, November  1871: 618–37. Durkheim, É. 2013 [1895]. The Rules of Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and Its Method. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Errichiello, O. C. 2017. Philosophie und kleine Geschichte der Marke. Marken als individuelle und kollektive Sinnstifter. Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler. Esser, H. 2005. Soziologie. Spezielle Grundlagen. Vol. 5: Institutionen. Frankfurt/M., New York: Campus. Führding, St. 2015. Jenseits von Religion? Zur sozio-rhetorischen‚ Wende‘in der Religionswissenschaft. Bielefeld: transcript. Hännssler, D. (ed.). 1880. Oberammergauer Fremdenführer. Munich: D. Hännssler. McCutcheon, R. T. 1997. Manufacturing Religion. The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia. New York: Oxford University Press. Melville, G. 1992. Institutionen als geschichtswissenschaftliches Thema. In: Institutionen und Geschichte. Theoretische Aspekte und mittelalterliche Befunde, ed. id. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 1–24. Melville, G. (ed.). 1997. Institutionalität und Geschichtlichkeit. Ein neuer Sonderforschungsbereich stellt sich vor. Eine Informationsbroschüre im Auftrag des SFB 537 in Verbindung mit dem

How to Become a Trademark  15 Dezernat für Forschungsförderung und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit der TU Dresden vom Sprecher. Dresden: Technische Universität. Melville, G. (ed.). 2001. Institutionalität und Symbolisierung. Verstetigungen kultureller Ordnungsmuster in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau. Melville, G. and K.-S. Rehberg (eds.). 2012. Dimensionen institutioneller Macht. Fallstudien von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau. Melville, G. and H. Vorländer (eds.). 2002. Geltungsgeschichten. Über die Stabilisierung und Legitimierung institutioneller Ordnungen. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau. Meyer, B. 2020. Religion as Mediation. Entangled Religions 11/3 (2020): Religion, Media, and Materiality (doi:10.13154/er.11.2020.8444). Molter, C. 2022. ‘Made in Oberammergau’ – Materialität und Repräsentation der Oberammergauer Passions-Souvenirs. In: medioscope. Blog des Zentrums für Historische Mediologie, University of Zurich (1 July 2022). https://dlf.uzh.ch/sites/medioscope/2022/07/01/madein-oberammergau-materialitaet-und-repraesentation-der-oberammergauer-­passionssouvenirs/ (accessed 23 August 2022). Rehberg, K.-S. 1994. Institutionen als symbolische Ordnungen. Leitfragen und Grundkate­ gorien zur Theorie und Analyse institutioneller Mechanismen. In: Die Eigenart der Institutionen. Zum Profil politischer Institutionentheorie, ed. G. Göhler. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 47–84. Rehberg, K.-S. 2001. Weltrepräsentanz und Verkörperung. Institutionelle Analyse und Symboltheorien – Eine Einführung in systematischer Absicht. In: Institutionalität und Symbolisierung. Verstetigungen kultureller Ordnungsmuster in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, ed. G. Melville. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 3–49. Rehberg, K.-S. 2012. Institutionelle Analyse und historische Komparatistik. Zusammenfassung der theoretischen und methodischen Grundlagen und Hauptergebnisse des Sonderforschungsbereiches ‘Institutionalität und Geschichtlichkeit’. In: Dimensionen institutioneller Macht. Fallstudien von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, eds. G. Melville and id. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 417–43. Schilbrack, K. 2013. What Isn’t Religion? Journal of Religion 93/3: 291–318. Scott, W. R. 2001. Institutions and Organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Spear, S. E. 2011. Claiming the Passion. American Fantasies of the Oberammergau Passion Play, 1923–1947. Church History 80/4 (December  2011): 832–62 (doi:10.1017/ S0009640711001235). Wohlrab-Sahr, M. and M. Burchardt. 2011. Vielfältige Säkularitäten: Vorschlag zu einer vergleichenden Analyse religiös-säkularer Grenzziehungen. Denkströme. Journal der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 7: 53–71. Wohlrab-Sahr, M. and M. Burchardt. 2017. Revisiting the Secular: Multiple Secularities and Pathways to Modernity. Working Paper Series of the HCAS “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” 2. Leipzig: Política & Sociedade. Wohlrab-Sahr, M. and Ch. Kleine. 2021. Historicizing Secularity: A Proposal for Comparative Research from a Global Perspective. Comparative Sociology 20: 287–316.

Part I

Being a Trademark – Typological and Historical Outlines

2 Comparing Singularities The Passion Play and the Papacy Mariano Barbato

1. Introduction: “One man’s trash is another one’s treasure” Oberammergau’s Passion play and the Roman Papacy are quite different religious institutions. However, both flourish under the competitive conditions of capitalism and both are unique religious institutions that are able to mobilize masses. Comparing the Passion play and the Papacy as a most-different case hence suggests that an important factor for their flourishing is exactly this status and this alleged ability. The argument here is not that this common ground is the only, let alone, generalizable factor to explain their success or their survival under the conditions of secular modernity. Rather, the aim of the comparison is a deeper understanding of the mechanism that favors, supports, and enables outstanding institutions with a unique selling point to attract masses under the conditions of competitive consumer capitalism and its economic cycles. German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz offers a fresh conceptual approach to study the transformation of a society and an economy that increasingly centers around valorization and devalorization processes of entities to which these processes describe value because of their alleged uniqueness. Reckwitz even speaks of a “society of singularities” (Reckwitz 2017) in which the particular wins over the general. Not mass consumption of standardized products but the unique and special is cherished. Yet, the construction of a singularity is an unstable process. In an economy centered around valorization and devalorization processes, even bulky waste can become a sought-after rarity, but all kinds of treasured rarities can lose their value quickly (Reckwitz 2017: 14). Oberammergau’s Passion play as well as the Roman Papacy as paragons of old and great religious traditions and institutions represent treasured rarities for some, while others consider great and old religious traditions per se to be a kind of bulky waste hovering over the dustbin of history. Although classical concepts of linear secularization processes are no longer suitable to understand a multiple modernity (Eisenstadt 2002), secularization processes are still in force (Taylor 2007). Religious traditions like the Passion play and the Papacy are under pressure to keep their current status as treasured rarities and to not be disposed of as bulky waste. Both religious traditions are very successful in DOI: 10.4324/9781003106319-3

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flourishing despite being faced with these pressures. Why does the Passion play and Papacy remain stable in the midst of secularization processes that can be understood as devalorization processes of religious traditions? With Reckwitz, I would like to argue that the papacy and the Passion play flourish as singularities. Against Reckwitz, I would like to emphasize the relevance of the attractivity for the masses and of mass mobilization for the lasting boom of singularities and their ability to avoid devalorization tendencies. If singularities are not to be consumed in rapid economic cycles of valorisation and devaluation, a solid mass basis, iconic for the economy of classical modernity, is needed. With this slight modification of the concept, significant differences can be observed in the details. Before we can go into these details, a brief introduction firstly to the basic idea of singularities as well as valorization and devalorization processes and secondly to their adaptation for secularization and desecularization processes (Berger 1999) seems to be in order. This can be done without going into too much detail of a conceptual discussion but with a heuristic look at an episode of a TV series: The cult series Spongebob takes up the problem of singularities and valorization and devalorization processes in the episode “One Crab’s Trash”. A look at the episode can illustrate the key issue of Reckwitz’s concept in a nutshell: Mr. Crab starts selling trash as antiques and manages to sell Spongebob a drinking-hat. Shortly thereafter, a third party, notably not a single person but a group of vendors and freaks, offers Mr. Crab one million dollars for such a hat. Consequently, he does everything to get the hat back again from Spongebob. When Mr. Crab finally presents the retrieved hat to the rarity hunters, his value has fallen to zero in the meantime, as a whole warehouse of such hats has been discovered. The singularity has turned out to be mass-produced and immediately fell into devalorization. Spongebob comes along with another hat, which quickly attracts the attention of the potential vendors. The new hat becomes the new rarity and thus within seconds increases in value. The episode ends at this point but a repeated fall in value is foreseeable. To understand the process of valorization and devalorization it is not enough to look at the hat alone, the decisive factor is the group of rarity hunters representing the mass of consumers. If a powerful institution and not just a powerless individual commodity owner like Mr. Crab is affected by cycles of valorization and devalorization processes, the institution’s agency has to focus on preventing devalorization processes while concurrently fostering valorization processes. The principle devalorization process of a religious institution is its secularization. For the institution to prevent this form of devalorization, but also for the observer to analyze the steps of preventive action taken by an institution, it is necessary to at least take a brief look at how the Passion play and the Papacy are affected by secularization in more detail. According to José Casanova (1994), secularization describes the disappearance of religion on three levels: 1) on the level of institutional politics; 2) on the level of the public sphere; and 3) on the level of the private sphere. While Casanova sees only the secularization of the political sphere as a given and emphasizes the role of religion in public,

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the classical secularization theory saw a kind of domino effect at work (Bruce 2011). Contrary to Casanova’s modified approach, which stresses the importance of religion on the public level and takes the importance of religion on the private level for granted while accepting a sphere of secular politics, the phenomena of the Papacy and the Passion play assume a secularized private level but a valorization process not only on the public but also on the political level. A look at the Passion play’s history over the last one hundred years indicates a continuous public interest in the play which is a clear indicator of its political role. During the rise of the Nazi Party, for example, the Nazi regime was keen on using the anniversary of 1934 for its purposes. Particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, the play stirred up fierce controversy over its alleged antisemitic character. As a consequence, numerous Jewish organizations as well as the Catholic Church called for an adaptation to strip the play from all indications that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. In response to these controversies but equally in recognition of Passion play’s economic importance for the village of Oberammergau, local politics got involved with the Passion play. The parties of the local council, which has the final word in matters concerning the Passion play, are not structured around the usual cleavages of Bavarian politics but are formed by the cleavages around the play. In 1990, the women’s caucus, that demanded a non-discriminatory policy, won in court. During the same period, a second factor contributed to the developments of the last decades: Faith amongst the citizens of Oberammergau dwindled drastically. As a result, the expression of religious doubt not only entered the public debate but also the sphere of the Passion play. Thirdly, secularization can also be seen as a process of pluralization as Christianity and Catholicism lost their dominance not only to sceptics and agnostics but also to other religions. Currently, the second director of the Passion play 2020/2022, Abdullah Karaca, is a Muslim. Together, the attempts to account for these developments, have affected and altered the character of the play. A similar process can be observed in the case of the Papacy. The ability of the papacy to continuously and increasingly attract masses in public is a foundational factor to keep the traditional status of a legal subject of international law and fill the legal status with the life of a powerful political and public actor (Barbato 2013, 2016). On the other hand, even self-declared Catholics and devotees of the pope do often not agree with papal doctrine while the cheering papal masses need not be Catholic at all. Bearing in mind these circumstances, the study can concentrate its analysis of the valorization/desecularization and devalorization/secularization processes on the interplay of the political and the public level. On the private level, the decline of religion in general respectively of Catholicism in particular has a much smaller impact on the Passion play and the Papacy than one would expect. While the significance of the private level should nonetheless not be underestimated, it is the interplay between public sphere (including economic interests) and politics that has a surprisingly high importance in its own right. Understanding the factors of that interplay is the research interest here.

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In a first step, the importance of mass mobilization has to be integrated into Reckwitz’s concept of singularities. The following steps conceptualize secularization as a competitive process (2.), focus on creative stabilization in contrast to Schumpeter’s notion of creative destruction (3.), discuss differentiation not as a sociological process on the level of the system but as an entrepreneurial instrument to target diverse consumer groups with one single product (4.), shed light on the cartelization of singularities in order to pool power (5.). While these factors are more on the public and economic side of the mechanism, the last step concentrates on the political sphere. Politics has to pay attention to a phenomenon that is able to continuously mobilize masses as these masses carry political weight (6.).

2. Comparing quantities: singularity and masses Neither the Papacy nor the Passion play is without competitors – the ­number of religious leaders outranks the number of passion plays and the Coptic Church has its own pope. However, Oberammergau and Rome stand out from the competition for their mass appeal. It is first and foremost their appeal to the masses that turns them into outstanding phenomena which are termed here as singularities. Reckwitz conceptualizes the cultural economy of late modernity based on the processes of singularization (from 1970) in contrast to mass culture and mass consumption of industrial society (1920–1970) (Reckwitz 2017: 100–3). However, he also recognizes the “star” as a process of singularization and ­culturalization within the organized modernity of mass culture: If the star wants to exert an attraction, he or she must be perceived as unique. In this sense, the star is heir to the subject of the artist: subjective particularity is socially credited with and glorified – this, of course, is no uniqueness pertaining to the oeuvre, but to the performance of the subject itself and its glamor. The star, in organized modernity, remains an exclusive, inimitable figure, that jibs at a fuss-free translation into the reality of a leveled mass society. (Reckwitz 2017: 102; my translation) The red thread of singularity, which connects the artist of bourgeois modernity with the star of consumer capitalism, is well recognized. The tension with mass society, however, is rather exaggerated. In contrast to Reckwitz’s third thesis concerning the transformation of the industrial society into the creative economy, there are no hints that mass consumption is structurally replaced by a “pluralization of consumption patterns” (“Pluralisierung der Konsummuster”, Reckwitz 2017: 114). Mass consumption is becoming more and more of a concern for the cultural economy of late modernity, which is not surprising under the capitalist conditions that favor an economy of scale. For Reckwitz, the “singularity markets” (Reckwitz 2017: 155) are characterized by strong concentration processes,

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which turn these markets into “winner-take-all ­markets (or at least ‘winnertake-the-most’)” (Reckwitz 2017: 160; cf. Frank and Cook 2010). For a more fine-grained analysis, Reckwitz refers back to the star: One can also speak of a superstar economy here. It follows the pattern of starification of the economic as well as of late modern culture in general, an act long known from the arts, later from the cultural industry and sports. (Reckwitz 2017: 160 [my translation]; cf. Rosen 1981) The star, which since bourgeois modernity and its hype around the original genius of the artist developed into the archetype of the movie star in mass society and which is seen today as a token of singularity markets, depends on increasing mass consumption. The size of consuming masses may vary but as an overall pattern it is growing. Even a possibly ongoing decline of mass consumption in the old industrial societies is balanced out by an increase in consumption of a growing world population in global capitalism. The secular trend to increased mass consumption since bourgeois participation in the consumption of the nobility is stable. Neither in the field of creative economy has the rise of the mass as a sign of modernity come to an end. Each producer of singularities must target mass compatibility under “winner-take-all” conditions. No matter how peculiar the singularity is, without the affinity of the uniqueness for being mass-marketed, it remains a premodern event in which a merchant sells everything to gain the field with the unique treasure. In contrast to hasty Marxist expectations of the pauperization of the masses, mass consumption still drives the concentration process also in the current digitalization process. For example, the market value of personalized data depends on the availability of large quantities of aggregated and concentrated data sets. That can explain easily the success of a few giants in cultural economy like Google/Alphabet, Facebook/Meta, Amazon, or Apple. The transformation processes of the old industry are also still based on the effects of mass production and mass consumption. A personalized luxury car only works because Fordism has prevailed across models and allows the variance of personalization within mass production. An energy certificate issued under the ecological regime of climate change prevention specifically for each individual household is also so heavily subjected to the conditions of mass production that it can be created online and automatically. Even the old sofa which may be ready for a bulky waste collection may for some suddenly appear as a vintage treasure only due to a mass lifestyle. Beyond a trend shared by journals and magazines with mass audiences, the emotional attachment to a scuffed sofa remains an idiosyncratic quirk. Idiosyncrasies do not transform into singularities without mass appeal (Reckwitz 2017: 48–57). This general thesis applies especially to the Papacy and the Passion play as the dependence of singularities on mass affinity and attractiveness also applies to nonphysical entities. The artists, the stars, their performance, their staging depend on the applause of mass audiences. Only when the masses come, art pays off

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in capitalism – the rest is state subsidy or private patronage both based on their own mechanism to accumulate wealth beyond mass consumption, not rarely at the expanse of it. In Reckwitz’s concept, the actually recognized dependence of the singularity on the masses remains underexposed, because he prefers the Kantian juxtaposition of the general against the special and – by drawing upon Max Weber – builds more on rationalization as a sign of modernity than on the mass logic of capitalist modernity (Reckwitz 2017: 11, 29). With and against Reckwitz, the Papacy and the Passion play can be explained by a concept of singularity depending on a constant performance for the masses. The appeal to the masses is a self-reinforcing effect. Masses have the tendency to follow the masses. For that reason, the marketing of the singularities reports that masses have been attracted. The number of visitors for each repertory season is collected for the Oberammergau Passion play and subsequently published as part of a promotional strategy. Estimates for the early days are also presented. Since 1930, between 400,000 and 500,000 spectators have been coming constantly. Mass numbers are advertised to masses in order to attract them again. The Pope holds his audiences in St. Peter’s Square every Wednesday and travels throughout the world to speak to the masses and to be cheered by the masses. Estimated figures are usually presented for single events as well as for the annual sum of visitors of papal events in Rome. Pope Francis proclaimed for 2015/2016 an extraordinary Holy Year, which is considered a traditional means by Rome to swell the papal masses of pilgrims once again. 21,292,926  million pilgrims were listed solely for the Roman Holy Doors. Because that was not enough, the Holy Doors’ pilgrims in the entire Catholic world were estimated at 850–950 million (Holy See Press Office 2016). The intended message is: when the Pope calls, all Catholic Christianity responds. Reputation is displayed through the self-certificated mass appeal, which Reckwitz frames as “reputation capital” (Reckwitz 2017: 165–74) whose value for “living classics” he rates as particularly high, “as they usually produce additional new cultural goods” (Reckwitz 2017: 173; my translation). Reckwitz directs his attention to important subprocesses in the “quantification of the particular”, but overlooks the importance of the masses as a decisive quantifying feature in order to facilitate the necessary comparison (Reckwitz 2017: 174–9): Strictly speaking, singularities cannot be compared – however, a pragmatic need for comparison arises from the realm of an economy of singularities, from both the perspective of producers and consumers alike: Both have a vested interest in gaining comparative information on dynamics of attention as well as on attribution of value. (Reckwitz 2017: 175; my translation) The desired comparability in the quantification of the particular is obviously due to the quantity of those who are attracted by a phenomenon. Each

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assessing statistic on the value of products depends on large numbers: The Guide Michelin and any other expert ranking can only provide credible assessments to the masses if all, or at least almost all, relevant restaurants or universities, toasters, cities or the like have been included in the ranking. The digital economy comparison portals, which classify electricity, insurance, or telephone contracts according to price and performance, work in the same way. When single products are evaluated, it is not only the rating given by evaluators but also the number of evaluators that is crucial for the attribution of value. Quantity does not determine quality, but only quantity gives relevance to quality in global capitalism. Quantity also remains the decisive comparative feature for singularities. Thus, it is safe to summarize: The Papacy and the Passion play are constituted as singularities by their ability to attract masses. These two but very different institutions can be compared as singularities constituted by the masses. For, the masses are the engine of the mechanism that constitutes them as successful and stable singularities.

3. Secularization as devalorization or singularization as selection Valorization depends on an increased concentration of attention (Reckwitz 2017: 165ss). Conflict around a phenomenon can create an “advantage of the controversial” (“Strittigkeitsvorteil”, Reckwitz 2017: 171). Secularization processes that develop incrementally and unnoticed can thus present a more difficult challenge for religious phenomena than a sudden rupture that results in resistance. On the other hand, initially repressive and later forced secularization processes can be very effective (Wohlrab-Sahr, Karstein and Schmidt-Lux 2009). Thus, the crucial point is to mobilize enough resistance facing conflicts in order to survive the devalorization process and, at least sometimes, the selection process also singularities are subjected to. Catholic traditions are under constant pressure since the Enlightenment. In 1770 the Oberammergau Passion play could not take place. Only just with joined efforts, Oberammergau pressured the Bavarian government to issue a special permit to allow the play in 1780. Oberammergau is the only Bavarian Passion play that was able to organize resistance. The last decades of the 18th century also mark a low point for the papacy. The Church historian Eamon Duffy notes: “By the 1780s, every Catholic state in Europe wanted to reduce the Pope to a ceremonial figurehead, and most had succeeded” (Duffy 2014: 247). The Pope was only annoying for the enlightened Catholic monarchs (Reinhard 2017: 712). A  particular low was the enforced papal ban on the Jesuits in 1773 (Barbato 2017: 7). The French Revolution threatened to end the papacy for good. When the Pope died in French captivity in 1799, it took almost one year until a new Pope was elected. Meanwhile, German romanticist Novalis wrote his glorifying essay

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Europe or Christianity while erroneously believing that the papacy was history. The papacy, however, got back on its feet surprisingly soon after and survived not only the end of the Papal State in 1870 but also the constant challenge of devalorization processes. The 20th century saw not the public decline but a rise of the papacy (Barbato and Joustra 2017). Similarly, the Oberammergau Passion play manages to stand the test of secularizing devalorization pressures. Maximilian von Montgelas, the Bavarian minister who created the secular modern Bavarian state, succeeded in scrapping all other passion plays on Bavarian territory, including those which were gained through the Imperial Recess of 1803, but he could defer the Oberammergau performance only for one year from 1810 to 1811. In Bavaria, the tradition of the passion play has unswervingly survived only in Oberammergau, everywhere else a tradition of that sort had to be reinvented. A comparable effect can be observed for the papacy. The imperial church and its prince-bishops and imperial abbots were lost when the Holy Roman Empire imploded, as the Gallican bishops’ power eroded with the French monarchy in the French Revolution. These conflicts generated attention, support, mobilization, and readiness to combat. The Italian pressure on the Papal State attracted even military volunteers – the Papal Zouaves ­(Coulombe 2008). After the downfall of Papal Rome, the volunteers were replaced by pilgrims who showed their support for the papacy (Heid 2018). Olaf ­Blaschke shows how important these factors of anticlerical attack were for mobilizing forces to create resistance and construct a powerful ultramontane papacy (Blaschke 2017). The Oberammergau Passion play experienced an even more stable continuity of its ability to mobilize. After the first successful ban of 1770, only World War II could prevent the play in 1940. After its prohibition in 1810, the play was staged only one year later. Since the inclusion of the play into the international calendar of cultural travelling, which had been strongly promoted by Thomas Cook’s agency, the play was able to mobilize an international audience, in particular from the United Kingdom and the United States. While the Papacy and the Passion play survived, others were less successful. This incremental vanishing of the others corresponds to a negative “buzz effect” (Reckwitz 2017: 160pp). Instead of a fast momentum at the start, which ensured attention and thus led to dissemination and rise under “winner-take-all” conditions, the Papacy and the Passion play managed to make their breakthrough in the downfall of the competitors. Other passion plays went under or had to be re-established after their ban and decline. Conflict generates attention, but it must also provide mass support for the attacked phenomenon. After all, only those who remain can evolve into singularities. What is decisive for survival under pressure to justify is the support of masses in sufficient numbers. To understand the mechanism the next question is: how it is possible for some to mobilize not only the attention but the support of the masses?

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4. Creative stabilization versus creative destruction In his seminal work “Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy”, the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter turns the old notion that the old has to fade away for the benefit of the new, into a law of capitalism: The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroy­ ing the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. It is what capitalism consists in and what every capitalist concern has got to live in. (Schumpeter 1994/1942: 82–3) If old traditions and institutions like the Papacy or the Passion play want to survive, Schumpeter’s gale of creative destruction must be withstood by creative stabilization. However, due to the power of the law of creative destruction, which constantly creates something new at the expense of the old, creative stabilization has to be a kind of creative destruction, too. In order to survive in substance, at least the surface has to change. As the gale of creative destruction is a constant process, the old institution and tradition do not have to be adapted once, but permanently. The Papacy and Passion play do not only face pressure at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, but are saved then. Under the condition of faster business cycles of valorization and devalorization, stable performance can only be achieved with constant creative adaptation. Creative stabilization efforts are not creations ex nihilo. They react to challenges evolving out of the conflicts of the devalorization process. Again, conflicts are the driving force for these creative stabilizations. In the case of the Papacy and the Passion play, their conflicts interact. The adjustments of the Papacy during the Second Vatican Council concerning the relationships to other religions, in particular to Judaism, had a major impact on the Passion play. The Passion play in Oberammergau had already been under considerable pressure to adapt its script concerning the anti-Judaic plot of the play. However, this issue was not the only task on the table. Changes in expectation and demands of the audience on cultural events created a pressure of its own. Thus, the struggles to change parts of the plot concerning the role of the Jews in the play constantly interacted with the efforts to modernize the play in order to attract the audience’s taste (Shapiro 2000). These struggles had their forerunners in the demands of the Bavarian government of the late 18th and earlier 19th century to adapt script and staging to the standards of the more sublime taste of the enlightenment as well as in the demands of the Nazi regime of the 1930s to escalate Anti-Judaic tendency into a propaganda play. The spirit of the Enlightenment enforced the cleansing of all medieval influence while the Nazi regime demanded a very specific interpretation of medieval folk play.1

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All of these very diverse political challenges were ready to end or call for an end to the Passion play tradition if their demands were not taken into account. The incremental change of taste and the steady decline of the importance of the religious vow eroded the play’s standing against the fierce competition of the booming entertainment industry. The history of the play is thus a history of constant struggle and adaption of script and staging in order to resist the diverse forces of creative destruction by creative stabilization. In the eyes of conservative adherents of the play and the Papacy, the creative stabilization was itself a process of creative destruction that had to be done in order to save the play or that had to be stopped in order to do so. The thin line between creative stabilization of the substance by creative destruction of the surface is in itself a matter of contestation. The many ways the Papacy is under pressure to reform itself cannot be discussed here. Concerning the issue of mobilizing masses, an aspect that stands in contrast to the decision of Oberammergau sheds light on the variations that creative stabilization can have: Papacy and Passion play are related to certain places. The Vatican, St. Peter, and St Peter’s Square are the icons of the Papacy. They are the main stages where the papal performance takes place and where the masses gather. The Passion play is also situated into the scenery of Oberammergau, yet it saw changes concerning the site where the play takes place. In order to mobilize masses beyond those who are able or willing to travel, the star goes usually on tour. While the Passion play and the Papacy adapt their local staging, only the Papacy goes on world tours. The Passion play of Oberammergau understood the local stage as part of the substance that cannot be adapted. In addition, no kind of broadcasting is allowed. All attention is focused on the staging in the interval of ten years. The Papacy, in contrast, turned the travelling pope into a key instrument of its performance. Pope Benedict XVI justified his resignation with his inability to travel (Benedikt XVI 2016: 40). In addition, the concern of the Vatican media reform is to survive the structural transformation of the public by holding all events accessible to a digital public (Barbato and Barbato and Löffler 2018). Different ways of creative stabilization are possible. In order to achieve a stable performance in the fast cycles of valorization and devalorization, one needs constant creativity, which allows to keep the creative destruction at bay while the institution reinvents itself again.

5. Diversification versus differentiation Niklas Luhmann understood the process of modernization as a process of differentiation. The process of secularization, as part of the overall development, can also be understood as a differentiation process that redistributes a variety of social functions from the homogeneity of the religious community to other systems and turns religion into one out of several subsystems (Luhmann 2002). One of the subsystems which are set free from religious dominance is art. Instead of within the framework of ecclesiastical patronage and religious

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themes, art establishes itself according to independent codes (Luhmann 1997). Institutions like the Papacy and the Passion play can no longer build on a given interplay of art and religion but must play according to the rules and codes of one of the two subsystems. In addition, competitors arise under the new conditions of the subsystems’ rules and the challenged dominance of the integrated art-religion complex. The counterstrategy to social differentiation may be entrepreneurial diversification. If a homogenous target audience begins to differentiate, the company must turn to different customer segments if it does not want to lose market share. If the Papacy and the Passion play run short of faithful Catholics, new markets of consumers have to be entered. The Papacy and the Passion play have a similar strategy as artists in the entertainment industry. The staging of religion as art continues to serve the tastes of the faithful who enjoy a sacred play. At the same time, the cultural tourist enjoys the colorful and dramatic performance without accepting the dogmatic narrative of the plot (Barbato 2018: 21–5). In the perspective of system theory, institutions like the Passion play and the Papacy manage to cater simultaneously to the rules of two different subsystems. The ability to play on one stage but communicate to different subsystems ensures the mobilization of different social strata and brings them together as one mass audience. Such an ability is an important competitive advantage and as such an important factor in the mechanism that creates singularities. Rarely, a star is appreciated by the masses for one trait or capability. The star has to please several demands and tastes. For Oberammergau, this change to a double reception can best be seen in 1880 when the couple Isabel and Richard Burton started to write about it from two contradicting perspectives. In their book “Oberammergau seen with four eyes”, they wanted to contrast the credulous and the art-critical view of their respective impression. What they were denied by the publisher who was interested in the art perspective of Richard Burton only, James Shapiro managed to present impressively, at least, in extracts (Shapiro 2000: 143–8). The Papacy and the Passion play are discovered in the wake of emerging mass tourism beyond pious pilgrimage by the tourists on Grand Tour and the tourism pioneer Thomas Cook who arranged occasionally both destinations on the same trips. The combination of religious and cultural staging reaches a second goal on the quiet. While under conditions of forced secularization (Wohlrab-Sahr, Karstein and Schmidt-Lux 2009), religion may come under constant pressure, the freedom of art enjoys special protection and attraction under conditions of enlightened liberal order. Religiously informed art productions can be at worst considered cheesy, but the right of performance can no longer be taken away and the taste for a religiously informed art may survive the loss of faith. As soon as the freedom of religion and the freedom of art are established, both can mutually reinforce one another. However, they can also come into conflict. Tellingly, the most severe challenge for Oberammergau of the last decades was the criticism the play received because of the Anti-Judaic character of parts of

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its plot. As the Catholic Church supported the Jewish critique, it was not an interreligious cleavage but the cleavage of art versus religion. To avoid also such conflicts, a further factor has to be integrated into the mechanism.

6. Cartels versus competition Stable performance in valorization and devalorization cycles can be achieved by catering to the demand side. Other options are coalition and agreements on the supply side. The masses are then still crucial, but they are addressed by arrangements that involve other singularities. These cartel arrangements can be outlined in three variations: The first aspect has to take into account that almost every singularity fosters the standing of the other if they interact. Thus, every star is welcomed by the Papacy and the Passion play. The Pope likes to grant a private audience with any kind of celebrity. Their encounter is photographed and the pictures are distributed to the public for the benefit of both. The list of stars among the visitors of the Passion play is ubiquitous in its culture of memory and its marketing. The mass visiting the performance of one singularity cherishes if other stars are part of the audience, and sometimes both are cheered. The second aspect concerns the strategy which is classical for any cartel: pooling activities with actors in the same market. The Oberammergau Passion play is not shy about being a member of Europassion’s egalitarian club of over 80 passion plays from sixteen European countries (see Europassion.net). The Pope likes to act on a level playing field and in the spirit of fraternity with interreligious or interdenominational representatives. Instead of concentrating on competition, potential competitors prefer to stabilize each other. Thirdly, sometimes singularity lives in a symbiosis without the need to form a full cartel as their markets overlap but vary sufficiently. The Passion play lives in such a special symbiosis with the Catholic Church, in particular with the Archbishop of Munich and Freising, in whose dioceses the play takes play, but also with the Papacy. In the struggles of the Anti-Judaic tendencies of script and staging, Oberammergau’s Passion play lost its Church permit. In 1970, Cardinal Döpfner, Archbishop of Munich and Freising, withdrew the missio canonica as the AntiJudaic parts were not sufficiently corrected. It had been granted officially for the religious play under church auspices just three decades before when the then-archbishop Cardinal Faulhaber tried to reclaim it for the Church when Hitler and the Nazi regime managed to pocket the play. Also due to the transformation of the Church, the withdrawal of the formal permit was a symbolic gesture but not a heavy burden for the play. Nevertheless, Church approval and papal support still mattered for the Passion play. A reigning Pope never visited the play, but the annals of the Passion play note the future popes under the prominence of their guests. The value of individual popes is subject to valorization and devalorization cycles. The historical overview in the wake of the Passion play presents the visit of Achille

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Ratti, later Pope Pius XI, in 1910 as well as the visit of Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII, in 1922 – due to the many victims among the players of the village in World War I the play of 1920 had been postponed. In 1980, the chronology mentions Joseph Ratzinger, the later Pope Benedict XVI. He is presented as a guest (see the historical overview on the official Passion play homepage, Eigenbetrieb Oberammergau Kultur 2019). However, as the successor of Döpfner as archbishop of Munich and Freising, Ratzinger was not just a visitor. While Pacelli and Ratti were only guests, Ratzinger was actually involved. In the jubilee volume of 1984 in celebration of the Passion play’s 350th anniversary, Roland Kaltenegger thanked him – then already Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – for reading the manuscript of his Anniversary Book (Kaltenegger 1984: 13). Ratzinger had additional merits for the play. He did not give back the withdrawn missio canonica officially but supported the play in a critical moment of the debate about the Anti-Judaic aspects by giving the opening sermon (Ratzinger 1980/2000). John Paul II was never in Oberammergau but the representatives of Oberammergau visited him. In Roland Kaltenegger’s volume, the Pope represents a prominent reference point. A picture of the Pope and the representatives of the village during a papal audience in Rome on March 16, 1983, and his message to Oberammergau as the Passion play community is placed prominently at the back cover of the book. Obviously, the Pope should help to promote the volume. Quite fittingly, the papal audience and the Passion play are placed in the context of the extraordinary Holy Year of Redemption of 1983 (Kaltenegger 1984), which also commemorates the Passion of Christ. Also revealing is Kaltenegger’s suppression of the visit of Pacelli in 1922 by mentioning only Giovanni Battista Montini, the later Paul VI (ibid.: 181). The footnote to this story reads apocryphally. During an audience, Paul VI should have told the former mayor of Oberammergau, Heinrich Zunterer, who was also starring as Herod in the play, about his visit to the play in 1922 (ibid.: 243). Along with a present for John Paul II, another one for Paul VI is displayed in the book (ibid.: 80). In the current chronology a visit of Montini is no longer mentioned but Pacelli is back. Was the dispute about Anti-Judaic aspects in the beginning of the 1980s so controversial that Pacelli, who himself was posthumously under pressure for his decisions not to intervene publicly on behalf of the Jews during the Nazi terror, had been replaced by his proxy Montini? The valorization and devalorization processes of the entangled singularities “Papacy” and “Passion play” are not easy to control. The entanglements of Pope and Passion play, however, do not always form a cartel. The Pope could also become a contrast foil. Shapiro refers to a stage direction for the Caiaphas actor by play director Christian Stückl during the rehearsals for the 2000 Passion play according to which the actor should think of the Pope when playing Caiaphas (Shapiro 2000: 218). Due to the postpandemic decline of the papacy, no pope figured prominently in 2022, but the servants of the Hight Priest were dressed like little popes.

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7. Political effects: the power of the masses The Passion play and the Papacy are not just art and religion, they are politics. The pope is not only the souverain of the Vatican City State. The Papacy acts as Holy See with a status as a subject of international law on the international sphere of diplomacy. Not only does the papacy maintain this traditional status, it expands it. In the 20th century, the number of diplomatic relations of the Holy See with other states increased steadily. This diplomatic success was based on the ability to stay in the game of a public actor by mobilizing masses. The diplomatic apparatus of the curia succeeds in translating the social reputation into political participation (Barbato, Hoover and Joustra 2019). In Oberammergau, the constellation looks different but no less political. The village of Oberammergau made its vows for the Passion play as a community and not as the Catholic parish and, hence, decides on its concrete fulfilment as a political community. The local council decides on specific and substantive issues of the play – most contested were the decisions of which script and what director should be chosen. If the Passion play did not attract masses but was based solely on the religious vow, the secular political community of Oberammergau might be less interested. Without the importance of a mass event on which the prosperity of the village depends, the vow would most likely have become a matter for only a dedicated minority. The play would certainly be left to the religiously interested people of the parish. Due to the masses, Oberammergau’s politics is centered around the play. As the council decides on the play, the cleavages of the play determine the political cleavages of the village. The parties of the council are thus very different from the political landscape of Bavaria and Germany, as they do not represent the usual political cleavages. Based on the electoral results of 2014, only the most important of the established Bavarian (and German) parties, the Christian Social Union (CSU) could send three representatives out of 20 into the council. In 2020 they won five seats; all other seats went to groups which represent different positions and interests concerning the Passion play. If a singularity survives the test of public interest and is able to evolve into an economical factor, it spills into politics. In the case of Oberammergau, a local council became a political singularity. Religion in Oberammergau is on a private sphere probably as much in decline as in other Bavarian villages with a Catholic heritage. However, as a public event and enterprise its ability to attract masses turns it into a political factor on which the well-being of a ­political community depends. Thus, the composition of the local council is not just a colorful curiosity but an expression of the political impact a singularity like the Passion play has for a community.

8. Conclusion: the singularity mechanism to stand the test of devalorization Secularization is a constant threat of devalorization to singularities with a religious outlook or substance. Such diverse institutions like the Roman Papacy

Comparing Singularities  33

and the Oberammergau Passion play survive and flourish on strategies that can be conceptualized with albeit abstract but overall common mechanism because they are – in Reckwitz’s parlance – singularities. However, in contrast to Reckwitz’s argument, the significance of singularities in our societies does not mark a rupture with mass culture but depends on the ability to mobilize masses. Singularity exists only through attractiveness for the masses. If there is only a small social group that quickly changes its taste, devolarization is predetermined. Based on mass support the secular devalorization process of religious institutions can be stopped or reversed. The relevance of religious singularities indicates that only a few religious institutions were able to survive. Devalorization processes are also selection processes that boost those who manage to stand the test of time over a period of contestation as a singularity in the next historical phase. Papacy and Passion play can show that they were able to mobilize support and not only attention in their conflicts.2 However, their success on the public and political level does not necessarily depend on the level of personal faith which, therefore, has here been left out of the considerations. Religious motivations alone are certainly insufficient to help under the condition of consumer capitalism a successful singularity flourish in the public realm. Under conditions of modernity, religion must massively increase the entertainment value of its performance. A creative stabilization is able to withstand the gale of creative destruction but only at the price of a compromise with the storm of time. But stability and creativity must come together; otherwise, creative destruction looms. A basic feature of such stabilizing adaptions is diversification. If social differentiation turns a more or less homogenous and integrated community into a society of diverse subsystems, survival of those institutions that had the task to constitute social bonds and homogenous communities is under particular pressure. The Passion play and the Papacy cannot survive in the religious niche alone, at least with their self-understanding as a communal enterprise of a village or the Vicar of Christ. This self-understanding gives them the potential for a singularity. The actualization of it can, however, only be managed if diverse demands of the audience are satisfied. Institutionally steered diversification of the offered performance is thus the option to escape uncontrolled social trends of differentiation. Those who are able to serve a diverse audience with the same performance have the capacity for becoming a singularity. On the supply side, an important factor is the ability for the pooling of resources. Singularities have a surprising tendency to stand together and to avoid competition. Conflicts and tensions are possible, but the working condition of a successful singularity mechanism demands pooling instead of competing. Stars like each other. The Passion play is proud to point at the gallery of the stars among their visitors. Future popes score high on the ranking, but they are also subject to devalorization processes. Their role and their existence might be downplayed or ignored if single Popes face a devalorization pressure. When not incremental devalorization processes of secularization are at work but sudden ruptures, the political struggle is most of the time obvious. Efforts to mobilize masses are political efforts. However, these conflicts can be also

34  Mariano Barbato

more incremental and cause silent struggles. In the later case, the spill-over effect into the political realms happens in the final phase of the mechanism when the contested phenomenon survived as singularity. The final test for a successful revalorization process as a singularity is passed when public influence and political power spill-over into a new and wider political order. The Passion play and the Papacy performed pretty well. For the time being, their status as public and political singularities is safe.

Notes 1 See Evelyn Annuß chapter in this volume. 2 For the Oberammergau Passion play in the 19th century, see Robert D. Priest’s chapter in this volume.

Works cited Barbato, M. 2013. A  State, a Diplomat, and a Transnational Church: The Multi-layered Actorness of the Holy See. Perspectives: Review of Central European Affairs 2: 27–48. Barbato, M. 2016. Legionen des Papstes. Zeitschrift Für Politikwissenschaft 26/4: 375–96. Barbato, M. 2017. Der politische Aufstieg des Papsttums: Mobilisierung, Medien und die Macht der modernen Päpste. Römische Quartalschrift 112/1–2: 1–20. Barbato, M. 2018. Das Papsttum im Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. In: Wege zum digitalen Papsttum. Der Vatikan im Wandel medialer Öffentlichkeit, eds. M. Barbato, M. Barbato, and J. Löffler. Frankfurt/M.: Campus Verlag, 11–45. Barbato, M., M. Barbato, and J. Löffler (eds.). 2018. Wege zum digitalen Papsttum. Der Vatikan im Wandel medialer Öffentlichkeit. Frankfurt/M.: Campus Verlag. Barbato, M. and R. J. Joustra. 2017. Introduction: Popes on the Rise. Review of Faith and International Affairs 15/4: 1–5. Barbato, M. P., R. J. Joustra, and D. R. Hoover. 2019. Modern Papal Diplomacy and Social Teaching in World Affairs. London: Routledge. Benedikt XVI. 2016. Letzte Gespräche mit Peter Seewald. Munich: Droemer. Berger, P. L. 1999. The Desecularization of the World. Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center. Blaschke, O. 2017. Der Aufstieg des Papsttums aus dem Antiklerikalismus. Zur Dialektik von endogenen und exogenen Kräften der transnationalen Ultramontanisierung. Römi­ sche Quartalschrift für Christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 112: 60–73. Bruce, St. 2011. Secularization: In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Casanova, J. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press. Coulombe, Ch. A. 2008. The Pope’s Legion: The Multinational Fighting Force That Defended the Vatican. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Duffy, E. 2014. Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. Yale University Press. Eigenbetrieb Oberammergau Kultur. 2019. 2022 Passionsspiele Oberammergau. www.passion sspiele-oberammergau.de/de/spiel/historie (accessed 25 December 2022). Eisenstadt, S. N. 2002. Multiple Modernities. New York: Routledge. Frank, R. and P. Cook. 2010. The Winner-Take-All-Society. Why the Few on the Tip Get So Much More Than the Rest of Us. New York: Virgin Digital.

Comparing Singularities  35 Heid, St. 2018. Solidarische Kirche. Deutsche Pilgerzüge zu den “gefangenen” Päpsten Pius IX. und Leo XIII. In: Päpstlichkeit und Patriotismus. Der Campo Santo Teutonico: Ort der Deutschen in Rom vom Risorgimento bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg (1870–1918), eds. St. Heid and K.-J. Hummel. Freiburg/Br.: Herder, 186–232. Holy See Press Office. 2016. Archbishop Rino Fisichella Summarises the Meaning of the Jubilee Year and Presents the Apostolic Letter “Misericordia et misera”. Bollettino. Sala Stampa Della Santa Sede, N. 161121a (22 November 2016). Rome. https://press.vatican. va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2016/11/21/161121a.html (accessed 30 July 2020). Kaltenegger, R. 1984. Oberammergau und die Passionsspiele 1634–1984. Munich, Vienna: Langen Müller. Luhmann, N. 1997. Die Kunst der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, N. 2002. Die Religion der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Ratzinger, J. K. 1980/2000. Passionsspiele müssen Gebet sein. In: Leiden schafft Passion. Oberammergau und sein Spiel, eds. G. Holzheimer and E. Tworek, and H. Woyke. Munich: A1 Verlag, 165–6. Reckwitz, A. 2017. Die Gesellschaft der Singularitäten. Zum Strukturwandel der Moderne. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Reinhardt, V. 2017. Pontifex. Die Geschichte der Päpste. Munich: C. H. Beck. Rosen, Sh. 1981. The Economics of Superstars. The American Economic Review 71/5: 845–58. Schumpeter, J. 1994 [1942]. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. London: Routledge. Shapiro, J. 2000. Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World’s Most Famous Passion Play. New York: Pantheon. Taylor, Ch. 2007. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wohlrab-Sahr, M., U. Karstein, and Th. Schmidt-Lux. 2009. Forcierte Säkularität: religiöser Wandel und Generationendynamik im Osten Deutschlands. Frankfurt/M.: Campus Verlag.

3 Tradition, Authority and Autonomy at the Oberammergau Passion Play, 1860 and 1890 Robert D. Priest 1. Introduction Although it has famously been performed continuously in the same village for nearly four centuries, Oberammergau’s Passion play is far from the purely internal product of an independent rural community.1 Since at least the late eighteenth century, an increasingly intense and dynamic series of interactions between Oberammergau and the outside world have continuously shaped the content and meaning of the community’s performance. These became particularly acute with the play’s rapid growth in popularity during the second half of the nineteenth century, which saw seasonal play audiences grow fivefold from 35,000 to 174,000 between 1850 and 1900 (Huber, Klinner and Lang 1990: 168–71). The arrival of huge numbers of tourists and pilgrims from beyond the Alpine valleys produced new tensions inside the village, as well as new processes of contestation and exchange. Oberammergau’s popularity was predicated on retaining an image of unblemished tradition, but the same visitors who were drawn by this aura ironically produced new pressures towards modernisation, whether in the village’s infrastructure or in the character of its dramatic performance. This posed Oberammergau a dilemma common to communities that attract cultural tourists: how would the village sustain the veneer of authenticity that was so attractive to visitors when the very influx of visitors threatened to destroy it? While responding to these pressures, Oberammergau’s elected authorities – the Gemeinde and the Passion Committee – also had to contend with the demands and expectations of an increasingly large and assertive network of self-appointed stakeholders. These included both powerful institutions, such as the Bavarian state and the Catholic Church, as well as various sorts of cultural authority, such as artists, critics and intellectuals. Conflicts arising from these tensions played out in various arenas, from church services and lodging arrangements to drinks prices and sanitation, but this chapter will focus on the most fundamental: the play itself. It will explore the preparations ahead of two passion seasons, 1860 and 1890, which both produced contests between the community of Oberammergau and external institutions for control over the details of its performance, and within which appeals to the authority of tradition played a central role. In advance of each of these DOI: 10.4324/9781003106319-4

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seasons, the play script was particularly at issue. In 1860, the Bavarian government commissioned the village’s priest, Joseph Alois Daisenberger, to reform the script in line with outside critics’ tastes, while in 1890 the Catholic Church sought to impose a firmer doctrinal stamp on the text through the medium of the Munich priest Corbinian Ettmayr. While scholars are quite familiar with the Daisenberger reform, they have paid little attention to the fact that it was initiated by and developed in dialogue with the Bavarian state (see, e.g., Huber 1999; Schaller 1950: 48–51; Shapiro 2000: 72–3). By contrast, historians have scarcely examined the Ettmayr reform at all, probably because it failed, even though it helps illuminate the vexed relationship between the Catholic Church and the Oberammergau performance (Schaller 1950: 51; Feldigl 1922: 43; Diemer 1900: 124). This chapter’s fundamental claim is that retracing these episodes reveals that appeals to tradition necessarily posed questions about the ownership of cultural property. Was Oberammergau’s Passion play the last vestige of a once-great European culture of religious drama, an outpost of an Alpine folk custom, a specifically Bavarian tradition, or an instrument of Catholic faith? If so, authorities in these fields could and did assert their right to pass judgement over the village’s performance and demand changes. Oberammergau instead framed its passion tradition as something rooted in the local community, a move that helped the village to defend its autonomy over the play. While we might imagine that such appeals to the authority of tradition were a form of conservatism on the part of the village, such a view is too simplistic. In its interactions with outside authorities, the Oberammergauers did not cite tradition simply to block changes, but rather as a tool that helped them manage demands for innovation on their own terms. In drawing attention to the self-consciousness of the Oberammergauers’ engagement with outside authorities in the modernisation of their performance, this chapter adopts the position that the anthropologist Christoph Brumann calls ‘heritage agnosticism’. Brumann argues that we need join neither the ‘heritage believers’, who are invested in demonstrating the authenticity and value of traditional customs and objects, nor the ‘heritage atheists’, who see heritage as the artificial product of agendas and interests which reinvent, distort and commodify local traditions. Rather, we should recognise that communities continue to find a range of meanings in local heritage even as it is absorbed into larger networks, such as international tourism, and outside agendas, such as those of states, nongovernmental organisations or religious institutions (Brumann 2014). Furthermore, as many anthropologists have recognised, the dynamic between tourism and heritage is too complex to reduce to broad notions of commodification or homogenisation. ‘Cultural tourist’ host communities face a special challenge, in that the presence of outsiders necessarily changes the very ‘culture’ that visitors want to experience (Boissevain 1996: 6–10). But while the influx of visitors threatens to contaminate the apparent authenticity of a tourist site, locals often see the presence and interest of outsiders more positively, as something that helps to ‘certify that the cultural

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manifestation of a local community is worthy of safeguard, promotion, and pride’ (Testo 2019: 211). This juxtaposition drawn from contemporary ethnography finds clear echoes at late-nineteenth-century Oberammergau: while elite observers fretted that outside interest threatened to degrade the play’s authenticity, the Oberammergauers cited their performance’s appeal to visitors in order to draw on resources and parry demands for modernisation. Adopting this position helps us to see how the Oberammergau Passion play fits into some of the major narratives of the development of folk customs and religious rituals in nineteenth-century Europe. The Bavarian state’s interest in the 1860 revision can be seen as part of a broader current whereby centralising states sponsored the investigation and classification of regional customs as part of the projection of national identity (Applegate 1990; Confino 1997). As Abigail Green has stressed, this was just as true for Mittelstaaten like Bavaria as it was for the German Empire after 1871 (Green 2001: 330–3). Similarly, the Catholic Church’s involvement in the 1890 revision demonstrates how the Passion play might form part of a late-century Catholic Revival characterised by the dialogue between a centralising Church and local communities that gave birth to new mass pilgrimages and devotions: a ‘potent convergence of clerical activism . . . with a revitalised popular piety’ (Clark 2003: 17). Yet while the Oberammergauers seem to have been content to hitch their Passion play to visions of Bavarian and later German identity (François 2009: 282–5), they also saw clearly that the state’s sudden enthusiasm for their performance, only a few decades after they had tried to ban it, offered resources that they could exploit to defend their resolutely local interests. And while the Oberammergauers certainly recognised the importance of projecting an image of Christian piety, their play’s relationship to the Catholic Church was more indirect than at other devotional or pilgrimage sites. Although the play’s reviser and most famous director was a priest, the authority to stage the performance was vested in a civil body, the Gemeinde. The Oberammergauers correctly judged that the Church authorities would continue to seek to draw on the popularity of their performance, irrespective of whether they toed the clerical line in every detail of their play, and that in any case they could always appeal over the heads of clerics to government ministers. While this chapter follows recent historians in seeing the nineteenth-century ‘revivals’ of folk and religious culture as the products of complex negotiations rather than top-down impositions, it therefore also seeks to emphasise Oberammergau’s distinctively robust position as it entered into the path of these larger historical processes.

2. 1854–1860: the Daisenberger reform In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Oberammergau had faced off various threats to its Passion play from both secular and clerical authorities. By the 1850s, however, its position as one of the last surviving religious performances in Bavaria was settled and clear. At the governmental level, the hostile mood of enlightened absolutism associated with Maximilian von Montgelas

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gave way to a more supportive climate under King Ludwig I (r. 1825–48). His rule was characterised by what David Barclay called ‘Christian-German medievalism’ – restoring medieval churches, supporting Catholic traditions and creating monuments to heroes of the Wittelsbach dynasty – but despite efforts from competing villages such as Mittenwald, Oberammergau’s competitors had struggled to revive their plays after long absences (Barclay 1994: 12–3; Gollwitzer 1986; Brenninger 1990: 64). One of the most important reasons that Oberammergau could feel secure in its future was because, in addition to institutional support, the village’s performances had attracted sustained attention from a diverse group of German elite commentators. These included, in 1830, the art critic Sulpiz Boisserée and natural philosopher Lorenz von Oken, then in 1840 the Catholic conservative Guido Görres and the Alpine travel writer Ludwig Steub, and most recently in 1850 the conservative historian Johann Nepomuk Sepp, Catholic theologian Martin Deutinger and Protestant dramatist and theatre historian Eduard Devrient. While Oberammergau’s new-found fame among literary elites in prestigious publication outlets provided a potential guarantor for its survival, it also generated new sorts of constraint. These reviews developed certain predictable tropes – the devout village, the open-air theatre, and so on – that became part of what visitors expected when they arrived at Oberammergau, and that villagers were therefore under pressure to maintain. Outside critics also voiced an increasingly assertive sense of ownership over the play. Writers like Sepp and Steub demanded substantial revisions to the script and were critical of perceived deviations from their own theological or theatrical expectations. Steub thought the Passion play was clearly too long – why not perform it in a single morning? – while the dialogue was laden with jarring anachronisms that shook the viewer out of the imaginative historical setting (Steub 1850: 75–7). Sepp, meanwhile, who was both a Catholic conservative and a leading historian of Bavarian folk culture, thought that the play, tainted by the demands of secular authorities, needed to return to its authentic premodern roots (Sepp 1851 [1850]). The authorities in Munich registered the development of this elite criticism. At the end of 1854, the Ministry of Education requested copies of Oberammergau’s script for inspection.2 In exchange, they sent the villagers the collection of reviews of the play that Deutinger had assembled from newspapers and periodicals in the past three decades.3 The Ministry observed that the growth of public interest meant that ‘our shortcomings and flaws have been perceived and corresponding suggestions for improvements have been made’.4 Two years later, on 8 July 1856, the Bavarian government commissioned the village priest, Joseph Alois Daisenberger to revise and shorten the Passion play script.5 Scholars have paid significant attention to Daisenberger’s innovations to the Oberammergau play script, but outside opinion and fidelity to tradition also served as forms of constraint on his editing process. How do the reforms of the late 1850s look if we focus on what Daisenberger did not do as much as what he did? In order to understand Daisenberger’s position with respect to

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the play, it is important to recognise that the Oberammergauers had lobbied energetically for his appointment when their parish became vacant in 1845. Oberammergau’s leading businessman, Johann Lang, pleaded the case to Karl Graf von Seinsheim, a senior minister in the Bavarian government; Michael Diemer, the Gemeindevorsteher (Mayor), gathered the men of the Gemeindeverwaltung (Village Council) to pen a direct appeal to King Ludwig I; in tandem with these efforts, the well-placed Frankl family seems to have continued a campaign in Munich.6 What appealed to these men about Daisenberger was probably that, unusually for a Catholic priest, he attached great importance to the pastoral value of performing plays.7 Daisenberger had been a staunch defender of the religiously edifying potential of theatre since his days at Uffing, where in 1837 he staged his first play, a medieval romance by a Catholic author. Supporting Uffing’s request to form a theatre company in October 1842, Daisenberger wrote that he had ‘certainly never perceived any disadvantageous influence of the theatre on the morality of the performers’. On the contrary, the children who had acted in plays had gone on to be keen students and dutiful brides, while the audience was composed of dignified folk, not ‘ruffians’ (Rohen).8 Daisenberger’s view of the connection between theatre and morality seems to have harmonised with the Oberammergauers’ own justifications for performing the passion. They argued that he would restore the community’s fallen moral level in the wake of negligent priests who had cared little for the performance: he would be an excellent teacher to our children, and that he would apply himself with taste to our industry, with learning and example to our spiritual welfare, and with the proper dignity (rechter Würde) to our performances of the Passion.9 The Oberammergauers also put great stock in the fact that Daisenberger was a local boy, born just a few miles away in Oberau in 1799. Lang affirmed that Daisenberger had ‘seen us grow up in body and soul’, while Diemer’s men affirmed that his origins ensured that he ‘knows our circumstances and needs’.10 All that stood between Oberammergau and Daisenberger’s native village was the Benedictine Abbey at Ettal, where the priest made regular visits and had been taught by Othmar Weis, who had written the 1811 passion script. These efforts to thread together locality, morality and the passion performance seem to have found a friendly ear in Munich: on 18 June 1845, Daisenberger was named priest of Oberammergau. When it came to the script revision, the little we know of how Daisenberger perceived his own work suggests that he was vexed by the paradox of modernising a tradition. At his first passion season in 1850, Daisenberger had spoken of his reluctance to change Weis’s script, performed in various versions since 1811, for fear that this would disturb the continuity of his people’s ‘living memory’ (Daisenberger 1851: 466). He later framed the script as an inheritance

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from a lost and unrecoverable era, claiming that he had felt unqualified to adapt ‘this legacy from Old German piety, since . . . the manner of my education, which fell during the Enlightenment, was not apt to foster in me our German ancestors’ profoundly devout sensibility’ (Clarus 1860: 80). When Daisenberger did come to revise the text, his slow pace frustrated the government.11 While Daisenberger’s final version made extensive textual changes, his script preserved Weis’s basic structure and, fundamentally, maintained its full-day length, even though this was a target of elite criticism. When the Landgericht despatched Daisenberger’s text to Munich for approval by the government and archbishop, they endorsed his special request that no further shortenings were made in the interests of winning the approval of ‘educated’ audiences, since the majority of visitors they wished to attract came from the ‘lower orders’. These travelled great distances to spend the ‘longest possible time in the satisfaction of their religious feeling’ and might not think that an abridged play was worth the effort.12 This concern clearly expressed the paradoxical challenge of how to innovate and develop in a way that would please new audiences, while also preserving the aura of continuity and tradition that attracted both new and old visitors. Daisenberger hoped to calibrate a precise balance of rustic simplicity against artistic accomplishment, religious fidelity against dramatic effect, and local colour against universal appeal. At the same time, Daisenberger thought that Oberammergau’s newfound appeal to the educated urban middle classes provided the village with a unique opportunity to enliven the religious faith of these new visitors, ‘devout and indifferent, believers and unbelievers’ (Daisenberger 1850: 2). In a sermon to the village, Daisenberger argued that rather than seeing an ‘indifferent and frivolous’ town-dweller who came to mock the play as a threat, the Oberammergauers should instead seek to ‘plant a grain of the avid Christian life’ in him that would live on and ‘transform him from the inside’ after he had left (ibid.: 3). On 23 January 1859, the Oberammergau village leaders called for young men to participate in the preparations for the following year’s performance, but also issued a warning: ‘Let us be quietly proud [of the play], but not get above ourselves!’ Everybody in the village needed to be motivated by ‘the common resolve to work together’, and those who won prominent roles should avoid ‘sinking into the mire through vain ego, arrogant behaviour and mutual teasing’.13 Daisenberger likewise told the villagers to attend to their behaviour ‘in its surroundings, in the streets, in houses, and in church’ were equally important. Since ‘the eyes of many strangers will not only be on our play, but also on our morals’, everybody must be ‘decent, peaceful, friendly and obliging’: ‘No drunkard must be seen; no mutual hostility must arise; no ribaldry must be heard.’ The villagers must, in short, make manifest that they were a ‘true Christian community’, whose very ‘way of life’ (Wandel) would become an act of popular evangelism (Daisenberger 1850: 6). Daisenberger, the play’s director, described the villagers’ public behaviour almost in the language of the action of stage: as a disciplined bodily and rhetorical performance designed to appease and convert a sceptical audience. Essentially, the village needed to perform the

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image that outsiders had constructed, and now expected, of an earnest Catholic community locked in time and devoted to its vow.

3. 1888–1890: the Ettmayr reform In the decades after Daisenberger’s new script was first performed, Oberammergau’s transformation into an international tourist destination accelerated. In 1870, the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War interrupted the play season, but this only seemed to boost the village’s profile, and its celebratory conclusion following the German victory in 1871 was well-attended. By 1880, the London travel agencies Thomas Cook and Henry Gaze had contracts with the village, and the number of performances in a season had almost doubled to forty. Preparations for the 1890 play season heralded another wave of improved technical sophistication, with Carl Lautenschläger from the Munich Hoftheater helping to design a new theatre with special machinery, as well as new costumes for much of the cast (Huber, Klinner and Lang 1990: 171). Oberammergau’s success in these decades, and especially its proven ability to transgress Europe’s confessional divides and reach Protestant audiences, naturally reflected a part of its glory on to Daisenberger’s script. When the Oberammergau community petitioned for renewed permission to perform the passion on 19 July  1888, they therefore promised to make only a few basic amendments to the text, in line with wishes Daisenberger had expressed before his death in 1883.14 While it remains unclear what motivated Munich to demand further action, by spring 1889 the Bavarian government had commissioned Corbinian Ettmayr, a priest at Bogenhausen on the outskirts of Munich, to undertake extensive changes to the Passion play script. Although some of Ettmayr’s proposals were stylistic, others implicitly asserted the Church’s claim to be the arbiters of the play’s theological correctness, which is also to say its meaning. Ettmayr proposed four major reforms: reduce the number of meetings of the Jewish High Council, enliven the final scenes following the Crucifixion, eliminate the ‘burlesques’ from Judas’s character, and purify the religious character of the lyrics by cutting awkward phrases. He was supported by Michael von Rampf, a senior figure in the archdiocese, who was particularly insistent that Oberammergau needed to change the Resurrection. Ettmayr argued that the repeated meetings of the Jewish high priests ‘stands in opposition to both the Bible and tradition’, according to which they only met twice.15 Rampf made a similar point about the Resurrection. In the Daisenberger script, the earth moved, thunder struck, and then Christ appeared dressed in white to the stunned guards. According to gospel tradition, it was rather an Angel in white who had announced Christ’s resurrection to the guards. More fundamentally, it was Mary Magdalene, not the guards, who first witnessed the Resurrected Christ. This had ‘unique significance’ for the entire passion: Christ the Redeemer appeared to Magdalene, the sinner whose past life guaranteed the significance of the Resurrection.16

Tradition, Authority and Autonomy  43

The Oberammergauers recognised these proposed reforms as a battle for control. During spring 1889, they wrote multiple letters of protest to both Ettmayr and the regional authorities in Garmisch. By the villagers’ account, Ettmayr had ‘given us [his] word, that he would renounce the right of authorship and recognise that the edited text was the intellectual property (geistiges Eigentum) of the Oberammergauers’. He had now gone far beyond his promise to only correct ‘a few linguistic errors’ in Daisenberger’s text, and thereby breached their trust, as well as ‘deeply and painfully wounding’ their love for the deceased priest.17 The Passion Committee members stressed their ‘piety towards Daisenberger’, which was ‘etched with tongues of flame onto the heart of every Ammergauer’. Continuing the corporeal metaphor, they appealed: ‘nobody can and will treat [Daisenberger’s texts] with the same care as the Ammergauer himself, whereas every intrusion by a foreign hand cuts him deep in the heart’.18 Finally, the village argued that such changes risked the success that the Daisenberger script had bought across the past three decades and jeopardised the goodwill of the thousands who would soon return: Whether [next year’s audience] expects these significant transformations might well be doubted, when one considers the various voices from both educated and uneducated, the highest and the lowest social circles, that have grown so loud in recent times. These all agree that it would be best to leave everything as it was, for innovations in the text do not enhance the play’s effect, and even tarnish it.19 A contest had emerged between two different models of tradition: Oberammergau’s tradition of passion-playing, reaffirmed through decades of popular success under Daisenberger, against the Catholic Church’s tradition of the passion narrative, which stipulated the proper representation and meaning of key moments, most notably the Resurrection. This was also necessarily a contest about knowledge: where Ettmayr and Rampf claimed to know which presentation of the story would have the most edifying effect on viewers, Lang and the Passion Committee asserted their own expertise, gleaned through years of performing and directing. For the Oberammergauers, however, what was really at stake in 1890 was control. While Lang himself was certainly anticlerical, the Oberammergauers were not inherently opposed to the intercession of religious authorities. After all, the authors of the modern play were two priests, Weis and Daisenberger. But, as Hermine Diemer noted in 1900, there was a vital difference between these men and Ettmayr: although ‘not born Ammergauers . . . they were on good terms with the Ammergauers and had immersed themselves in their outlook’ (Diemer 1900: 124). In other words, clerical influence on the play was welcome so long as it was on the villagers’ terms, and they were able to invite, mediate and control it. In the event, the secular authorities in Munich agreed with the village that the popular success of the play carried more weight than demands for

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theological conformity or stylistic modernisation. Their verdict on Ettmayr’s script was damning: the supposed improvements to the text . . . prove to be unfortunate attempts to substitute the forms of the 1880 script with modern ones, which are not appropriate in themselves, and are not in harmony with either the naïve character of the performers or the passion performance as a whole.20 While the government gave the archdiocese a detailed accounting of the text’s failures – not least that it had replaced an admittedly imperfect ending with an even more ineffectual one – they reiterated Munich’s more fundamental objection. The revised version ‘lacks the native naivety (ursprüngliche Naivität) of the old script, without satisfying the requirements which the taste of the contemporary educated public seems entitled to demand from a newly revised text’.21 These judgements marked a remarkably similar set of concerns about the balance between the aura of tradition and the tastes of middle-class audiences that Daisenberger had used to characterise his reforms back in the 1850s. To bring a definitive resolution to the matter, the government summoned six representatives of the village to Munich for an emergency mediation meeting with Ettmayr on 22 February 1890, chaired by the Regierungspräsident Sigmund von Pfeufer. According to the agreed settlement, Oberammergau could use its 1880 script, but should refer to Ettmayr’s alterations, paying special attention to the Resurrection, and also make four minor changes to the chorus lyrics. The villagers were permitted to report back on how far Ettmayr’s changes could be executed ‘from a scenic perspective’.22 This clause turned out to be crucial because the Passion Committee subsequently dropped each of the agreed reforms on practical grounds. They promised only that they would perform the leg-breaking scene ‘in a way . . . that will not harm the aesthetic feeling’ of the piece.23 As for the revised lyrics, Lang reported that it was already too late to rehearse them, ‘so the new words will be printed, and the old ones sung’.24 These unsung parts of the chorus became known ironically in the village as the ‘Regierungsverse’ (Schaller 1950: 51; Gajek 1993: 314). By 8 May 1890, internal government reports made clear that the Oberammergauers had abandoned any effort to incorporate the proposed changes.25 Perhaps seeking to revive his reputation among the villagers, Ettmayr published a rapturous series of articles on Oberammergau’s long history in 1890 (Ettmayr 1890). Intriguingly, his narrative was keen to stress hidden continuities across the multiple revisions of the play, from its early modern precedents through Rosner and on to Weis and Daisenberger, whom he eulogised as ‘the link between the first and second halves of the century, the living bearer of the tradition’. Ettmayr attributed the play’s survival in part to its religiosity, but also to the fact that ‘whenever the Oberammergau Passion play reached the critical point where restructuring was necessary, the right men were entrusted with the task’ (ibid.: 370). His assessment pointedly concluded with a hymn to gradualism: ‘The history of Oberammergau’s play and stage have confirmed the old law

Tradition, Authority and Autonomy  45

of history, that everything attains its final form along a path of gradual development arising from its fundamental needs and inner purpose’ (ibid.: 371). Given Ettmayr’s efforts to revise the script – which were not public knowledge – these phrases exude a fascinating ambiguity. Did they amount to a coded defence of his own ill-fated changes, bitterness at their failure, or acceptance of the community’s rejections? Either way, Ettmayr did not abandon his efforts to bring the play into harmony with Catholic teaching. In 1900, the first year that Oberammergau published its complete authorised text, he released his own booklet to accompany it, which argued that ‘a thorough appraisal of the Oberammergau Passion play, this eminently religious drama, is only possible by means of theological-religious contemplation’ (Ettmayr 1900: iv). Although he stressed the play’s biblical fidelity, he hoped to let readers and viewers relate the action on stage to ‘the spirit . . . in which the Church understands the suffering and death of the saviour’ (ibid.: iii). Notably, Ettmayr’s booklet painted an entirely harmonious picture of the connection between the Oberammergau stage and the Catholic passion narrative and did not explicitly criticise any of the scenes he had sought to replace. We might nonetheless see it as an attempt to continue the script reform effort by other means: if he could not change the action on stage, he might at least shape how audiences interpreted it.

4. Conclusion The Oberammergauers were able to exert remarkable control over their Passion play in the nineteenth century, even as the growth of outside interest in the village prompted intervention from powerful institutions. Unlike at the end of the eighteenth century, when Oberammergau was one of many villages forced to defend the very act of passion-playing from clerical and secular abolition, now it faced more complex attempts to modify and shape its singular tradition. Bavarian villages in the eighteenth century had a proud history of tactical chicanery to evade state restrictions on their local religious traditions and performances (for some good examples, Hartinger 1990: 411–4). What is distinctive about Oberammergau’s success in the late nineteenth century is that the village did not attempt to bypass external influence. Rather, village authorities used the growth of outside involvement for their own purposes. In the 1850s, critique of the play in the German press culminated in the Bavarian state’s demand that the village reform its script to suit elite tastes. The village priest and play director Daisenberger – himself placed in the parish through a concerted village lobbying campaign over several years – embarked on a project of rewriting, but also insisted that no further reforms be executed at risk of disturbing the popular appeal of the play. In the process, he mobilised the appeal of tradition and continuity to mark the limits of his own substantial innovations. At the same time, Daisenberger urged the villagers that to reach new sorts of audience would require them to accentuate their purportedly traditional moral and devout behaviour. Whereas previous debates about morality at Oberammergau had centred on whether the actual performance was spiritually edifying to local

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residents, Daisenberger was more concerned about the village performing an image of tradition to visiting outsiders. Several decades later, in 1888–1890, the regional government and the Catholic Church attempted to reform the play script better to suit religious orthodoxy. Ettmayr, the man delegated by the Church to reform the script, justified his alterations in the language of a competing tradition, that of the Catholic narrative of the passion. But, citing concerns about the outside audience and the integrity of their own passion tradition, the village repeatedly frustrated and ultimately evaded these reforms. Ettmayr himself was forced to resort to publishing celebratory glosses on Oberammergau’s largely unchanged text to achieve his theological objectives. In each case, the Oberammergauers selectively cited and took advantage of elite commentary, popular audiences or the middle-class tourist market to defend their claims against those of intermediate bodies such as the regional government and the Catholic Church. The village was able to use the rhetoric of continuity and tradition to assert the community’s authority over the practice and significance of its Passion play. The point here is not that Oberammergau clung, conservatively, to its established practices in order to block innovation. Rather, the village selectively constructed and deployed ideas of tradition and continuity in order to achieve specific ends. The real ‘tradition’ that the Oberammergauers reasserted in each of these conflicts was more basic and underpinned the other claims that they sought to make: the villagers’ autonomy over their performance.

Notes 1 Abbreviations: GAO = Gemeindearchiv Oberammergau; StAM = Staatsarchiv München; AEM = Archiv des Erzbistums München und Freising. 2 StAM RA 51035, f. 86: Staatsministerium des Innern für Kirche- und Schulangelegenheiten to Königliche Regierung von Oberbayern, Kammer des Innern, 10 September 1854. 3 StAM RA 51035, f. 90: Staatsministerium des Innern für Kirche- und Schulangelegenheiten to Königliche Regierung von Oberbayern, Kammer des Innern, 4 November 1854; the volume is von Deutinger 1851. 4 StAM RA 51035, f. 90: Staatsministerium des Innern für Kirche- und Schulangelegenheiten to Königliche Regierung von Oberbayern, Kammer des Innern, 4 November 1854. 5 StAM RA 51035, f. 95: Staatsministerium des Innern für Kirche- und ­Schulangelegenheiten to Königliche Regierung von Oberbayern, Kammer des Innern, 8 July 1856. 6 GAO N 10.1.23.2: Johann Lang to Karl Graf von Seinsheim, 17 May  1845; GAO 10.1.23.3: Gemeindeverwaltung Oberammergau to King Ludwig I, 20 May  1845; GAO 10.1.23.4: Frankl to Georg Lang sel. Erben, 25 June 1845. 7 For the contrast, see Goldstein 2009: 1–21. For the deeper history in western thought, Barish 1981. 8 Joseph Alois Daisenberger to Königliches Landgericht Weilheim, 26 October  1842, cited in Pörnbacher 1999: 33–4. 9 GAO N 10.1.23.3: Gemeindeverwaltung Oberammergau to King Ludwig I, 20 May 1845. 10 GAO N 10.1.23.2: Johann Lang to Karl Graf von Seinsheim, 17 May 1845; GAO N 10.1.23.3: Gemeindeverwaltung Oberammergau to King Ludwig I, 20 May 1845.

Tradition, Authority and Autonomy  47 11 StAM RA 51035, f. 104: Staatsministerium des Innern für Kirche- und Schulangelegenheiten to Königliche Regierung von Oberbayern, Kammer des Innern, 1 May 1857; StAM RA 51035, f. 112: Daisenberger to Landgericht Werdenfels, 21 December 1858. 12 StAM RA 51035, f. 117: Landgericht Werdenfels to Königliche Regierung von Oberbayern, Kammer des Innern, 28 January 1859. 13 GAO A XV.15: Gemeindebeschluß hinsichtlich der Passionsaufführungen im Jahr 1860. 14 StAM RA 51036, 24094 (Beilage): Gemeinde Oberammergau to King of Bavaria, 19 July 1888. 15 StAM RA 51036, Ad 24102: Corbinian Ettmayr to Königliche Regierung von Oberbayern, Kammer des Innern, 17 September 1889. 16 StAM RA 51036, Nr 2011: Michael von Rampf (Kapitular-Vikariat München-Freising) to [unknown office], 14 December 1889. 17 StAM RA 50136, 30533 (Beilage 2): Passions-Comité to Corbinian Ettmayr, 7 April 1889. 18 StAM RA 50136, 24102 (Beilage): Gemeindeverwaltung Oberammergau to Königliches Bezirksamt Garmisch, 19 July 1889. 19 StAM RA 50136, 24102 (Beilage): Gemeindeverwaltung Oberammergau to Königliches Bezirksamt Garmisch, 19 July 1889. 20 Emphasis added. StAM RA 51036: Königliches Bayerisches Staatsministerium des Innern, Report of 30 January 1890. 21 AEM Realia 371: Königliche Regierung von Oberbayern, Kammer des Innern to Kapitular-Vikariat der Erzdiözese München-Freising, 30 November 1889. 22 StAM RA 51036, unnumbered: ‘Protokoll: Festsetzung des Textes für das diesjährige Passionsspiel in Oberammergau’, 22 February 1890. 23 StAM RA 51036, 11964: Gemeindeverwaltung Oberammergau to Königliches Bezirksamt Garmisch, 13 April 1890. 24 StAM RA 51036, 9813: Gemeindeverwaltung Oberammergau to Königliche Regierung von Oberbayern, 23 March 1890. 25 StAM RA 51036, 648: Königliches Bezirksamt Garmisch to Königliche Regierung von Oberbayern, Kammer des Innern, 8 May 1890.

Works cited Applegate, C. 1990. A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat. Berkeley: University of California Press. Barclay, D. E. 1994. Medievalism and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Germany, ed. L. J. Workman. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 5–22. Barish, J. A. 1981. The Antitheatrical Prejudice. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Boissevain, J. 1996. Introduction. In: Coping With Tourists. European Reactions to Mass Tourism, ed. id. Providence, RI, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1–26. Brenninger, G. 1990. Passionsspiele in Altbayern. In: Hört, sehet, weint und liebt. Passionsspiele im alpenländischen Raum. Exhibition catalog in Ammergauer Haus, Oberammergau from May  28th – September  30th 1990, eds. M. Henker, E. Dünninger, and E. Brockhoff. Munich: Süddeutscher Verlag, 61–5. Brumann, Ch. 2014. Heritage Agnosticism: A Third Path for the Study of Cultural Heritage. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale 22: 173–88. Clark, Ch. 2003. The New Catholicism and the European Culture Wars. In: Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe, eds. id. and W. Kaiser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 11–46. Clarus, L. (aka. Wilhelm Gustav Werner Volk). 1860. Das Passionspiel zu Ober-Ammergau. Munich: J. J. Lentner.

48  Robert D. Priest Confino, A. 1997. The Nation as a Local Metaphor: Württemberg, Imperial Germany, and National Memory, 1871–1918. London: University of North Carolina Press. Daisenberger, J. A. 1850. Mahnworte am Tage vor der ersten Aufführung der Passionsvorstellungen gerichtet an die Gemeinde von Oberammergau. Munich: J. Georg Weiß. Daisenberger, J. A. 1851. Erster Bericht über das Passionsspiel zu Oberammergau im Jahre 1850. In: Beyträge zur Geschichte, Topographie und Statistik des Erzbisthums München und Freising, 2. Band, ed. M. von Deutinger. Munich: Joseph Lindauer, 457–82. von Deutinger, M. 1851. Das Passionsspiel in Oberammergau. Berichte und Urtheile über dasselbe nebst geschichtlichen Notizen über die Passionsspiele in Bayern überhaupt. Munich: Joseph Lindauer. Diemer, H. 1900. Oberammergau und seine Passionsspiele. Ein Rückblick über die Geschichte Oberammergaus und seiner Passionsspiele von deren Entstehung bis zur Gegenwart, sowie eine Beschreibung des Ammergauer Landes, der Volkssitten und Gebräuche seiner Bewohner. Munich, Oberammergau: Carl August Seyfried und Comp. Ettmayr, C. 1890. Die geistlichen Schauspiele in Bayern und das Oberammergauer Passionsspiel. Das Bayerland 1: 344–7, 356–9, 367–71. Ettmayr, C. 1900. Das Oberammergauer Passionsspiel auf Grund des offiziellen Gesamttextes in seinen Vorbildern und Handlungen geschildert und erläutert. Oberammergau, Munich: Heinrich Korff. Feldigl, F. 1922. Oberammergau und sein Passionsspiel 1922. Offiziell von der Gemeinde Oberammergau anerkannter und genehmigter, nach amtlichen Quellen und eigener Anschauung verfaßter Führer durch Spiel, Ort und Umgegend. Oberammergau: L. Rutz. François, É. 2009. Oberammergau. In: Deutsche Erinnerungsorte, vol. 3, eds. id. and H. Schulze. Munich: C. H. Beck, 274–91. Gajek, B. 1993. Oberammergau und Ludwig Thoma: Überlegungen zur Bedeutung eines Geburtsortes. In: Forschungen zur bayerischen Geschichte: Festschrift für Wilhelm Volkert zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. D. Albrecht and D. Götschmann. Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang, 293–319. Goldstein, R. J. 2009. Introduction. In: The Frightful Stage. Political Censorship of the Theater in Nineteenth-Century Europe, ed. id. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1–21. Gollwitzer, H. 1986. Ludwig I. von Bayern. Königtum im Vormärz. Eine politische Biographie. Munich: Süddeutscher Verlag. Green, A. 2001. Fatherlands: State-Building and Nationhood in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hartinger, W. 1990. “. . . nichts anders als eine zertrunkene Bierandacht . . . ”. Das Verbot der geistlichen Schauspiele im Bistum Passau. In: Volkskultur – Geschichte – Region. Festschrift für Wolfgang Brückner zum 60. Geburtstag, eds. D. Harmening and E. Wimme. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 395–419. Huber, O. 1999. Dichten “mit glänzendem Angesichte”: Daisenbergers Reform des Passionsspiels. In: Joseph Alois Daisenberger: Das Urbild eines gütigen Priesters. Katalogbuch zur Ausstellung im Pilatushaus Oberammergau, 1 Juni bis 11. Juli 1999, ed. H. W. Klinner. Oberammergau: Gemeinde Oberammergau, 67–87. Huber, O., H. W. Klinner, and D. Lang. 1990. Die Passionsaufführungen in Oberammergau in 101 Anmerkungen. In: Hört, sehet, weint und liebt. Passionsspiele im alpenländischen Raum. Exhibition catalog in Ammergauer Haus, Oberammergau from May 28th – September 30th 1990, eds. M. Henker, E. Dünninger, and E. Brockhoff. Munich: Süddeutscher Verlag, 163–79. Pörnbacher, H. 1999. “.  .  . weshalb ich Mittags ein Gögglein verzehrte”: Joseph Alois Daisenberger in Uffing. In: Joseph Alois Daisenberger: Das Urbild eines gütigen Priesters. Katalogbuch zur Ausstellung im Pilatushaus Oberammergau, 1 Juni bis 11. Juli 1999, ed. H. W. Klinner. Oberammergau: Gemeinde Oberammergau, 27–37.

Tradition, Authority and Autonomy  49 Schaller, St. 1950. Das Passionsspiel von Oberammergau 1634–1950. Ettal: Buch-Kunstverlag. Sepp, J. S. 1851 [1850]. Dreyzehnter Bericht. In: Beyträge zur Geschichte, Topographie und Statistik des Erzbisthums München und Freising, 3. Band, ed. M. von Deutinger. Munich: Joseph Lindauer, 58–77. Shapiro, J. 2000. Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World’s Most Famous Passion Play. St Ives: Pantheon. Steub, L. 1850. Das Passionsspiel in Ammergau. In: Aus dem bayrischen Hochlande, ed. id. Munich: Literarisch-artistische Anstalt der Cotta’schen Buchhandlung, 54–80. Testo, A. 2019. “Questo non è uno spectaccolo!”: Poetics and Practices of Authenticity, Ritualization, and Tradition in Revitalized European Festivals. In: Expressions of Religion: Ethnography, Performance and the Senses, eds. Eu. Roussou, C. Saraiva, and I. Povedak. Zurich: Lit., 201–24.

Part II

Assembly, Community, Society – Negotiating the Theatrical Public Sphere

4 Pilgrims and Tourists On the Journey to the Passion Play Jan Mohr

1. “Welcome to Oberammergau” “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11,28) – it is this phrase from the Sermon on the Mount the title illustration “Welcome to Oberammergau” in the Munich satirical magazine Simplicissimus of 1922 has as caption (Figure 4.1). The caricature exaggerates, but in this, it gets to the heart of a development of the Passion play at the time. Already in the second half of the 19th century, the play has become a crowd-puller of international appeal (Shapiro 2001: 112–36; Edelman 2017). But this also shifts its historical function within the cultural and communicative parameters in which it had emerged. Standing in the medieval tradition of sacred plays and continuing this partly into modern times, the Oberammergau Passion play is not sufficiently described as a theatrical performance. It is integrated into historical practices of piety. The boundaries between the play-like character of the stage action and the truth of salvation of the mimetically portrayed are just as blurred as those between distanced watching and cultic participation: at least for the time of the performance the audience is integrated into a community of believers (Müller 1997, 1998, 2000; Schulze 2012). These parameters undergo clear shifts in the course of time, but even in the 19th century – and even today – they are still significant. This is exactly what the caricature alludes to with the quote from the Sermon on the Mount. It is addressed to believers. Those who figure on the Simplicissimus page as arriving in Oberammergau hardly seem to be weary, nor do they seem to be all too burdened with their hand luggage. According to their appearance, they are predominantly not looking for spiritual edification, but are tourists. In the exaggerated representation of the caricature, the figures not only suggest their origin but are also typified by their habitus. The man in the third row on the right is presumably a Russian, on the left stands a USAmerican, who for today’s viewers seems to anticipate J. R. Ewing from the 1980s’ cult TV series Dallas. The Englishman in the front right appears like an assiduous cultural traveler, whilst the two figures on his left look more like a rich industrialists couple who are marching into a glamorous seaside resort for a summer break. As different as these types are, as different may be their DOI: 10.4324/9781003106319-6

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Figure 4.1 Welcome to Oberammergau, Simplicissimus 26/53, 29 March 1922, extra issue: On to Oberammergau! (Auf nach Oberammergau!), title page.

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expectations of their destination, if one wants to accept the clichéd exaggeration of the satirical magazine. Indeed, in the later 19th century, very different expectations could be associated with a visit to Oberammergau.1 For on the right side there is also the elderly lady with a strictly high-necked dress and cross pendant on her necklace. One would like to assume that this figure does not want to enjoy a theater play in exclusive surroundings. It is true that she does not look weary and burdened either, but compared to her fellow travelers one would assume that she is most likely to be looking for spiritual refreshment. The caricature suggests that every ten years Oberammergau becomes a small tourist microcosm, “a spot that becomes once in every decade the shrine of a burning, world wide interest, unequalled in modern times” (Parks-Richards 1910: 40). The juxtaposition of different types of tourists on the Simplicissimus drawing illustrates that travelers of all nations and different social classes or segments meet, and different forms of recreation are sought. The guiding line of the following considerations is the question of how the individual traveler can distinguish himself from other travelers under the conditions of an incipient mass tourism and maintain a self-concept based on individuality and singularity. For the journey to the Passion play village could also mean the imposition of finding oneself alongside travelers with completely different expectations and allegedly trivial intentions. In the following, I will trace the strategies by which such self-descriptions are undertaken in some texts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In referring to the Oberammergau Passion play, the cross-fading of touristic and religious discourse logics was one (by no means the only possible) option for such self-delimitation. I will examine the rhetorical and narrative strategies applied by narrators in travel reports and travelogues to make their journeys sound more like pilgrimages and to set themselves apart from the set of “others” that were looked down upon as mere tourists (3.–6.). In such an evaluative juxtaposition, some very basic problems and aporias of tourist movements are bundled together, which have recently been described from a cultural-historical perspective (2.).

2. Tourism and religion: interferences Facing the crowds of other travelers, the traveler can look for new destinations, but this is exactly what the others always do. At this point, the endless movements of self-definition and self-separation set in, as described in semiotic perspective by Jonathan Culler (Culler 1988: 153–67): The tourist seeks supposedly authentic expressions of culture in foreign countries. In the holiday destination, he will most likely understand every object, every fact and every communicative action he observes as a sign. But “sign” implies medialization, and this seems to be diametrically opposed to authenticity. Thus, the tourist seeks the authentic, which he only recognizes if it is indicated as such, and at the same time he distinguishes himself from other tourists who readily focus their attention on the cultural objects that are presented to them as authentic. In modernity, the traveler deals with the paradox that “wanting to be less touristy

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than other tourists is part of being a tourist” (ibid.: 158) by self-concepts based on differentiation and evaluative self-delimitation. One of the effects of this self-description is the emphatic differentiation between the traveler and the tourist (cf. Boorstin 1987: 77–117). As a travel destination, Oberammergau marks a difference in which an evaluative confrontation between traveler and tourist is repeated in a dramatized form: In the field of spiritually motivated travel, rhetoric and practices of demarcation establish self-concepts that confront the ego as the pilgrim type with the “other” tourists. Thus, the village and its Passion play represent a field of investigation for a constellation of religiosity and tourism which recent works in the field of religious studies have measured in their basic outlines, but which still awaits a detailed and historically sharper elaboration. Mike Grimshaw reverses the somewhat older notion of tourism as religion and new opiate for the masses (McCannell 1976) and traces to what extent religion could be described in categories of tourism (Grimshaw 2008). Michael Stausberg for the first time systematically defines the interrelations between tourism and religion (Stausberg 2010). In doing so, he for his part can already draw upon a large number of studies in the field of religious studies, which examine forms of individualization of religiosity in modernity using the example of travel (cf. Bar and Cohen-Hattab 2003; Gebhardt, Engelbrecht and Bochinger 2005; Timothy and Olsen 2006; Swatos 2006; Raj and Morpeth 2007; Margry 2008; Norman 2011). In an ideal-typical distinction, Stausberg traces the categories of authenticity associated with both fields. He assigns the field of the religious and pilgrimage with attributes such as sacred, or at least profound, associates with it terms such as salvation and “other-worldly” (Stausberg 2010: 20) and expects corresponding categories of attitude and action such as seriousness, concentration, duty. In contrast, he defines the field of tourism as profane and superficial, associates it with recreation and “this-worldly” (ibid.: 20) and hints at corresponding mental attitudes with keywords such as pleasure, distraction, and relaxing (ibid.: 19–25). However, a valuation of “good” pilgrimage and “evil” tourism (ibid.: 20) is hardly made from an objective distance and would hardly be accepted in this way by the devalued opposite side. Therefore, it is not enough to speak of overlapping between the two fields. Stausberg shows in an exemplary way how religious guidelines influence travel behavior, how religious organizations can influence tourism, and how religious sites are included in tourist travel and sightseeing programs. But only an exact reconstruction of the perspectives with which the actors on both sides refer to their own and the other side will allow for tracing precisely how religion and tourism can be described as “important resources for each other” (ibid.: 176) in terms of economic interests and more fundamentally on the levels of praxeology, discourse, and semantics. This alone is an argument against examining the self-concepts of a spiritually motivated tourism only in its moments of self-demarcation. Texts about Oberammergau, in particular, show an additional complexity: Even if those who travel with spiritual intention claim to distinguish themselves from the mass of

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others, they do not only insist on their distinct position but also want to suggest it to others and promote a specific spiritual experience of the Passion play. Thus, concerning the Passion play and its setting, the village, one can observe the interplay of strategies of demarcation and appropriation, which are connected with the conception of a visit to the Passion play as spiritual edification. In the following, I would like to pursue these strategies with four texts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In doing so, I will give a brief overview of the travel infrastructure and then concentrate on the spatial semantics that unfolds in the description of the journey.

3. Standardization, differentiation, and plural adressings Since the second half of the 19th century, a standardized route to Oberammergau has been established for tourists who favor travel comfort; this standardization will increase until the turn of the century. The Bavarian Alpine foothills are primarily accessible from the state capital, and the overwhelming majority of travel guides describe the journey from Munich as a starting point. One travels by train via Starnberg, along Lake Starnberg (or optionally by steamship on the lake) to the south and further to Weilheim. To these travel stations several others would be added. The history of the Oberammergau travelogues also allows for tracing how technology and the art of engineering gradually opened up the Bavarian hinterland in terms of infrastructure: “First the railway came to Weilheim, then in 1880 to Murnau, in 1890 to Garmisch” (Bogenrieder 1930: 9). This route follows old trade routes that are well documented from Roman times, all of which ultimately lead to the Brenner Pass, that is, the route to Italy. The travelers continued on this route after changing at the respective railway terminus for a stagecoach or travel carriage. Oberammergau lies to the west, separated from the Murnau-Garmisch route by a mountain massif. The village of Oberau was the predestined starting point for crossing it, and its strategic importance in terms of transport did not diminish in any way with the extension of the railway line from 1890 to Garmisch in the south: “For a long time, the train station at the foot of the Ettalerberg was called Oberau-Oberammergau” (ibid.: 9). From Oberau one reached the Ettal Monastery from the south and proceeded further into the Ammer Valley. The pass road – altogether short, but already notorious since the Middle Ages (Dussler 1963) – was so steep that the horses could only manage it with an empty carriage, so travelers had to get off. Only “in 1900 Oberammergau was given its own railway, which branched off from the main line in Murnau” (ibid.: 9); now the journey could be made comfortably from the north and west via Unterammergau. In 1900 the complete journey by train was possible with only one change of train from Munich (in Murnau, as is still the case today). Decades before, however, it was already quite unproblematic to book the complete trip package including a visit to the Passion play in the state capital. Foreign guests in particular made brisk use of this option, especially since warnings about completely booked hotels and hopelessly overcrowded private accommodations

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were an integral part of the Oberammergau discourse (already in the 19th century, opinions differed whether these warnings were justified or not). But especially as far as the national and international public is concerned, technical innovation and economic market mechanisms are driving a standardization of Oberammergau tourism, which also stabilizes the village and its Passion play as a trademark. However, the standardization in technical terms is countered by a pluralization in the discourse on Oberammergau. The sub-system “tourism” reacts to the ever-increasing flow of travelers with internal differentiation. Thus, even among the comparatively few who travel to Oberammergau, it is still possible to differentiate according to habitus, demands, goals, and expectations – even if strict systematizations can at best have the value of heuristic starting points. The Oberammergau literature participates in this internal differentiation and in turn contributes to it. The reason for this lies not only in economic mechanisms according to which niches must be found (or created) for the abundance of available publications. One reason may already be the authors’ efforts to stand out from the crowd of other travelers and to conceive their own experiences as special. One who did not want to write just another travelogue was the British explorer, orientalist, and ethnographer Richard Burton, who attended the Passion play in 1880. Facing a flood of travel guides (from which he makes extensive use for his own text), he chooses the ironic distance and stylizes Oberammergau into a microcosm in which he recognizes parts of the great world he himself has traveled (Stenzel 2019). He dismisses the Passion play as a spectacle that has lost its original authenticity of a religious event (Burton 1881). Another book, published around the same time, takes the exact opposite approach: the Guide to the Ammergau Passion Play in the Year 1880 (Höhl 1880) is in fact a hiking guide which offers a variety of scenic routes for the way to Oberammergau from Starnberg. Although prominently featured in the title of the book, the Passion play as the destination of a journey only serves as a backdrop. It was not only in the 20th century that the village community reacted to this internal differentiation and tried to actively profile the village and the Passion play. For the Passion play season in 1890, it published a small series of booklets whose texts, in view of the international audience, are presented in German, English, and French parallel print. These Oberammergauer Blätter were intended to inform the audience about the theatrical profile of the sacred play and to get them in the mood for the aesthetics of the performance. The booklets contained short art-critical discussions, background reports on performers, romanticizing poetry, and some short story sketches. By providing patterns for the readers’ (and hopefully visitors’) own imagination, the Oberammergauer Blätter aims to address the widest possible range of expectations regarding the play and the location. In the first issue, a small text entitled “Letters to a Madame” appears prominently. According to its fiction, on 25 May  1890, a male ego writes to a ­madame from his holiday home. The addressee, as the writer introduces, will

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have suspected him in all sorts of places, but not in a remote alpine village. “You imagine me in Nice or Monaco . . . – And now you view in black and white the postmark of Oberammergau!” (Elan 1890: 11–4) With this village in the Bavarian foothills of the Alps, the sender certainly did not visit a refuge far from civilization in solitude in the woods and mountains. The ego has traveled to the Passion play and describes in a rapturous tone the first impressions upon arrival. The sender leaves no doubt that someone is writing here who was only too willing to get involved in the solemn atmosphere and religious mood of the place: “downstairs sleep part of the chosen people who have ministered with hospitality to my corporal necessities to-day and are prepared to further my spiritual welfare to-morrow” (ibid.: 14). The text, although hardly significant in literary terms, is cultural-historically illuminating: In the discourse on Oberammergau in the later 19th century, experiences and aporias of a discourse on travel and tourism in modernity are condensed. And as already seen, they still mark the starting point for descriptions in more recent cultural studies. In light of this pluralization of the audience and a discourse about the village and its Passion play, the traditional group of those who hope for spiritual edification from the play seeks to distinguish itself in the crowd of visitors of a new type. The basic distinction is already clear in the fictional essay of the Oberammergauer Blätter. The author of the “Letters to a Madame” contrasts the glamorous seaside resorts of Nice and Monaco with a place that is not primarily connoted with silence and tranquillity, but with religious contemplation. What the author sketches with a light touch is a whole bundle of differences in which the Passion play location receives its discursive profile. With “Nice or Monaco” as expectable destinations, the ego calls up a type of internationally popular holiday and spa resort, and it continues with the typical corresponding merrymaking, spa house, Verdi opera, and gallant chats about the latest literature: You imagine me in Nice or Monaco and behold in thought my weary self and [with] eye-glass . . . taking an airing in front of the hotel and longing for the last bars of a finale by Verdi, or in ladies’ society chatting more or less wittily about the latest fashions in literature. (ibid.: 11–4) The alternative of possible destinations is thus supplemented in a few sentences by further oppositions. The Mediterranean seaside resorts stand for modern, cosmopolitan diversion; keywords such as boredom, waiting for an opera finale, or the “more or less” witty conversation imply a valuation according to which all this is at least non-binding, if not trivial. Oberammergau, on the other hand, stands for seriousness, collection, emotion, even “spiritual welfare” (ibid.: 14), in other words, for something highly significant. Without greater friction it would be possible to apply these pairs of opposites to Michael Stausberg’s aforementioned distinction between habitus and practices in the

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dispositives “tourism” or “religion”; and here it becomes at the same time clear that the opposite valuations are asymmetrical, namely from the one side of the distinction. Besides, what is being profiled with Oberammergau is also a type of (folk) art as an alternative to the modern stage art of a professionalized theater and concert business in the later 19th century. For while the ego is still writing of his arrival and friendly welcome in the village, three shots announce the beginning of the move of the local band, which is followed by half the village. The contrast to the Verdi opera could not be greater. It not only marks a contrast between the professionalized entertainment industry in the spa and amateur dramatics on the part of the village, which is reminiscent of the Passion play tradition. While the Kurhaus music presupposes the established separation of stage and the auditorium of modern art theater and, what is more, takes as its starting point the isolated listener, the chapel procession in the alpine village stands for performance situations characterized by participation: literally everyone “accompanies the band . . . every one who is capable of locomotion and does not prefer merely to watch the proceedings in contemplative seclusion” (ibid.: 16). The folkloric, old-fashioned procession of the band is associated with a moment of beginning and departure under the sign of the collective. This suggestive point, that Oberammergau might be a model for a revitalization of the art scene in the European metropolises, is based on the fact that the village as a whole, in contrast to the international seaside resorts, is associated with a deep past. The Ammer creek flowing through the village “tells me of past centuries” (ibid.: 14). This past, however, becomes the present in the village. Here, the writer finds the Middle Ages – not so much as a historical epoch as, say, a type of radically secluded period, which promises not only originality but also enchantment and romanticism. It is precisely the emotive word “romance” that is used several times, and like “Middle Ages” it is used both as a historical index and to indicate an atmospheric quality of impression: it is a fragment of mediaevalism lying hid in this romantic Alpine village for the inspection and admiration of humanity which has left it several centuries behind; in a word, it is romance and I a pilgrim to the land of romance. The perfume of the blue flower has done its work for me. (Elan 1890: 14) In this short text, the choice of holiday destination is already a fundamental decision with which the writer turns his back to the popular resorts, both geographically and typologically, and, to put it bluntly, moves away from the civilized world. Thus, the difference of the following self-stylization is already predetermined. At the same time, the short essay indicates what a visit to the Oberammergau Passion play can mean at all: With the right attitude, the journey to the remote alpine village is a way inward, into pious contemplation, even if sentimentality and even self-irony about one’s own emotions are mixed

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into it. What the writer assumes is that all the foreigners in Oberammergau meet at least partially in this habitus. Of course, in the second half of the 19th century, Oberammergau is by no means off the beaten track of the great streams of tourists, as the Oberammergauer Blätter show already per se. Nor will the one traveling to the village necessarily follow in the footsteps of the small local audience that had been coming from the surrounding area since the 17th century, and naturally understood the play as an edifying devotional exercise. The person writing to “Madame” is by far not the only traveler in the village who arrived from a greater distance. On the eve of the first performance in the new season (the beginning of which marks the date of his letter) “a crowd made up of most opposing elements presses through the streets” (ibid.: 15): Here are peasants in their idyllic costumes, tourists with . . . the inevitable opera-glasses, honest citizens on their Whitsuntide trip with their portly wives – a bottle of wine peeping out of their coat tails –, students in light marching order and, lastly, innumerable visitors from distant England. (ibid.: 15) The enumeration condenses different social groups in its typing and suggests that each habitus is associated with a different expectation of a visit to the alpine village. The original functional context of the Passion play does not seem to be known by each of these groups. On the contrary, the “peasants in their idyllic costumes” (ibid.: 15), in which the traditional local audience is allowed to be seen, even seems to be in the minority. And even if “visitors from distant England” are distinguished by a particular “enthusiasm depicted on their faces”, they can reliably be recognized by their “guide-books in hand” (ibid.: 15). In them, the paradox is taken to the extreme that even those who perceive the Passion play in its original pragmatic embedding as a devotional exercise and means of spiritual edification are dependent on a tourist infrastructure which they share with other travelers with completely different aims and expectations. Even if the writer does not take a negative view of it: Still in the exotic alternative to “Nice or Monaco” he is part of a heterogeneous stream of tourists. In this way, a contrast between the types of religious pilgrims and tourist travelers is made up, only to be immediately deconstructed. The text offers to read it in the sense of such a projection surface, but without being fixed to it. Rather, it makes a whole string of offers on how to experience the Passion play village the heterogeneous travel public should be able to identify with.

4. Semantic charging: history of salvation in nature and historical depths The landscape in the foothills of the Alps and the journey to the village are given a more decidedly religious connotation in a 1910 report entitled Oberammergau, its Passion Play and Players. The meaningful subtitle hardly suggests

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anything else: A 20th Century Pilgrimage to a Modern Jerusalem and a New Gethsemane (Parks-Richards 1910). The author, Louise Parks-Richards, widow of the American landscape painter Samuel Richards, had first seen the Passion play in 1890, returned for the 1900 season, and later lived in the village for a long time. She emphasizes – and this is a pattern that is also found elsewhere in the Oberammergau literature – her close, even intimate acquaintance with the landscape and people and therefore claims the authority of the eyewitness in her portrayal. When writing about her arrival, Parks-Richards limits herself in a few sentences to the most important stations on the way: Munich, Lake Starnberg, Murnau. And yet the brevity of the enumeration is mixed with a tone that is representative of the linguistic register of the entire report: “Filled with vague wonderings as to what experiences might await me in this other world of Biblical story, I found myself gradually attuned on the way ‚up to Jerusalem’ by the peaceful suggestiveness of the country around” (Parks-Richards 1910: 40–1). A vaguely religiously tuned expectation and the sensitization through a landscape that is impressive in the literal sense of the word inspire associations which refer what is seen to a deeper semantic layer: Bordering the route there stood, like posted sentinels, many a beautiful mountain ash tree, upon whose branches hung thick clusters of scarlet berries. Like great globules of blood they hung, as though Nature herself were joining in the memory of Calvary. (ibid.: 41) The association is functionalized in two ways. On the one hand, the Christian truth of salvation and culture of commemoration are naturalized. On the other hand, for those who know how to read it, the landscape becomes a carrier of meaning; the metaphor of reading in the Book of Nature (cf. Ohly 1995: 745–62, 812–29) appears here in an individualized, quasi-secularized version. This semiotic charging of the landscape condenses in the destination of the journey itself. “At each step through the village the strange feeling of having been suddenly transported back to Biblical times was intensified. . . . It was almost impossible to shake off the belief that one had set foot on Holy ground” in Oberammergau (Parks-Richards 1910: 42). And also the Passion play itself is not simply a play, it does not only represent the Christian truth of salvation, but is in itself “salvific.” For the author stylizes the visit to the performance as a cure for a Babylonian confusion of languages which can be associated by the many foreign-language guests from all over the world. The formation of ad hoc communities that recent theater studies are so interested in is here proven to be much more binding and far-reaching: According to their experience reports, the play enables liminal experiences that are persistent beyond the duration of the performance. In such a view, the Christian history of salvation shown on stage has validity also beyond the period of the theatrical representation. Caricatures in the Munich satirical magazine

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Simplicissimus, for example, show pious English tourists beating up Judas, or ladies who want to marry Christ. The fact that both of them are actors, and that play reality and played reality are to be separated, is a distinction that these tourists do not share.2 Thus, a religious attitude is caricatured in which play and external reality are not sharply separated. According to these representations, the pious young ladies do not perceive a play action separated from everyday reality, but rather the repetition of salvation events, similar to what literary as well as theatrical studies assume for those watching a sacred play; and they behave in this way also within the larger framework constituted by the village of Oberammergau during the Passion play season. This place becomes a place of salvation and the journey turns out to be a pilgrimage. The play does not only provide an aesthetic pleasure, but means also work on commemoration and presentification, for the performers as well as for the spectators. It integrates the foreigners (and foreign language speakers) into a community of believers. Thus, the Passion play repeats what is already set out in its setting in the alpine village: In the play, salvation history is not only represented but repeated, and in a similar way the Passion play site of Oberammergau merges with the represented space of Palestine. The representational strategy of designing the area in which the Passion play is performed as significant is also pursued in the report A Pilgrimage on the Ammer which appeared in the November 1871 issue of Frazer’s Magazine (Conway 1871). The journey to the mountain village is of a “fatal facility”, as the author Mr. Conway puts it (ibid.: 618), notably as early as in 1871. One could easily take the railway from Munich for about 20 English miles, then the steamboat for as long as that, and then the stagecoach. The report recommends, however, to take more time and combine modern means of transport with walking tours: “One can go partly in the old pilgrim fashion”; then one could experience that “[a] very little way out of Munich brings us to the region where religious myths still preserve some of the religious sanctity of their origin” (ibid.: 618). For example in Planegg, today one of the suburbs of Munich, a chapel with a miraculous image can be reported, which is still regularly visited by the children of the area for devotional exercises. Walking through other localities along the way, the author unfolds the image of a landscape saturated with history in which pious faith and Christian miracles of salvation, the beauty of the landscape and a multi-layered past mutually authorize each other. That is all the more so on the further way beyond Lake Starnberg which leads “through an enchanted land” (ibid.: 623). But even before entering that region, “pilgrims” are mentioned frequently (ibid.: 618, 620), as well as a hermit or legends about healing springs that Lake Starnberg or the village of Gauting are entwined with. “All along our way are little villages, unknown to gazetteers, but redolent of romance and framed in beautiful landscapes” (ibid.: 618), and similar to the “Letters to a Madame” in the Oberammergauer Blätter, “romance” does not so much indicate the historical epoch (or rather, literary trend) of Romanticism, but rather an index of cultural typology: A “romantic atmosphere” results from

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the beauty of the landscape combined with a past in which several layers overlap and generate the paradoxical impression of an absolute past, whose connection to the present can nevertheless be traced genealogically. The author conjures up the gracefulness of a remote past in just a few lines when he refers to the older name of Lake Starnberg, which officially bears its current name only since 1962. The older name “Würm-See”, which was in common use until then, was derived from the legend of a “gigantic worm, a dragon or serpent”, which had done his mischief there but was finally defeated by “some legendary relative of St. George, and descendant of the Pythonslayer” (ibid.: 620). This concise characterization of the heroic liberator calls up the Middle Ages and Greek antiquity at the same time, both epochs merge into those indefinite “ancient times” (ibid.: 620), in which there were still knights, dragons and even the mythical Python. A different presentation strategy can be observed when Conway tells the story of Rose Island near the western shore of the lake. In this idyll, the archaeological eye of the traveler knows the remains of an old pagan temple on whose foundations a small church was later built, the ruins of which are now overgrown with flowers. Only recently, a fisherman and his family lived on the island in an “Arcadian simplicity” (ibid.: 620), until in their absence the house was completely burned down – “poor Kugelmüller and his wife” (ibid.: 621) were at church service. Here the author does not conjure an indefinite past, but gives an exact date: The drama took place in 1849 on June 29, the day of St. Peter and Paul. The Bavarian king himself took care of the ruined spouses and is said to have acquired the island for a decent price. Thus, a genealogy of the place is drawn from pre-Christian times up to the present and the whole area is placed in front of a historical deep space. Knowing all this, so the text suggests, the informed traveler can only conceive the journey to Oberammergau as a form of cathartic preparation for the truth of salvation to be seen. In this, one stands out at the same time from the majority of the fellow travelers, unless one finds like-minded people in the crowd and immediately cultivates a congenial exchange. It is thanks to an inner attitude that one moves off the beaten track of the masses of tourists.

5. Self-demarcation and communitarization The routes in the texts discussed so far lie off the major tourist routes in late-19th-century central Europe. Yet they are already frequented by a large number of heterogeneous groups. A journey to Oberammergau is only possible on pre-established routes. In order to distinguish themselves from the masses of others, the authors of the reports discussed here follow a strategy that could be described as “journey inward”, as a return to one’s own (biographical or cultural) origins. The descriptions of such journeys lapse superficially into the paradoxical construction that is still familiar from travel guides today: with “insider tips” they serve the self-delimitation needs of their readers, suggesting a difference

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between these and “all other” tourists and constructing a small group of insiders among whom the reader can count himself. It is obvious that in doing so, travel guides pursue strategies of product differentiation and marketing at the same time. What seems paradoxical in their context, however, is only consequent in the logic of many Oberammergau reports: The authors want to win over their readers for their own attitude and in this way advertise the Passion play in the tradition of the medieval sacred games. They promote a notion that a visit to the play and already to the village can be a spiritual exercise. While insider tips in travel guides gain their function in relation to the readership itself and thus tend towards self-absorption, in the Oberammergau reports the dialectic of an elitist community building unfolds, which is dependent on both exclusivity and appropriation. All of the texts discussed here can be attributed to this gesture, but a report by Hermine Diemer takes a particularly elegiac tone. The author makes no secret of the fact that her Oberammergau report of 1900 was commissioned by a publisher, and in fact the book, which was translated into English the same year (Diemer 1900), is extraordinarily lavishly designed. On the other hand, Mrs. Diemer had already seen the Passion play twenty years earlier and had taken home with her the deepest impressions. Her mother had even settled in the village after visiting the play (an anecdote which is historically documented). The report as a whole also aims at such declined forms of conversion. Consequently, the first chapter on the journey from Munich is entitled “A Modern Pilgrimage” (Diemer 1900: 1). Like many other Oberammergau reports, Diemer uses the topographical grid caused by the journey to reflect on the history of the stages/stations passed. However, she does not provide as much detailed information as the report by Mr. Conway that is discussed earlier. But the strategy is comparable: even secular and quite trivial activities are described with a suggestive vocabulary that is always open to religious or spiritual associations. During the change of trains in Weilheim, for example, one enjoys “its famous sausages, which pilgrims have patronized for centuries” (ibid.: 10) – an alleged tradition which is not documented anywhere else. Precisely for this reason, the trivial mention is a good example of how the author works to place the journey under the sign of a holy wayfare and to pre-structure a corresponding attitude of attention in her readers. The text begins with an invitation to the reader to “roam with me a while” and to seek Christ with the senses. “A guiding star, though unseen, is above us”: “So let us go then, to where something more than a picture, to where His figure, appears living and moving, where His voice is heard gentle and sorrowful, as it may have proceeded from His mouth 19 centuries ago!” (ibid.: 1) In her portrayal, reality and play are blended from the beginning, and according to her, this is necessary to put the reader in the right mood. The narrative structure of the text invites the reader to participate through imagination, and rather quickly it unites the narrator’s “I” and the reader addressed to a “we”, which aims at immersion and makes critical distancing if not impossible, at least less probable.

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The report reaches its logical climax in the crucifixion scene of the Passion play. To move it to the end of the text, Diemer works with thematic jumps and flashbacks. For example, it is unclear how she actually arrived. First, the comfortable way by train from the west, available since 1900, is described. Diemer dramatizes the wild and technophobic mountain landscape, not without functionally integrating these features of an adventure path: The real miracle is not the modern art of engineering, but the fact that the Passion play inspired such achievements. This route, however, is not the outward, but the return route that Diemer chose in 1900. Only from the memory of her earlier visit to Oberammergau she then describes the other, previously only and by far more strenuous path from Oberau over the steep pass. This way is again divided into two parts, firstly by Diemer describing the generally well-passable mountain road, which has been completed since 1888, and then the older and much steeper path, on which several dramatic accidents had occurred in the past (cf. Dussler 1963). Not only does this climax contribute to a dramatization of the journey: As Diemer also describes her journey home as if it was an arrival and sets two or actually three different arrival routes next to each other, the landscape and all the sights can already be mentioned here, so that the village and the Passion play can be put further to the end of the report. As with the report by Louise Parks-Richards, Oberammergau then merges with the Holy Land itself: “And away over the gable of the theatre we see the peaks of the mountains, and the sunshine of a glorious spring morning floods the bye-ways of Jerusalem” (Diemer 1900: 229). The place where such a holy play takes place is itself holy, as well as the play, which does not merely represent the holy actions. Reality and what is portrayed on stage merge: “All this is acted and yet not acted as it were: for that which distinguishes it from mere acting is the spirit of true belief ” (ibid.: 232). Thus, in the performance report, Christian kerygma and mimesis converge, not in the sense of imitation but of repetition. “And over the audience and the performers an invisible web is woven, which with a thousand threads connects the one with the others” (ibid.: 232–3). The Washing of Feet and the Last Supper make the gift of Christian doctrine understandable, transfer the abstract contents of faith into sensual evidence and thus make the sacred intuitively comprehensible for the modern believer – whom Diemer clearly draws after the type of the doubting Thomas: That which we only know from heresay [!], that which has been handed down to us by the church as a gift of grace, and perhaps never understood, after a space of nineteen centuries – we see here in its entirety. The veil which hides the origin of the source of love falls, and we understand because we see. (ibid.: 236)

6. Tradition and innovation Since about 1850, the way to Oberammergau has been stylized as a pilgrimage in a whole series of travel guides and travelogues. One strategy is to reflect

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(and to claim) the importance of the Passion play and its visit already in the outward journey to the alpine village. To this end, the examples discussed here construct a meaningful landscape. In Parks-Richards’ report, it is semantically charged with references to Christian salvation in nature, in Conway’s article it is presented as a historically profound space in which a Christian popular piety finds its educated counterpart and at the same time its foundation. Close to Conway, even if not executed with the same consistency, is the text by Hermine Diemer. It works with narrative blending to create a climax in the Passion play and, more closely, in the crucifixion, which of course cannot correspond to the natural order of chronology. What perfectly fits in with this line is the dramatization of the route description which does not reflect the actual outward journey as the reader will notice only afterward. In comparison to these three travelogues, the fictional letter from the Oberammergauer Blätter remains in abeyance in its attitude, vaguely serving the expectations of a spiritually minded audience as well as addressing those who, under the keyword “romanticism”, are looking for an anti-modern culture of supposedly popular simplicity. Both the letter and the booklet containing it are representative of what has been observed in the self-representations of the community at each season for the past century and a half: it refers to tradition, and even moments of innovation are meant to be committed to it.3 Thus, it was easy to insist that what is shown is both unique and timeless and that for this very reason it can also appeal to modern audiences. The fact that their interests and expectations are extremely heterogeneous is something that hardly anyone of the participants in the Oberammergau discourse tried to negate. But the promise of Oberammergau since the village was discovered by an international tourism is that the different expectations could all be met in the Passion play.

Notes 1 Cf. for the early 20th-century Dominic Zerhoch’s chapter, in this volume. 2 Cf. the caricatures in German magazine Jugend 26 (1910), p. 605, or in the aforementioned extra issue of the satirical Simplicissimus (issue 26/53, 29 March 1922). 3 See also Robert D. Priest’s chapter, in this volume.

Works cited Bar, D. and K. Cohen-Hattab. 2003. A  New Kind of Pilgrimage. The Modern Tourist Pilgrim of Nineteenth Century and Early Twentieth Century Palestine. Middle Eastern Studies 39: 131–48. Bogenrieder, F. X. 1930. Oberammergau und sein Passionsspiel 1930. Offizieller Führer der Gemeinde. Munich: Knorr & Hirth-Verlag. Boorstin, D. J. 1987. The Image. A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. 25th Anniversary ed. New York: Atheneum. Burton, R. F. 1881. A Glance at the “Passion-Play”. London: W. H. Harrison. Conway, M. D. 1871. A  Pilgrimage on the Ammer. Frazer’s Magazine, November  1871: 618–37.

68  Jan Mohr Culler, J. 1988. Framing the Sign. Criticism and Its Institutions. Norman, London: University of Oklahoma Press. Diemer, H. 1900. Oberammergau and Its Passion Play. A Retrospect of the History of Oberammergau and Its Passion Play from the commencement up to the Present Day. Translation by Walter S. Manning. Munich and Oberammergau: Carl Aug. Seyfried & Co. Dussler, H. OSB. 1963. Geschichte der Ettaler Bergstraße. Ein Beitrag zum Thema: ‘Die Benediktiner und die ersten Kunststraßen Oberbayerns’. Immenstadt: Selbstverlag. Edelman, J. 2017. Spiritual Voyeurism and Cultural Nostalgia: Anglophone Visitors to the Oberammergau Passion Play, 1870–1925 and 2010. In: The Oberammergau Passion Play: Essays on the 2010 Performance and the Centuries-Long Tradition, ed. K. J. Wetmore. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 66–87. Elan, M. 1890. Letters to a Madame. In: Oberammergauer Blätter. Oberammergau Weekly News. Revue d’Oberammergau, vol. 1, ed. R. Calwer. Oberammergau: Faller, Buchmüller  & Stockmann, 11–6. Gebhardt, W., M. Engelbrecht, and Ch. Bochinger. 2005. Die Selbstermächtigung des religiösen Subjekts. Der ‘spirituelle Wanderer’ als Idealtypus spätmoderner Religiosität. Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft 13/ 2: 133–51. Grimshaw, M. 2008. Bibles and Baedekers. Tourism, Travel, Exile and God. London, Oakville: Equinox. Höhl, L. 1880. Führer zum Ammergauer Passionsspiel im Jahre 1880. Mit einer Karte von Bayern und 3 Illustrationen. Würzburg: Leo Woerl. Margry, P. J. (ed.). 2008. Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World. New Itineraries into the Sacred. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. McCannell, D. 1976. The Tourist. A New Theory of the Leisure Class. London: Macmillan. Müller, J.-D. 1997. Das Gedächtnis des gemarterten Körpers im spätmittelalterlichen Passionsspiel. In: Körper – Gedächtnis – Schrift. Der Körper als Medium kultureller Erinnerung, eds. C. Öhl­ schläger and B. Wiens. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 75–92. Müller, J.-D. 1998. Mimesis und Ritual. Zum geistlichen Spiel des Mittelalters. In: Mimesis und Simulation, eds. A. Kablitz and G. Neumann. Freiburg/Br.: Rombach, 541–71. Müller, J.-D. 2000. Kulturwissenschaft historisch. Zum Verhältnis von Ritual und Theater im späten Mittelalter. In: Lesbarkeit der Kultur. Literaturwissenschaften zwischen Kulturtechnik und Ethnographie, eds. G. Neumann and S. Weigel. Munich: Fink, 53–77. Norman, A. 2011. Spiritual Tourism. Travel and Religious Practice in Western Society. London, New York: Continuum. Ohly, F. 1995. Zum Buch der Natur. In: id.: Ausgewählte und neue Schriften zur Literaturgeschichte und zur Bedeutungsforschung, eds. D. Peil and U. Ruberg. Stuttgart: Hirzel, 727–843. Parks-Richards, L. 1910. Oberammergau, its Passion Play and Players. A 20th Century Pilgrimage to a Modern Jerusalem and a New Gethsemane. Munich: Piloty & Loehle. Raj, R. and N. D. Morpeth (eds.). 2007. Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Festivals Management. An International Perspective. Wallingforth, Cambridge, MA: CABI. Schulze, U. 2012. Geistliche Spiele im Mittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit. Von der liturgischen Feier zum Schauspiel. Eine Einführung. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. Shapiro, J. 2001. Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World’s Most Famous Passion Play. New York: Vintage Books. Stausberg, M. 2010. Religion and Tourism. Crossroads, Destinations and Encounters. London, New York: Routledge. Stenzel, J. 2019. A Rabbi’s Passion, a Hajj’s Play. Oberammergau and its Passion Play between Performed History and Histrionic Place. In: Reenacting Religion – Reacting to Religion. Vom

Pilgrims and Tourists  69 Wiedererzählen und Wiederaufführen‚ religiöser‘Praxen, ed. J. Stenzel. Forum Modernes Theater 30/1–2 [special issue, June 2019]: 162–77. Swatos, W. H. (ed.). 2006. On the Road to Being There. Studies in Pilgrimage and Tourism in Late Modernity. Leiden, Boston: Brill. Timothy, D. J. and D. H. Olsen (eds.). 2006. Tourism, Religion and Spiritual Journeys. London, New York: Routledge.

5 Seven Ways to Get to Oberammergau Travel Dispositives of the Tricentenary of the Passion Play Dominic Zerhoch 1.  Deutschland ruft euch! Germany invites you Historically, the year 1934 is to be regarded as one of the most significant seasons in the long tradition of the Oberammergau Passion play, being known as the season instrumentalized by the Nazi regime. Scholars like James Shapiro (2001) or Helena Waddy (2010) have recently focused on Oberammergau during this period, discussing its antisemitic character both on stage and in the village (Shapiro) as well as its political implications and developments (Waddy). Yet, it is hard to draw a clear image of Oberammergau during the Nazi Era, since we can detect a juxtaposition of different spaces at the same time. With an increasing number of visitors from Germany, Europe and abroad, the play attracted various groups of people, that are to be defined by their different Oberammergau experiences. The challenge of advertising Oberammergau was clearly to sell the event to different target groups by stressing the spatial hybridity inherent to the phenomenon. Looking at the play’s official poster a discrepancy in the target audiences was intended by the conceptors in the first place as we can detect at least two different groups of visitors. As Helena Waddy pointed out, Goebbels himself influenced the way Oberammergau was advertized. Originally, Hermann Kiemel’s concept showing a bleeding hand nailed to the cross, won the community’s bidding to find the motif for an advertising poster. The NSDAP though preferred a more homeland-centered image of Oberammergau to evoke their idea of a Nazi Germany and declined Kiemel’s poster (Waddy 2010: 135–6). This poster has also been published as part of several flyers, becoming one of the most prominent images for that year’s Passion (Figure 5.1). The poster depicts a village enclosed by dark mighty mountains. A shining cross enlightens the village and radiates in the darkness of the mountainside. The poster is headlined with the words “Passionsspiele Oberammergau” and mentions two dates, 1634 and 1934 in order to mark the tricentennial of the Passion play. On the one hand, the atmosphere created in this picture is sinister and threatening; on the other hand, it also evokes feelings of solace concerning the light of Christianity that shines above the village. Compared to its DOI: 10.4324/9781003106319-7

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Figure 5.1  Official poster to advertize the Passion play 1934 ( Jupp Wiertz).

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international version, the German “Germany calls you” (Deuschland ruft Euch) is translated into “Germany welcomes you” (Figure 5.2). The “call” addresses the German native speakers, while the addressees from other languages are formally invited to come to see the play. As opposed to emphasizing its hospitable character, the regime almost demands for Germans to make their way to the Passion play. Infrastructurally, this was even facilitated by the government investing in special train offers to Oberammergau with highly reduced ticket prices. Therefore, the year of 1934 is one of the most interesting to demonstrate advertising Oberammergau in the context of tourism: Visiting Oberammergau became part of the NS-political agenda, not only for Hitler himself who attended one performance of the play, as it was shown in the national and international press, but also for every German to identify with new Nazi ideology. However, it is a false conclusion to state that only National Socialists attended the performances in 1934. On the contrary, national press even pointed at Oberammergau’s international relations and marked the tension between religion and secularization, tourism and pilgrimage, and tradition and progress: Today’s Oberammergau is no longer the world’s lost hamlet (weltverlorene Gebirgsdorf) of 1634; it is a vibrant tourist’s place with widespread international relations, it promotes its plays by posters and scriptures in all the world’s languages, the radio broadcasts parts of the performance cross seas, visitors arrive by special trains and never-ending car convoys, nothing recalls the simply pious play as it has been performed in the year of 1634. (Sackel 1934)1 This quote, taken from a German newspaper, illustrates how the village was connected to the world by making use of different media to advertize the Passion play. Claiming that Oberammergau is no longer the world’s “lost hamlet” points directly to a contraction between self-fashioning Oberammergau as the essence of German tradition and its development as a village of global interest since the emergence of mass media in the 19th century. Moreover, Oberammergau transformed from a theatric to an intermedia event providing the opportunity to produce the space and to acquire different groups of visitors, way before their corporal presence on site. In order to understand how space was conceived in the first place, it seems fruitful to take a closer look at travel brochures (Passionsprospekte) since they were available for a great number of people and gave notion on Oberammergau first off. This may not only help us in understanding what the “spaces of Oberammergau” looked like, but it also facilitates tracing the social spectrum of the people travelling to Oberammergau in the year of 1934.

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Figure 5.2  English version of the official poster for the Passion play 1934.

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2. Reading traces of space, historically: the concept of travel dispositives When the new railway to Oberammergau was built for the Passion of 1900, visitors had two options: to travel directly to the village or to take the traditional way via Oberau.2 In 1934, Northern German Lloyd offered to a clientele from abroad even six ways to get to Oberammergau. This is just one mentionable example of an increase in travelling routes to the Bavarian village, as several travel agencies followed, exploiting new ways. As a historian, I would like to take a seventh path, the one that leads us back in time and to the Municipality Archive of Oberammergau, where we find the yet unevaluated travel brochures. The medium of the travel brochures as invented by Thomas Cook in the mid-19th century is not only defined by the information transferred but also by its specific mediality that can be regarded as an extension of corporal experience. To understand the material of the travel brochures based on their mediaspecificity, it is fruitful to take a look at the German meaning of the word “Passionsprospekte”. As a mediate experience of space, the travel brochures prospect a space that is going to be realized by making use of images and descriptions representing the space as it was used before. This intermedia approach is significant in order to understand how Oberammergau was institutionalized with the help of mass media, which literally produced Oberammergau as a trademark for the tourism industry. From a historical point of view, it enables to draw inferences about how the (various) space(s) of Oberammergau were experienced. In this context, I  am developing the term “travel dispositives” as an analytical model. As a result, we may gain knowledge about two very important aspects concerning the space of Oberammergau as it was produced in 1934. First, it can be regarded as a representation of space, that is contextualized in different ways (geocodes) and secondly, we can detect traces of routes taken by the travellers to the Oberammergau Passion play (itineraries). Both aspects allude to the spatial turn in cultural studies. On the one hand, they store knowledge on itineraries and thus allow conclusions on spatiality/ spatial practice. On the other hand, they are to be regarded as a mediatization of space that is re-semantized in the sense of “geocodes”. First described by geographer Edward Soja, the spatial turn points out narrative structures of space and thereby makes them “readable”.3 Amongst others, Soja refers to Henri Lefebvre’s “La production de l’espace” (Lefebvre 1991) and Michel de Certeau’s renowned chapter on space from “L’Invention du quotidien” (de Certeau 1988: 179–208). Lefebvre characterizes three modes of spatial production: Spatial practice, representations of space and representational spaces. Spatial practice may be considered closest to de Certeau’s understanding of space, the perceived space as it is constituted and reconstituted by acts of everyday life. The representation of space is the space as conceived by architects and scenographers, marking the topographical aspects (Günzel 2018: 78–9). For the example on hand we focus

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on the representational spaces, the mediatization of space as it is produced by writers, painters, photographers and travel agencies. They produce a collective knowledge on space before entering the place physically. Representational spaces are to be considered topologically. By using the term of geocodes, geographer Benno Werlen shows how meaning is semiotically produced in representations of space. According to him, controlling meaning by visualization brings with it a double paradox. On the one hand the dematerialization of image-based communication compels a reification of meaning. On the other hand, the controlling of symbolized meaning of material facts simulates spatial-temporal anchoring of late modern life forms, by a medium centered in the spatial-temporal de-anchoring itself. This double paradox is the basis for enabling what I  name Geocodes. Spatial coding of life contexts detached by their spatial binding and anchoring. This results in problematic propensity of categorizing cultural and social actualities, just as the constitution of cultural actualities as spatial reality. (Werlen 2008: 387) Assuming an evocation of space, these representations enable imaginations and expectations of Oberammergau produced way before the corporal presence on site. Thus, Oberammergau cannot be considered a mere theatrics phenomenon since the corporal experience is influenced by the geocodes. Werlen then points out the contradiction between biographical knowledge as an immediate experience and medially communicated information (ibid.: 386) by conceiving “media . . . as an extension of the body and space as a placeholder for the relation of human body and other (physical) objects” and thus defining “media as a mediator of the experience in the absence of one’s own body or organism” (ibid.: 384). Referring to Lefebvre we can state that the production of space of Oberammergau begins with a selection of certain images putting them into different contexts and thereby evoking a corporal experience. To define the conveyers of space, Werlen uses the metaphorical term “guards that interpret the world” beyond the recipient’s own “circle of action” (ibid.: 386), and thus hints at predetermination of space way before spatial practice. Therefore, representational spaces are to be considered as utopias, imaginations of places that do not exist for real but can be realized. To understand the relation between utopia as virtual spaces and their influence on the real sites, it is fruitful to take a closer look at tourism studies. To refine Werlen’s thoughts on geocodes, I add to his theory Karlheinz Wöhler’s reflection on space as detailed in “Touristification of space”. Wöhler states that based on topological intangibilities, travellers produce space performatively: Virtualizations inspire and figure out actions and give orientation to them. Resulting from this are ideas, imaginations, fictions, patterns and models of

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action, and if these are subsequently realized, then real structures emerge – spatializations of the imagined or of the pictures that one makes with these ideas, etc. (Wöhler 2011: 70) Instead of defining performative spaces by their materiality it is to assume that performative spaces are constructed by topology, forming discourses that influence spatial practices. Besides the re-semantization of space by images and texts, travel brochures detail specific and various itineraries. We can regard the itineraries by their ­relations between places that thus create a new space by “leaving out” the spaces in between. Furthermore, they give us an idea of how the journey was experienced, at least from the point of view of spatial construction. This understanding rests on the research by David Harvey (1995) and Wolfgang Schivelbusch, the latter of whom reflected on the history of the railway journey, in the historical observation of the annihilation of time and space: By annihilating the space between destinations, the traditional space of journey, these spaces come closer, they collide. They lose their here and now. This was defined by spaces-in-between. The isolation, in which the relation of places was defined by spatial distance, also defined their here and now, their assertive and in-themselves-resting individuality. (Schivelbusch 1995: 39) Schivelbusch, who studied the historical development of the railway journey from the travellers’ perception in 19th-century France claims that in losing their isolation cities were reorganized and thus have lost their individuality while being re-placed in new relations to one another. This is a significant point for travelling to Oberammergau, when keeping in mind that the railway to Oberammergau was officially opened in 1900. Numerous travel agencies offer quite a number of different itineraries to Oberammergau as part of pre-arranged tours to several places in the region or as part of European tours to religious sites. Whereas German agencies (including the municipality of Oberammergau itself) focus their attention on tours of alpine places nearby Oberammergau, such as the Ettal monastery, the Zugspitze mountain or Neuschwanstein Castle, agencies like Thomas Cook addressing potential travellers from abroad are also offering tours to specific cities in Germany and Europe. I would like to present four different types of travel dispositives of 1934 that differ from one another by stressing a journey’s religious, secular or even political character. The study is based on 25 different travel brochures from various travel agencies and countries for the 1934 tricentennial play. The samples presented in this paper are a selection of significant examples. The objects are evaluated by the questions: Which images are most frequently used to represent Oberammergau (demarcation or appropriation)? How is the space Oberammergau constituted in

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its relation to other places? And what is Oberammergau’s self-image to be considered like?

3. Spa-Travelling. The attraction of the upper class Remarkably, several itineraries include destinations well-known as spas, including the nearby Bad Kohlgrub, Baden-Baden or Wiesbaden. Helena Waddy Lepovitz who has also researched the evolution of tourism in Bavaria during the 19th and 20th centuries observes a propensity for communities to entitle themselves as “Bad”, which signifies that a place has a spa status, in combination with religious motives of “healing” (Waddy Lepovitz 1992). [T]he name “Heilbrunn” or “Heilbründl,” which was also applied to a secular cure location in Upper Bavaria, specifically indicated the healing nature of the waters. Here the ambiguity of the word “Heil” draws the connection between the concepts of holiness and healing. To facilitate that healing, bathing facilities often were built at the shrine sites. Even the proximity of healing shrines and secular baths suggests the connection between pilgrimage and water cure . . . And a secular spa could develop from a pilgrimage tradition as it did at St. Moritz Bad in Switzerland. (Waddy Lepovitz 1992: 132–3) Of course, Oberammergau never defined itself as a spa town. Instead, secular spa towns like Wiesbaden or Baden-Baden are integrated by the concept of religiously tinted spa movement into the Oberammergau travel dispositive. Contextualizing Oberammergau to upper-class tourism already came up earlier as part of the Oberammergauer Blätter, a Journal published by the municipality of Oberammergau for the plays of 1890. The journal consists of several fictional and non-fictional texts including recensions, academic reviews and presumably personal notes as post-cards and diary entries by visitors. One of the texts entitled Letters to a Lady proofs that the relation to upper-class tourism as the spa movement in combination with gambling (e.g., Monaco, Baden-Baden or Wiesbaden) was understood (or at least wanted to be understood) as being contrary to the Oberammergau Passion play experience (Elan 1890). The alleged author of the letter A. v. W. (implicating an aristocratic status) tells the lady that he normally spends his time at Nice or Monaco but has never experienced this kind of purification as he did in Oberammergau. From the beginning of mass tourism in the late 19th century, Oberammergau faced the challenge of a new heterogeneity of visitors, bringing new expectations to the village and thus bringing the ability to transform the site into yet another spa town. This does not seem to be a coincidence. As another research by Helena Waddy revealed, there used to be a community argument based on the first plans to build a spa in Oberammergau by the end of the 19th century (Waddy 2010: 86). What has been realized as the “Oberammergauer Badeanlagen” in 1936 caused a discussion on defining the space of Oberammergau. Opponents

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feared that the plans, originally presented by Josef Diemer in 1870 and later resumed by his son Zeno and Raimund Lang, could turn the Passion play village into a “Bad Oberammergau” while losing its representational space as the Passion play village: “Critics had mistakenly feared dragging Oberammergau down into the ‘mundane’ entertainment world, whereas in truth the village’s special values would dovetail nicely with a medical facility” (ibid.: 87). It is significant though that the plans were realized during the time of recession in order to strengthen Oberammergau as a touristic hot spot during the off-season, and at the same time provide to job opportunities during the unemployment crisis (ibid.: 86–7). Is this to be considered an example of how Oberammergau was sold as a touristic destination instead of being a pilgrim village? On the occasion of the plays of 1922 the famous German satirical magazine “Simplicissimus” remarked and commented on a new clientele contrary to the site’s religious character. By quoting Mathew 11,28: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”, the caricature shows a group of mostly wealthy travellers arriving at Oberammergau.4 Thus, the biblical meaning has been inverted and applied to the contemporary spa narrative as described by Waddy Lepovitz earlier. When for the repertory season of 1922 not only satirical magazines took note of a new and wealthier audience becoming attracted to Oberammergau, Cardinal Faulhaber urged the inhabitants not to become greedy during the official opening sermon: In the coming months, the eyes of hundreds and thousands . . . will be on you and you will be sharply criticized when the crucified one, so to speak, walks through your streets during the months of the play; the devil must not live and dwell in your houses at the same time. You may represent your economic rights even to foreigners in a calm and dignified manner, but you must not sell your soul for the dollar.5 Therefore, the new spa was neither advertized in the context of the Passion play nor during the Passion play season, but remained an off-season attraction. Nevertheless, the inclusion of spas as part of the itinerary enabled to attract the upper-class audience without defining the village of Oberammergau exclusively as a spa town. Comparing the routes including spa resorts to those routes that focus more on religious aspects, it comes clear that there used to be a different kind of experience addressing another audience. This can be demonstrated by comparing it directly to the travel brochure by Catholic Tours Division of Business Management.

4.  Business Management Catholic Tours Division The cover of the booklet echoes the official poster of the 1934 play and equally invites and defines the beholder: The Passion Play at Oberammergau – that is the reason why the summer of 1934 is the summer of all summers to visit Europe, for no Catholic can

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ever hope in his life to witness a more inspiring and magnificent event that the story of the Gospel relived by the peasant folk of Bavaria (Business Management Catholic Tours 1933/34: 1), claiming the Passion in Oberammergau to be the “greatest dramatic spectacle of all time” (ibid.) (Figure 5.3). Addressing Catholics from abroad the “itineraries represented in the booklet have been specially prepared for various groups, notably the New York Archdiocese, Albany Archdiocese, Cathedral College of Brooklyn and all others who desire to travel under auspicious conditions” (ibid.: 2). The target audience is comparably narrow and at the same time precisely defined. The itinerary explicitly addresses Catholics who “are invited to participate with the assurance that their comfort will be carefully preserved” (ibid.: 2). Indicating to financial endorsement by Cardinals, Bishops and Members of the Catholic Church, the tour seems to be “sanctified” by church authority, becoming a contemporary pilgrimage to the Passion play – “contemporary”, since the comfort of travelling both by ship and train is guaranteed. The journey takes 40 days and costs 433.00 $ all inclusive. Taking into account the inflation rate, the costs would equal 9.384 $ in the year 2018, which may give us a hint on the clientele able to afford this remarkable sum. Starting from Boston the tour takes the modern-day pilgrims across the Atlantic and calls at Madeira, Gibraltar, Algeria before landing the travellers in mainland Europe. Going ashore at Naples, the travelling group is invited to visit cathedrals, churches and a monastery. The journey then continues to Rome, that besides sightseeing promises an Audience with the Pope at Vatican. Notably, the Audience with the Pope almost seems to be secondary in this advert focusing on Oberammergau. The journey continues calling at Florence, where the travellers can visit the Church of San Lorenzo, the Medici Chapels and St. John’s Baptistery, then moves on to Venice and Innsbruck before crossing the Dolomites and spending two nights at Oberammergau. The brochure explicitly stresses that the travel agency offers “special arrangements” allowing all the members of the tour to stay at homes of the Passion players, saying: “This will enable you to see intimately how these pious villagers live and will give you a truer and deeper appreciation of the play which they perform as a religious rite” (Business Management Catholic Tours 1933/34: 1). Claiming the Passion as a religious rite that is interwoven with the way the inhabitants live seems to be inconsistent with the citation from the German newspaper quoted at the beginning of this chapter. The piety as a characterization of the villagers is not only interesting from its religious point of view, but also as part of a political agenda as we are about to see in our last example. Entering Oberammergau seems to be like a contagious process of spiritual belief, highlighting the intimacy, truth and depth of the experience by living with the players. The journey continues via Luzern, Milano and ends in Cannes. Since the five days left haven’t offered any more sightseeing Oberammergau is defined as the peak of the tour. Travelling only points of religious

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Figure 5.3 Cover of the booklet by Business Management Catholic Tours Division for the ­Passion play 1934, courtesy of Gemeindearchiv Oberammergau (GAO).

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interest, there are no references to sights and landmarks in the alpine environment. Oberammergau seems to be isolated between Italian churches and an audience with the Pope.

5.  Cook’s Handbook for Oberammergau Cook’s Handbook for Oberammergau caters to potential travellers by offering “favorable conditions” to visit Oberammergau and its periphery. Particulars of a number of tours which we have organized are set out on pages 13–51. These tours all assure to members the prospect of seeing the play under the most favourable conditions and at the same time offer a wide choice of facilities for visiting such delightful regions as the Bavaria Highlands (with their famous Royal castles), the Rhine Valley, Tyrol, the Dolomites, the Austria Lake District and Switzerland. The tours cover the most attractive routes to and from Oberammergau: but we shall be pleased to quote for any other variation of route that may be desired. (Thomas Cook & Son Ltd. 1934: 3) In comparison to the route offered by Business Management Catholic Tours the destinations as described in the text are defined by their geographical character and thus seem to address an audience more interested in the secular aspect. However, of greater interest is how they represent the places to be visited nearby Oberammergau in putting them into diametrical contrast to Oberammergau’s Christian character. Apart from its associations with the Passion play, Oberammergau is well worth a visit for the beauty of the scenery amid which it is situated, in the heart of the Bavarian Alps, and for the magnificence of the Royal castles which cluster in the neighbourhood. Built or embellished by the Mad King of Bavaria, Ludwig II, these palaces of Linderhof, Hohenschwangau, and Neuschwanstein are more like the dream palaces of Aladdin’s lamp than realities of the 20th century. As one writer has observed: “they present in reality the extravagances of dreamland, the glitter of an enchanted world, the surprising elements of a phantasm.” Linderhof is a miniature Versailles. Hohenschwangau displays the Gothic Style, and every room is decorated in the most lavish manner with paintings in illustrations of legendary lore. Its windows afford magnificent views over a wide stretch of country. Neuschwanstein, perched on the top of a precipitous rock overhanging the deep romantic gorges of the Pöllat, is one of the most imposing edifices of its kind. Built by Ludwig II in 1869–86, it is an example of the Romanesque style of the 12th century. The Royal apartments, containing beautiful pictures of scenes from Wagner’s operas, are of exceptional interest. (Thomas Cook & Son Ltd. 1934: 8)

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By emphasizing aspects of Oberammergau that do not concern the Passion play, the text concentrates on places like Linderhof, Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein and contrasts them with the village. In toning down its Christian character, the agency may want to attract travellers who are less interested in the religious part. Instead, Oberammergau is represented by its geographical alpine environment and the Royal Castles providing points of interest for sightseeing in the surrounding countryside. But the demarcation to Oberammergau goes even further. King Ludwig’s palaces are interestingly enough not so much associated with medieval and romantic Germany’s fairytale culture, but with tales of the Arabian nights. While Oberammergau and its environment were represented as the essence of Christian, Western culture in Oberammergau’s Official Booklet (as we are about to see), the Castles are fashioned as exotic palaces of the Near East as certainly imagined from an Eurocentric point of view. Projecting the entire world on Oberammergau and its environment has already been famously done by Richard F. Burton’s ethnological study on Oberammergau and the Passion play some forty years before (Burton 1881: 43). The self-called orientalist remarked ironically the resemblance between Mount Kofel and the Corcovado boulder near Rio de Janeiro in the same way the advertising text is comparing Linderhof as a miniature version to Versailles.6 The reason for the agency to do so was clearly to promote Oberammergau as a place presumably rather unknown as a tourist destination by comparing it with well-established destinations and sights such as King Louis’ castle and transmitting a certain kind of atmosphere by referring to Arabian nights and the medieval Gothic architecture. The itinerary as represented seems to reflect the entire world, and therefore clearly marks its own secular conception. In this advert, Cook defined Oberammergau as a global destination by putting the village into relation to the entire world. This definition contradicts Oberammergau’s self-fashioning for the tricentennial as it is represented in the Official Brochure. Predictably, in 1934 Oberammergau undertook a balancing act: On the one hand, it is still a global destination, whilst on the other hand is eager to exclude the entire world consisting of all ethnicities, religions and cultures from their image. Oberammergau transformed into a pars pro toto for Nazi Germany.

6. The Official Booklet There are several reasons why it is fruitful to study the Official Booklet of the tricentennial play and why it differs from the other adverts. First, it was conceived by the municipality of Oberammergau with the Ministry of Propaganda having substantial influence on its design, aiming at using this medium as a possibility to express their self-image of Oberammergau. Also, there are several altered versions based on the poster (e.g., Catholic Tours Division [Figure 5.3], ARO Ackermann Travel Service [Figure  5.4]) indicating a genealogy, maybe in form of correspondence to Oberammergau’s tourist office. Preliminary reports on the play by the German press demonstrate how the Oberammergau

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Figure 5.4 Cover of the booklet by ARO Ackermann Travel Service Oberammergau for the Passion play 1934, courtesy of Gemeindearchiv Oberammergau (GAO).

narrative, especially the inhabitants have been instrumentalized as role models for a national socialist spirit: The people of Ammergau take their job solemnly serious (heilig ernst). They do not live for the sake of life, but for their mission. . . . We live today in a state of leaders and willingly obedients (willig Gehorchenden). Germany has only known this condition for about a year. But Oberammergau has represented this idea, which became synonymous with the state for

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hundreds of years. Everything is inspired by one thought: the oath! And conscientiousness and a sense of homeland awareness of the inhabitants ensure that this oath is kept as the fathers took it, to attain that everything is ordered and executed, provided and achieve. (Anon 1934a; my translation)7 Even though mayor Raimund Lang, being member of the Nazi Party,8 affirmed in an interview headlined “Nazi Germany bans racial distinctions in plans for this year’s Passion play”, that “the Passion plays remains unaffected by changes of government”, the play’s Official Booklet referred several times to Nazi government and even Hitler himself. The Official Booklet consists of about forty pages, including headshots of the Passion players in characters, a poster of the scene in which the mass demands Jesus to be crucified, promoting the mass scenes of the play simultaneously, a short report on the woodcarvers (Herrgottschnitzer) and promotions for other cities as Munich. Bavaria’s capital is called “Adolf Hitler’s chosen city of art” and seems to preshadow World War II by even making use of the passion narrative: “At Brenner square the brown house guards the allegiance of Hitler’s men and at the Feldherrnhalle a plaque reminds us that only the one in the German Country will be victorious who knows how to sacrifice” (Municipality of Oberammergau 1934).9 Undoubtedly, Oberammergau as represented in the advert does not just stand for the Passion play and the alpine space, but for all of Germany, as the booklet draws a link to the current political developments of the time. In these days, when the German nation found itself again, full of belief in the reinforcement of all the German life and the moral renewal of the German men and women, the Passion village of Oberammergau proceeds into a jubilee year, announcing to the German people that 300 years have passed since the ancestors have performed the Passion play for the first time as an expression of gratitude for they had been saved from the plague. Therefore, this tricentennial is symbolically related to the significant year of the departure of the German nature, the year that brought liberation from bolshevism, which had severely destroyed Christian culture.10 Oberammergau became a pars pro toto for Nazi Germany while the history of the village was misused as an analogy to recent “achievements” of the Nazi Party; in this case of the fight against bolshevism which was said to pose a threat to Christianity. The motif of Germany rising again, rediscovering an unspecific “moral renewal”, becomes an analogy to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Coming along as a prophecy, Germany’s destiny already seems determined in referring to Devrient who is quoted with the words: But when the day of promise dawns, when the German tribes will once again feel as one people and the forces will move freely and cheerfully, when the breath of a new life will reawaken the old folk and artistic spirit, which again creates beautiful festivities, then the Ammergau Passion play

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may also be seen. This day has now dawned and Oberammergau invites Germany and the world to visit this play. (Municipality of Oberammergau 1934)11 Even though Devrient refers here to the political situation in the context of the German Revolution of 1848, the author(s) instrumentalized this quote for their own political purpose and deliver the answer to Devrient’s prediction themselves: “This day has come” (Municipality of Oberammergau 1934). The predication is presented as being fulfilled and the text also discloses its propagandistic intention in saying that “Oberammergau wants to show that here German cultural assets have been guarded and cultivated in defiance of old storms and hardships of time”. Even though the religious context is taken up, the focus is on tradition and the villagers that equal the essence of Germany as it was imagined by the Nazi ideology. Is the story of the passion assumed as prior knowledge, or does the impression occur that the story told in Oberammergau no longer takes place in ancient Jerusalem but in Nazi Germany? It is a given fact that mostly international press remarked with dismay the political influence in the play fearing that the Passion could take on a Teutonic background. Certainly, their reception must have been influenced by the representation of the self-image of Oberammergau in media like this advertising booklet. According to Roland Kaltenegger, then Pontius Pilatus actor Melchior Breitsamter, who impressed Hitler the most with his “racial intelligence and superiority” stated, that they “have also performed the Gospel in the Third Reich” (Kaltenegger 1984: 184). How was it possible to translocate the Gospel into the Third Reich? From a historical point of view, the booklet defines the topology preparing the audience for the actual event taking place in 1934 in Oberammergau and turning the Passion play into a propaganda performance. Adolf Hitler’s visit to Oberammergau was accompanied by national and international press, but some photographs that contribute to reconstructing the spatial practice remained unpublished. The theater historian Evelyn Annuß refers to Goebbels being impressed by the affective power of the Oberammergau mass scenes claiming a quotation of form for the later developed Thingspiele.12 Even though the Nazis had not succeeded to conduct the masses in their plays by failing in form and content it seems like they were more successful the day Hitler attended the plays in Oberammergau. Taking into account the topology resulting from the booklet, the thesis can be derived that the National Socialist regime appropriated the passion narrative and turned Hitler himself into the Messiah. Therefore, complex production of space was required that did not only include topological aspects but moreover topographical and spatial practices to translocate the Gospel as an analogy to the biblical myth. International press remarked with dismay that Oberammergau had turned into a sea of swastika flags (Figure 5.5),13 as we are able to deduce by some images that show Hitler’s arrival in Oberammergau as an analogy to Palm Sunday (Figure 5.6). By trading the donkey for the car, Hitler is surrounded by a mass saluting him. This analogy to the biblical story goes even further, recalling one famous scene of the Passion play that has also been used to advertize the mass

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Figure 5.5 Swastika flags and a banner express the community’s support for Hitler prior to the German referendum in 1934, courtesy of Gemeindearchiv Oberammergau (GAO).

Figure 5.6 “Entering Oberammergau”: Hitler visits the Passion play in August 1934, courtesy of Gemeindearchiv Oberammergau (GAO).

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Figure 5.7 “Crucify him”. Mass scene to advertize the Passion play in 1934, official brochure, courtesy of Gemeindearchiv Oberammergau (GAO).

Figure 5.8 Hitler visiting the players backstage at the Passion Play Theatre, courtesy of Gemeindearchiv Oberammergau (GAO).

scenes: the mass demands Jesus to be crucified (Figure 5.7). The photograph was taken during the stage production of 1930 and depicts an affected crowd with Christ in its center. Comparing it to the photograph taken during Hitler’s visit the resemblance is striking (Figure 5.8). Instead of being in a furore, the

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audience in Oberammergau seems euphoric executing the Nazi Salute. The story of the passion is duplicated, transformed into presence with the spatial production emphasizing the difference between the Gospel and Hitler’s interpretation of it. Whereas the booklet has already announced the reincarnation of Germany, Hitler was able to fill the gap without becoming a martyr himself. French anthropologist René Girard discussed the violence of the passion in the context of Mel Gibson’s movie THE PASSION OF CHRIST arguing that every religious movement is based on a moment of violence (Girard 2004). This moment causes a mimetic rivalry that can only be interrupted by a scapegoat symbolically marking the object of rivalry. Yet the affected mass still demands a scapegoat to break the circle of mimetic rivalry evoked in both the play and Germany’s political situation as is described in the brochure. The anti-Judaism inherent to the plot seemed like fertile ground for anti-Semitic propaganda. Even though there are no records of any riots towards people of Jewish belief in the direct context of the performance, Oberammergau served for the National Socialists as the perfect form to fit in their ideas and ideologies: Faith, Community, Tradition, the will to sacrifice, Anti-Judaism and even more importantly, staging Hitler as the new Messiah. All of these aspects were written onto the existing Oberammergau narrative by topological re-sementization of space.

7. Conclusion The producers of the travel adverts faced the challenge to express Oberammergau’s hybridity in serving both, the religious part of the play and the secularism expressed by the Alpine and historical environment to address a broader clientele. Depending on the producers and their addressees the results varied from making use of the design and the form up to the exclusion of images and information representing Oberammergau either as the pilgrim village or a global tourist destination. The agencies accentuated specific aspects, creating different spaces, that can be all considered as Oberammergau. As a result, we can see how flexible the trademark Oberammergau is to be considered, whether it refers to the epoch of Romanticism, addresses an upper-class clientele, becomes the highlight of a catholic tour through Europe or is instrumentalized as the essence of the national socialist spirit. Therefore, Oberammergau juxtaposed different incompatible spaces by producing them topologically. The variety of groups and heterogeneity of the visitors not only proved that the 1934 play experienced great popularity but moreover achieved a general affirmation in the public eye. Worries concerning the political impact of the play, as they have been evocated in preliminary reports, were opposed by the topologies produced as part of the travel dispositives and generated different expectations beyond Oberammergau’s political status. Opposing statements concerning the political implications of the Passion play as they have been made by Mayor Lang and contradicted by the Official Booklet and Hitler’s visit enabled a juxtaposition of these spaces in one place.

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In addition to the reports, the comparison of different travel dispositives draws a broader, and more varied image of Oberammergau during the Nazi Regime, emphasizing its influence on the one hand and making visible the counter spaces on the other hand.

Notes 1 “Das Oberammergau von heute ist ja nicht mehr das weltverlorene Gebirgsdorf von 1634; es ist ein lebhafter Fremdenverkehrsort mit weitverzweigten internationalen Beziehungen, es wirbt für seine Spiele durch Plakate und Schriften in allen Weltsprachen, der Rundfunk überträgt Teile der Aufführung über Ozeane hin, in Sonderzügen und endlosen Autokolonen kommen Besucher, nichts mehr im äußeren Bild gemahnt an das einfältige fromme Spiel, wie es Anno 1634 aufgeführt worden ist” (my translation). 2 See also the chapter by Jan Mohr: Pilgrims and Tourists, in this volume. 3 Soja gives a summary and articulates an interpretation on Lefebvre’s concept naming it “thirding”/“Thirdspace”. See Soja 1996: 53–83. 4 Simplicissimus, 29.3.1922, extra issue: On to Oberammergau! (Auf nach Oberammergau!), title page. See also the chapter by Jan Mohr: Pilgrims and Tourists, in this volume. 5 As cited in Kaltenegger 1984, 181–2. (“Die Augen von Hunderten und Tausenden . . . werden auf Euch gerichtet sein in den nächsten Monaten, und man wird scharfe Kritik an Euch üben zu der Zeit, da sozusagen in den Spielmonaten der Gekreuzigte durch Eure Straßen geht; da darf nicht zugleich der Teufel in den Häusern wohnen und hausen. Ihr dürft Eure wirtschaftlichen Rechte auch den Ausländern gegenüber ruhig und würdevoll vertreten, aber ihr dürft Eure Seele nicht um den Dollar verkaufen”). 6 For Burton’s politics of associations cf. Stenzel 2019. 7 “Heilig ernst nimmt der Ammergauer seine Aufgabe. Er lebt nicht um des Lebens willen, sondern um seine Sendung. . . . Wir leben heute in einem Staate der Führer und der willig Gehorchenden. Deutschland kennt diesen Zustand erst seit reichlich einem Jahre. Oberammergau aber gehört dieser Idee, die für uns gleichbedeutend mit Staat wurde, seit hunderten von Jahren. Alles beseelt nur ein Gedanke: Der Schwur! Und daß dieser Schwur so gehalten wird wie ihn die Väter gaben, dafür sorgen Pflichtund Heimatbewußtsein der Bewohner, dafür wird befohlen und ausgeführt, erbracht und geschafft”. 8 In the report, mayor Raimund Lang was falsely referred to as being burgomaster Anton Lang. 9 “Am Brennerplatz bewacht die Treue von Hitlers Mannen das Braune Haus und an der Feldherrnhalle mahnt eine Gedenktafel, daß in deutschen Landen nur der siegen kann, der zu opfern weiß.” 10 See GAO (Gemeindearchiv Oberammergau) Offizieller Prospekt 1934 (“In den Tagen, in denen das deutsche Volk sich wieder gefunden hat und erfüllt ist von einem Glauben an Wiederstärkung des ganzen deutschen Lebens und an die sittliche Erneuerung des deutschen Menschen, geht das Passionsdorf Oberammergau in ein Jubeljahr hinein, um dem deutschen Volke zu künden, daß 300 Jahre vergangen sind und seit die Urväter zum erstmal ihr Passionsspiel als Dankopfer für die Erlösung aus schwerer Pestnot aufgeführt haben. Somit steht diese 300-Jahrfeier in symbolischen Zusammenhang mit dem bedeutungsvollen Jahr des Aufbruches deutschen Wesens, dem Jahr, das für Deutschland die Befreiung von dem alle christliche Kultur zerstörenden Bolschewismus gebracht hat”). 11 Ibid. (“Wenn aber doch einmal der Tag der Verheißung anbricht, wo die deutsche Stämme sich wieder als ein Volk fühlen und die Kräfte frei und fröhlich sich regen werden, wo der Atem eines neuen Lebens den alten Volks- und Kunstgeist wieder aufwecken wird, der wieder schöne Feste schafft, dann mag man auch das Ammergauer Passionsspiel gesehn’. Dieser Tag ist nun angebrochen und Oberammergau lädt Deutschland und die Welt zum Besuche dieses Spieles ein.”).

90  Dominic Zerhoch 12 See the chapter by Evelyn Annuß, in this volume. 13 Mostly English and Scandinavian newspapers discussed Hitler’s influence on Oberammergau’s Passion play headlining their articles “Oberammergau is Hitler’s Germany”. Not surprisingly, German Newspaper Hannoverscher Anzeiger reviewed international press and neutralized its critical tone by quoting: “The fact that Oberammergau has become a National Socialist sea of flags is particularly emphasized by all the rapporteurs. The play is praised in the highest notes” (Anon 1934b). Daily mirror reported that “[t]he production was the first to be held under all-Nazi auspices. The village has been specially hung with Swastika banners” (Anon 1934c).

Works cited Anon. 1934a. Das Spiel kann beginnen. Unk. German Newspaper (GAO – Gemeindearchiv Oberammergau). Anon. 1934b. Oberammergauer Passionsspiel 1934. Verheißungsvoller Auftakt zu den Jubiläumspassionsspielen. Hannoverscher Anzeiger 114, 19 May 1934. Anon. 1934c. PASSION PLAY ORDEAL. Actor Exhausted in Crucifixion Scene. NAZI CHANGES. Daily Mirror, 18 May 1934. Burton, R. F. 1881. A Glance at the “Passion-Play”. London: W. H. Harrison. Business Management Catholic Tours Division/American Express Company in Cooperation with Italian Line. 1933/34. Special Pilgrimage to Oberammergau. Attending the World Famous Passion Play, Rome, “the Eternal City”, Lourdes and Lisieux (GAO). De Certeau, M. 1988 [1980]. L’invention du quotidien. 1. Arts de faire. Paris: Gallimard. Elan, M. 1890. Letters to a Madame. In: Oberammergauer Blätter. Oberammergau Weekly News. Revue d’Oberammergau, vol. 1, ed. R. Calwer. Bad Kohlgrub: Faller, Buchmüller & ­Stockmann, 11–6. Girard, R. 2004. On Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ. Anthropoetics X/1 (Spring/­Summer 2004). http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap1001/rggibson/ (accessed 5 August 2020). Günzel, St. 2018. Raum. Eine kulturwissenschaftliche Einführung. 2nd ed. Bielefeld: transcript. Harvey, D. 1995 [1990]. Zeit und Raum im Projekt der Aufklärung [The Time and Space of the Enlightment Project]. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften: Macht – Wissen – Geographie 6/3: 345–65. Kaltenegger, R. 1984. Oberammergau und die Passionsspiele 1634–1984. Munich, Vienna: Langen Müller. Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. Municipality of Oberammergau. 1934. Jubiläums Passions Spiele Oberammergau 1634–1934. Offizieller Prospekt. Munich: Bruckmann. Sackel, H. 1934. Oberammergauer Passion 1934. Die erste Aufführung. Unk. German Newspaper. (GAO). Schivelbusch, W. 1995. Geschichte der Eisenbahnreise. Zur Industrialisierung von Raum und Zeit im 19. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag. Shapiro, J. 2001. Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World’s Most Famous Passion Play. New York: Vintage Books. Soja, E. W. 1996. Thirdspace. Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Oxford: Blackwell. Stenzel, J. 2019. A  Rabbi’s Passion, a Hajj’s Play. Oberammergau and its Passion Play between Performed History and Histrionic Place. In: Reenacting Religion – Reacting to Religion. Vom Wiedererzählen und Wiederaufführen‚ religiöser’ Praxen, ed. id. Forum Modernes Theater 30/1–2 [special issue, June 2019]: 162–77.

Seven Ways to Get to Oberammergau  91 Thomas Cook & Son. Ltd. 1933/34. The Passion Play. Cooks Handbook for Travelling Oberammergau. London: Thos. Cook & Son. Waddy, H. 2010. Oberammergau in the Nazi Era: The Fate of a Catholic Village in Hitler’s Germany. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Waddy Lepovitz, H. 1992. Pilgrims, Patients, and Painters: The Formation of a Tourist Culture in Bavaria. Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 18/1 (Winter 1992): 121–45. www.jstor.org/stable/41298946 (accessed 6 April 2020). Werlen, B. 2008. Körper, Raum und mediale Repräsentation. In: Spatial Turn. Das Raumparadigma in den Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften, eds. J. Döring and T. Thielmann. Bielefeld: transcript, 365–92. Wöhler, K. 2011. Touristifizierung von Räumen. Kulturwissenschaftliche und soziologische Studien zur Konstruktion von Räumen. Wiesbaden: Springer.

6 Quoting the Passion On Oberammergau’s National-Socialist Afterlife Evelyn Annuß

I am still satiated with impressions from the Passion. And I am pleased that something like this still exists in Germany. One must lead the people back to the sources of its folkdom. . . . The scenes before Pilate were model lessons about the Jew. He [the Jew] was always like that and continues to do so to this day.1

The preceding lines have been logged in 1930 by the future Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels on the occasion of the Oberammergau Passion play – der Passion, as locals call it. Largely unnoticed, Hitler had visited Oberammergau as well and so did the propagandists of the Thingspiele (Thing plays) – an allegedly genuine form of National-Socialist cultic-theatrical mass staging. The Thingspiele were designed for performative communitization in open-air theaters specially commissioned by the Propaganda Ministry.2 Wilhelm von Schramm had been among the 1930 Oberammergau visitors, too. In 1934, he published his programmatic volume Neubau des deutschen Theaters (On the New Formation of the German Theatre) promoting the envisioned propaganda plays (von Schramm 1934). Whereas von Schramm had interpreted the Oberammergau Passion play similar to Bavarian tribal art in 1930, four years later, the village at play community became the model for his notion of the Thingspiel. According to von Schramm, its aim was to invoke the national community performatively and to return the masses “to the sources” of their supposed folkdom by aligning them as followers. Against this backdrop, I would like to explore the aesthetic correspondences between Passion play and Thingspiel. My starting point is the determining figure of “the Passion”, the good shepherd.3 Transposed by National-Socialist propaganda into a modern communitization play, the good shepherd developed a specific afterlife in the early National-Socialist cultic play, which I will discuss in the second part of this chapter. The third part deals with the precarity of this figure’s governmental utilization as a propaganda tool. As we will see, the quotation of a popular cultic-theatrical form like the Passion play, which had attracted the masses to Oberammergau since the turn of the century, functioned only to a limited extent in the context of National-Socialist propaganda and was consequently set aside as early as in 1936. However, until the DOI: 10.4324/9781003106319-8

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Olympic Games, the Thingspiel was one of the key instruments of propaganda mass stagings.

1. The figure of the shepherd Goebbels’ journal entry quoted earlier suggests that Oberammergau’s relevance for the Nazis should be sought first and foremost in the anti-Judaic narrative of the play. From this viewpoint critical of ideology, the Passion play would be read as a serious misrepresentation of “the Jew”. Indeed, the early history of passion plays is accompanied by anti-Judaic pogroms (Brauneck 1993: 359), making anti-Semitic depictions in the National-Socialist era a racialized actualization of anti-Judaism. Respectively, the story of the Passion was retold in an updated version by Otto Huber in 2000 and 2010. In his new adaptation of the Passion play, Huber – dramaturg and second director in Oberammergau since the 1960s – tried to find a suitable response to criticism by the American Jewish Committee and by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith concerning the prefiguration of the history of salvation in tableaux vivants, as well as the portrayal of Judas and the Pharisees (Ben-Chorin 1990). Indeed, it is thanks to Huber that contention over anti-Judaic implications of the Passion play has largely been settled by now. The village has practically been obligated “to align itself with the ChristianJewish dialogue” (Krochmalnik 1990: 213) – at least according to Daniel Krochmalnik: “the boldest conclusion” for the Passion play, however, would have been, as he suggested in 1990, to dress Jesus and his disciples in kaftans of Polish Jews, glue a square moustache onto the prefect and put his legionaries in SA-uniforms, place papal and bishops’ miters onto the high priests, and the ones who accused Jesus in traditional Bavarian costumes. (ibid.: 211–2) Fortunately, the current version of the Passion play has nothing to do with this vision, at least not at first glance. Still, Huber’s adaptation translating the Passion play into psychological drama essentially aims to reverse Goebbels’ narrative. Today, the character of Jesus appears explicitly as King of the Jews and, concomitantly, the people who want to see him hanging on the cross as Nazilike anti-Semites. Staged this way, Jesus is turned into a dramatis persona of identification – a good, protective shepherd (Figure 6.1). Whereas the Nazis had tied the figure of the victimized shepherd to Hitler, the “nameless soldier” of World War I, the millennial Jesus of Oberammergau became the figuration of self-denazification, since the village resisted in no way its cooptation by propaganda and taken decades to deal with its Nazi past.4 Addressing the desire to align oneself with a leading figure is thus still at play in Oberammergau. This is the reason to shed a new light on Passion’s genre specificity, accentuating its aesthetic form rather than solely dealing with its problematic ideological tradition.

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Figure 6.1 The good shepherd: Jesus entering Jerusalem, Passion play, 2010 Oberammergau (Press Office Oberammergau Passion Play, press kit).

Focusing on the protagonist of the Passion, I  would therefore suggest a renewed examination of its pertinence for early National-Socialist propaganda. Based on an already existing secularized nationalist reception,5 the Passion play was hijacked by the Nazis and staged as a mirror of collective self-victimization in recourse to World War I. Because its pastoral dramaturgy, that is, its aesthetic form, the Passion was compatible with the model of leadership and allegiance.6 Therefore, Oberammergau as a village at play, a concept of political romanticism conjured up by Eduard Devrient (1851), could all too easily be transferred to the phantasma of a perfomatively endowing national community. Since the Passion play was geared towards the passion figure (Passionsfigur), it could be useful to a verticalized propaganda staging leadership and alignment. Consequently, Nazi propaganda was less occupied with the figure of “the Jew”, that is, the figure that was to be ostracized, but rather required the figure of the good shepherd7 in order to update inherited techniques of governing and of leadership in a genuinely modern way. Drawing on Foucault’s lectures on governmentality in reference to the shepherd figure, German sociologist Ulrich Bröckling examines the afterlife of figurations of pastoral power in contemporary social engineering.8 The figure of the shepherd differs, as Bröckling argues, from the figure of the sovereign: the figure who governs as opposed to ruling and does not appear as a mere commander, but is an affect trigger, creating and deepening dependencies. The good shepherd is thus read as a specific figure of subjectivation. In this sense, it was already a key element of Nazi propaganda and its appropriation of the Passion. The subjectivizing quality of the passion figure comes into play beneath the anti-Judaic narrative. It is this affective quality of the shepherd that is actualized to this day in right-wing populist stagings of leader figures responding

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to a desire to be guided and to come to grips with seemingly unmanageable conditions. Thus, it is not a coincidence that despite his obscene “Grab them by the Pussy” comment, Donald Trump has enormous support in the Bible Belt, a region from which a considerable number of predominantly Christian evangelical visitors come to this day to see the Passion play in Oberammergau.9 The shepherd figure serves the purpose of potential identification in matters of governance and was, in this respect, already utilized by the Nazis as an early form of political marketing.10 From a propaganda perspective, politics operates not only through the representation of authority, but through the communal channeling of circulating energies under conditions of mass society. As can be exemplified in the Thingspiel, National-Socialist propaganda quoted the Oberammergau example accordingly transposing the passion figure into a national leader figure (Behrenbeck 2011).

2. Cultic plays In 1933, a year marked by a hazy political situation and uncertainty about whether the newly implemented Nazi state apparatus would manage to consolidate, it was crucial for the regime to not only bring the so-called national comrades into line institutionally, but to involve them emotionally. Hence, ­traditional and widely popular rituals concerning all spheres of life – ­particularly those adopted from Christian liturgy – were drawn upon. However, the chief concern was not to constitute a community of faith, as proponents of Eric Voegelin’s concept of political religion would argue (Voegelin 2007),11 but to advance a performative regime of seemingly participatory integration. For Nazi propaganda, the Passion play was attractive not because of its demonization of Judas, the traitor figure, and the Pharisees, thus mobilizing anti-Semitic ideology, but foremost because of the concept of the village at play paired with the Christian figure of the good shepherd. It was this very figure which served as a tool for community formation and hierarchized allegiance training, that is, as an instrument of National-Socialist subjectivization (Figure 6.2). Conceptions of early Thingspiele are evidently quoting the aesthetic form of Oberammergau’s Passion, which in 1934 celebrated its 300th anniversary and had long before become a major attraction. Certainly, liturgical drama already had a secularized, mass-like theatrical afterlife in the theater – for example in works by Max Reinhardt, who since the 1910s not only devoted himself to contemporizing ancient Greek drama, but also focused on processional and pastoral Catholic dramaturgy. This applies both to his internationally acclaimed Mirakel, a production that prominently toured between 1911 and 1926, as well as to his directing of Jedermann (Everyman), which is still being shown annually at the Salzburg Festival since 1920 – and was replaced by the Nazis between 1938 and 1945.12 However, unlike Reinhardt, Nazi propaganda was strongly concerned with the cultic plays’ promise of sustainable communitization by means of a specific form of victim substitution. Quoting the passion became a performative leadership technique that could be conferred upon the phantasm of national community. In the fall of 1933, Hanns Niedecken-Gebhard, renowned for

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Figure 6.2  Official advertisement of the Passion play in Oberammergau in 1934.

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including movement choirs in his performances of Friedrich Händel’s oratorios during the Weimar era, staged a production of Kurt Eggers’ Das Spiel von Job dem Deutschen (The Play of Job the German), based on Werner Egk’s score. Niedecken-Gebhard heavily relied on movement choirs while still including expressionist elements.13 Fifty thousand viewers supposedly attended this pilot production to which 500 people contributed. In the presence of all regional heads of the Ministry of Propaganda Das Spiel von Job dem Deutschen premiered in front of 4,000 spectators at the Cologne exhibition hall, designed by Theodor Caspar Pilartz. This production marked a first attempt to lastingly suggest that the separation of stage performance and spectatorship had been abolished. In the Illustrated Journal of Youth and Laymen Play Spielgemeinde (“community at play”) published by the NSDAP-Reichsjugendführung Heinz Hänschen wrote: All of you, who come in from the isolated sphere of the stage box . . ., are driven by a longing to find a new form and hence to eagerly contribute to the success of this new endeavor. . . . An ample propaganda has set out to target everyone down to the last person with the willingness to embark on this mission. . . . German faith prevails in all perils. – ‘Germany, Germany above all . . .’ The masses sang enthusiastically together. Flags are being hoisted. Stage and house were in compositional unity. (Hänschen 1933: 308).14 The following year, Niedecken-Gebhard was commissioned with the first prestigious open-air staging of a Thingspiel on the people’s resurrection after the defeat in World War I – Richard Euringer’s Deutsche Passion 1933 (German Passion 1933), clearly drawing on the Oberammergau tradition. Initially, it had been written for the leading contemporary medium in National-Socialist propaganda, the radio. The development of the Thingspiel was thus linked from its onset to modern governmental techniques using mass media and primarily determined acoustically. Accordingly, Euringer’s Passion play works as a Nazi turned Easter liturgy. The passion play had grown out of Easter liturgy,15 catechizing the absent body of Christ16 in liturgical call and response by the priest and the deacons.17 Euringer’s play was therefore initially broadcasted on Holy Thursday linking it to the end of Passiontide and referring to the notion of resurrection (Euringer 1934: 4). Thus, what Deutsche Passion 1933 reflected on from the very beginning was the question of mediality.18 It can be easily understood how Euringer’s work had been shaped by the radio through the following dramaturgical instruction, apparently added to the script after its broadcasting: Nowhere is anything like a melodrama allowed to inhibit the punch-­ character of the cue of the voices. But pay heed for what is said! . . . Let the few images take effect! (Crowns of thorns. Scarlett. Whew.) The hearkening people must be enabled to sing along. (Euringer 1934: 7–8)19

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This speculation on collective acoustic affection is then linked to the transposition of the passion narrative into the staging of the Great War’s aftermath: Adorned with a crown of thorns, adorned with barbed wire, I shall suffer it, the passion (ibid.: 16),20 says the Nameless Soldier, the protagonist of the play, before uniting the people through his self-sacrifice. The play propagates allegiance and followership by transfiguring the good shepherd into an undead soldier (ibid.: 5, 11). He is first introduced as a voice from below, followed by his second coming as a part of the National-Socialist movement during the Weimar Republic. Linked to the resurrected figure of passion the Nameless Soldier is ultimately presented as the voice “from above” implying the Führer’s invisibility in radio appearances (ibid.: 46). Interpersonal dialogue within the stage box, the defining form of drama since the early modern era, is replaced by the leading figure of the shepherd as formed by the “steely romanticism” of Nazi propaganda. It is done so in order to evoke the phantasma of an aligned national community by means of a cultic performance at the height of contemporary media development.21 Subsequently, Euringer demanded that the Nazi Passion be played namelessly. No applause, no curtain call, no calling for the author, – we have none of this because these are conventional practices that we know from the theatre, which can no longer exist here, as we do not do “theatre”, but the Passion.22 Thus, in the jubilee year of the Oberammergau Passion play, Euringer himself explicitly established a link to the cultic staging of the village community in order to assert the real presence of what had to be performed (Figure 6.3). According to Niklas Luhmann, “passion” initially indicated a state of mind, in which one finds oneself passively suffering, not acting (Luhmann 1983: 73). Since the second half of the 17th century, however, as Luhmann elaborates, the notion of passion was re-signified as empowering individual agency. When viewed through the lens of Euringer’s Thingspiel, passion appears as a form of national activation through a surrogate victim – a good, self-sacrificial shepherd. Foucault describes this figure as associated with governmental techniques.23 Within the National-Socialist Thingspiele quoting the Oberammergau Passion play, this figure was transformed into a modern tool of performative martialized governance.

3. The art of disciplinary governing The soul-killing Enlightenment, sending an evil wind from England and France to blow over German souls, had obliterated not only tales and myths, but in its name all sorts of religious folk games were also banned. We can only shudder today at the thought of how much damage this has done to the community-building quality of such plays – unity of the people is most strongly felt in light of a religious and patriotic cult. (Wehner 1934: 348)24

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Figure 6.3 Deutsche Passion 1933, Reichsfestspiele Heidelberg 1934, Schlosshof, Director: Hanns Niedecken-Gebhardt (courtesy of Stadtarchiv Heidelberg: BILDA 22).

Magnus Wehner’s quote was published in the same year that bore witness to a particular sort of media partnership: Hitler’s official attendance in Oberammergau for the 300th anniversary of the Passion play directed by Georg Johann Lang had given it additional importance and was later officially declared by the Propaganda Ministry as essential for the Reich. Shortly after, the first Thingspiel season took place and was, in return, determined by quoting the aesthetic form of the passion. In the special jubilee season of 1934, Thingspiel and Passion play not only promoted but also influenced each other. According to the program issued by the community of Oberammergau in 1934, “after terrible hardship, the German people and their tribes had been saved from Bolshevism, the non-visible plague of surrendering divinely ordained nationhood” (Daisenberger 1934: 9),25 averted “downfall” and was brought “new bliss of incipient life” (das Glück eines neu anhebenden Lebens), “in which we are united by nationhood” (ibid.; das uns in unserem Volkstum alle eint). In the early 1930s, the Oberammergau Passion play had ranked among the leading festivals in Germany and gained strong international acknowledgment, therefore serving as a Thingspiel model. But it was the quotation of the protagonist that was specifically affiliated to the art of governing. Affective allegiance was interwoven with techniques disciplining people to become a national community of followers by performing. In the Thingspiel, the implementation of

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forms of behavioral self-regulation borrowed from the Passion play had been tried out, appropriating Oberammergau’s ban on clapping and opera glasses. As stated in the journal Germania, “all cheer and applause were forgotten in awe of the work” (H. K. 1934). In both cases – Passion play and Thingspiel – the audience was called upon as a devoted congregation. Correspondingly, the Stuttgarter Tageblatt, a daily newspaper, reported how “some 2,000 spectators, deeply moved, had left the venue in utter silence” (Schmidt 1934). The following year, visitors were asked to keep off the stage when leaving the Thingstätte (Thing-site). A  corresponding letter of invitation by the Reich Governor Robert Wagner stated: The Thingstätte is the sacred space of the Movement! The experience of attendance shall not be disturbed by the clapping of hands and similar expressions of approbation. The dignity of the site is not reconcilable with loud talking or smoking.26 On July  24, 1935, the NSDAP district committee issued a statement in the daily newspaper Heidelberger Tageblatt that clearly demonstrates how reverence does not emerge organically from the Passion quote, but how propaganda’s disciplinary regime thwarts the attempt to affect: There is no room for egoists and cowards at the Thingstätte! . . . It was highly instructive to see that, despite the precursory directives in the newspaper and the profound words of the plot, many national comrades put their little “I” at the heart of their existence when the first raindrops began to fall and clouds darkened the sky. It was an incredibly difficult task for the political organization to keep order and to get it through the individual’s head that a new dress or a pretty hat, even the risk of a possible cold is not as important as the undisturbed course of the performance. The committee fully understands that allowing one single person to leave will render it impossible to keep anyone else from leaving.27 As early as a year before it had become apparent that such disciplinary techniques would only work to a limited extent and that things – even under National-Socialist dictatorship – could take a life of their own: Construction of the Thingstätte in Heidelberg had not been completed in time forcing Niedecken-Gebhard’s production to be shown at the palace courtyard and not at a huge spectacular open-air theatre. This is how the provincial Thingstätte of Halle-Brandberge rose to the position of the venue of the Nazi Passion (Figure 6.4). If one is to believe Joachim Eisenschmidt, assistant to Heidelberg’s Thing director Niedecken-Gebhard, the Halle production failed utterly. Sent to the city of Halle to assess the competition, his protocol indicates that Günter L. Barthel’s

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Figure 6.4  Advertising the first Thing-Season in 1934: cover of the journal Die Spielgemeinde.

production did not cope with the spatial, technical conditions, hence undermining the allegiance of the followers to their leader. Besides, there was nothing for the Dead to call upon and protrude into, because reality, namely the German people, had not been given an artistic

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form. . . . The masses coming onto the stage were a dull herd, moved to and fro, and in their dark urge were already aware of the existence of the right Führer from the very start. . . . The utter impotence of this People, and therefore of the entire play, is caused by the following: 1. Everything is without passion, it lacks present and strong colors as well as any contrast between a people that is partially desperate, partially radically left-wing on the one hand, and the People liberated and thus happily working at the end of the play on the other. . . . 2. The directing of the masses was simply poor and superficial. 3. The soloists had no relationship whatsoever to masses they supposedly spoke for. . . . It was a herd of millions and one proletarian, one cripple, one entrepreneur and one mother.28 Furthermore, Eisenschmidt described the unmotivated “and boring faces of the choir (Gesangvereinsgesichter) that cruise through the performance while being obviously embarrassed by the entire endeavor”.29 Accordingly, he fundamentally questioned the effect of the Nazi Passion play: As the People recite (moving towards the center [of the stage] while the figure of the mother is speaking) the hymn, ceremonial fire bowls are lit. – Organ – Everyone on stage, except for the Dead and the Regiments of Young Germany, moves to the back and the front. Eventually, someone behind the audience speaks into a microphone: The hour of consecration has ended, we now raise our hands to silently salute to the fallen of the Great War and we salute to the Führer with a triple Sieg Heil. The audience take the cigarettes out of their mouths and act as instructed. The Dead disperse amid the exiting audience.30 Eisenschmidt’s report alludes to a fundamental danger in propaganda mass theatre, namely the indifferent participation in an already well-established ritual (Figure 6.5). Propaganda, however, requires compliant on-site response. Eisenschmidt’s description makes clear that for the use of National-Socialist mass theatre as sustainable propaganda and efficient affect management elaborate spectacles and theatrical tools addressing the spatial dimension of aligned mass performances is preferable over rituals of faith and disciplining attendees. Goebbels’ famous formula for propaganda states: “Simply avoid being dull”.31 Accordingly, the era of Thingspiel ended after 1935. It was later overtaken by propaganda film which brought the figure of the Führer more closely to the audience through affection-images. In the early phase of consolidating the Nazi regime, however, the Oberammergau Passion had provided a key format that the Nazis tried to utilize as a propaganda tool. And this very tool was based on a still-relevant concept of the village at play in conjunction with the protagonist figure of the good shepherd.

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Figure 6.5 Deutsche Passion 1933, Thingstätte Halle-Brandberge 1934, Director: Günther L. Barthel (courtesy of Theatre Collection of the University of Cologne).

(translated by Markus Kubesch and Timur Sijaric)

Notes 1 Joseph Goebbels, diary note from 21 July 1930: Ich bin noch ganz voll von Passionseindrücken. Und froh darüber, daß es so etwas noch gibt in Deutschland. / Man muß das Volk wieder zu den Quellen seines Volkstums zurückführen. . . . Die Szenen vor Pilatus waren geradezu Musterlektionen über den Juden. So hat er’s immer gemacht, und so macht er’s auch noch heute. (Online-Source: Database Nationalsozialismus, Holocaust, Widerstand und Exil 1933–1945 und Tagesrapporte der Gestapoleitung Wien 1938– 1945. Munich: K. G. Sauer) 2 See Annuß 2019; for Thingspiel see also: Stommer 1985. 3 Many thanks to Martin Leutzsch for his expert theological commentaries particularly on the conceptualization of the shepherd and the flock in the New Testament. 4 On the National-Socialist history of Oberammergau, see Shapiro 2000. On identifying the figure of the Führer with the passion figure, see Gamm 1962. 5 On the nationalization of the Passion, see Davies 2008. On the specific aspects of gendering, see Leutzsch 2014. 6 On transforming the chorus and its direction towards a protagonist figure, see Kirsch 2020. 7 On the history of motif and iconography of the good shepherd in ancient times and Christianity, see Engemann 1991; Fischer and Rothaug 2002; Legner 1970.

104  Evelyn Annuß 8 See Bröckling 2017: 15–26, in reference to Foucault’s 11th lecture On the Government of the Living (19 March 1980) (Foucault 2016: 252–87); on pastoral power, see also Foucault 1996. 9 On affective dispositions of parts of the white rural US-population, see, amongst others, Hochschildt 2016. 10 Mobilizing the form of the passion play in propaganda may be linked to early reflections on marketing in the wake of unleashing consumer capitalism (see Bernays 2005, 2011). Against the backdrop of current examinations of right-wing populist strategies, Bernays and the political afterlife of propaganda could be reread in the context of current Affect Studies (see Massumi 2015). 11 The assumption later revised by Voegelin himself is taken up and updated by (amongst others) Behrenbeck 2011. 12 On Reinhardt, see Marx 2006; on Jedermann in particular, see Annuß et al. 2020. In addition to Reinhardt’s productions, however, there are a number of nationalist adaptations of the Passion that prefigure the Thingspiel, for example Paul Beyer’s Düsseldorfer Passion. Ein Deutsches National-Festspiel in zehn Bildern, released by the National-Socialist publishing house Eher in 1933. 13 See the stage directions accessible in the Kölner Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung (Theatre Collection of the University of Cologne), dated 15 October  1933. On the performance, see Stommer 1985: 40–2; Rischbieter 2000: 36; on contemporary reception of Eggers, see Payr 1933. 14 “Sie alle, die herkommen aus der privaten Sphäre der Guckkastenbühne .  .  . spüren selbst diesen neuen suchenden Formwillen und tragen froh mit dazu bei, der neuen Idee zum Gelingen zu verhelfen. . . . Eine großzügige Propaganda hat eingesetzt, um wirklich auch den letzten, der die Bereitschaft in sich trägt, zu erfassen. [. . .] Deutscher Glaube obsiegt in allen Fährnissen. – ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über alles . . .’ Begeistert sangen die Massen mit. Fahnen ziehen auf. Spiel- und Schauraum waren bildhafte Einheit.” 15 See Schulze 2012: 45 and Moser 1990, on the development from the Easter feast to Easter passion plays; on the staging of the sacred from the early modern period to the late 18th century, see Brossette 2002. 16 On questioning the empty tomb, see de Certeau 2010: 124–48, here 127–8. 17 On the resurrection narrative and the history of the Easter passion play, see Weidner 2012: 29. 18 Regarding the relation between resurrection and media migration – the substitution of the dead body by the spoken, that is, the “living” word – see Weidner 2012: 37 and 41. 19 “Nirgendwo darf etwas wie ein Melodram den Stichwortschlag der Stimmen hemmen. Dem Lauschen aber werde Raum! . . . Man lasse die paar Bilder wirken! (Dornenkrone. Scharlach. Uff.) . . . Das hörende Volk muß mitsingen können.” 20 “Ob Stacheldraht, ob Dornenkron: / ich will sie leiden, die Passion.” 21 On the critique of the stage box, see Euringer 1934: 27. On the relationship between interpersonal representation and the box set in the theatre of drama, of interpersonal dialogue, see Szondi 1978: 11–20. 22 Euringer as cited in Lauer 1934: 2 (die Passion soll “namenlos gespielt werden. Kein Beifall, kein Verbeugen von Prominenzen am Schluß, kein Hervorrufen des Dichters, – nichts von dem haben wir, weil das Formen sind, die wir vom Theater kennen, die es aber hier nicht mehr geben kann, weil wir hier kein‚ Theater ‘spielen, sondern die Passion!”). 23 See Foucault 2016: 252–87. On the critique of the Thingspiel’s recourse to the Passion play, later taken up in Eberhard Wolfgang Möllers Das Frankenburger Würfelspiel (1936. Berlin: Theaterverlag Langen und Müller), see however, Braumüller 1935: 27. 24 “Die seelenmörderische Aufklärung, von England und Frankreich wie ein böser Wind über deutsches Seelentum hinwehend, vernichtete nicht nur Märchen und Sagen, in ihrem Namen wurden auch alle religiösen Volksspiele verboten. Welcher Schaden

Quoting the Passion  105 damit am gemeinschaftbildenden Festspiel angerichtet wurde – das Volk erlebt seine Einheit am stärksten im Bilde des religiösen oder vaterländischen Kultus – das können wir erst heute schaudernd ermessen.” – See also Jaron and Rudin 1984: 138. 25 Time has brought “nach furchtbarer Not dem deutschen Volk und seinen Stämmen die Rettung aus dem Bolschewismus, aus jener geistigen Pest der Preisgabe des gottgewollten Volkstums”. 26 As cited in Lurz 1975: 112 (“Die Thingstätte ist der Weiheraum der Bewegung! Seine Erlebniswirkung soll nicht durch laute Beifallsäußerungen wie Klatschen und andere gestört werden. Mit der Würde der Stätte ist auch lautes Sprechen und Rauchen nicht vereinbar”). 27 As cited in Lurz 1975: 173–4 (“Für Egoisten und Feiglinge ist auf der Thingstätte kein Platz! . . . Es war sehr lehrreich festzustellen, wie trotz der vorausgehenden Anweisungen in der Zeitung und der ins tiefste Innere eines jeden Menschen greifenden Worte der Handlung viele Volksgenossen ihr kleines ‘Ich’ wieder in den Mittelpunkt ihres Daseins stellten, als die ersten Regentropfen fielen und dunkle Wolken den Himmel verfinsterten. Es war eine ungeheuer schwere Aufgabe für die Politische Organisation, hier Ordnung zu halten und dem einzelnen klar zu machen, daß ein neues Kleid und der schöne Hut, ja sogar die Gefahr eines evtl. ankommenden Schnupfens nicht so wichtig sind, als der störungslose Ablauf des Spiels. . . . Die Organisations-Leitung ist sich darüber klar, daß, wenn sie dem ersten gestattet, davonzulaufen, die anderen nicht mehr zu halten sein werden.”). 28 Joachim Eisenschmidt 1934: Dossier on the staging of Euringer’s Deutsche Passion 1933 at the Thingstätte in Halle, no title, Theatre Collection of the University of Cologne, estate of Hanns Niedecken-Gebhard, Box 2, pp. 8–9 of 11 (“Ausserdem war garnichts da, wohinein die Toten rufen und ragen können, denn die Wirklichkeit, das deutsche Volk, war gar nicht gestaltet. . . . Die Masse die dort erschien war eine stumpfe Herde, die bald hierhin bald dorthin geschoben wird und die . . . in ihrem dunklen Drange sich des rechten Führers auch noch von vornherein eigentlich bewusst ist .  .  . Die vollkommene Wirkungslosigkeit dieses Volkes, und damit des ganzen Stückes, kommt also daher: 1. Es ist alles lau, es fehlen die grossen krassen Farben, der Kontrast zwischen dem teils verzweifelten teils linksradikalen Volke und dem befreiten glücklich arbeitenden zum Schluss. . . . 2. War es einfach eine schlechte und oberflächliche Massenregie. 3. Standen die Solisten . . . in gar keiner Beziehung zu der Masse Menschen für die sie angeblich sprachen. . . . Es war eine Millionenherde und ein Prolet, ein Krüppel, ein Unternehmer und eine Mutter.”). 29 Ibid.: 9. 30 Ibid.: 6 (“Wenn das Volk (es ist während der Worte der Mutter weiter zur Mitte gekommen) die Hymne spricht (!) gehen die Flammenbecken an. – Orgel – Alles was auf der Bühne ist, ausser den Toten und den Jungdeutschlandregimentern, zieht ab nach hinten und vorn. Schliesslich sagt jemand, im Rücken der Zuschauer durchs Mikrophon: Die Weihestunde ist beendet, wir erheben unsere Hände zum stummen Grusse für die Gefallenen des Weltkrieges und grüssen den Führer mit einem dreimaligen Siegheil. Das Publikum nimmt die Zigaretten aus dem Mund und tut das. Die Toten verlieren sich dann in die hinausgehenden Zuschauer.”). 31 “Nur nicht langweilig werden”; Joseph Goebbels as cited in Heiber 1991: 94; see also Sarkowicz 2010.

Works cited Annuß, E. 2019. Volksschule des Theaters. Nationalsozialistische Massenspiele. Munich: Fink. Annuß, E. et al. (eds.). 2020. Max Reinhardt. Regiebuch zu Hugo von Hofmannsthals “Jedermann”. Edition & Kommentare. Centenary ed. Salzburger Festspiele, Vienna: Hollitzer. Behrenbeck, S. 2011. Der Kult der toten Helden. Nationalsozialistische Mythen, Riten und Symbole 1923–1945. 2nd revised ed. Cologne: SH-Verlag.

106  Evelyn Annuß Ben-Chorin, Sch. 1990. Die Polster, das Schwarzbrot und der Antisemitismus. Randbemerkungen zum Oberammergauer Passionsfestspiel. In: Hört, sehet, weint und liebt. Passionsspiele im alpenländischen Raum. Exhibition catalog in Ammergauer Haus, Oberammergau from May 28th – September 30th 1990, eds. M. Henker, E. Dünninger, and E. Brockhoff. Munich: Süddeutscher Verlag, 215–8. Bernays, E. 2005. Propaganda. With an Introduction by Mark Crispin Miller. New York: IG. Bernays, E. 2011. Crystallizing Public Opinion. New York: IG. Braumüller, W. 1935. Freilicht- und Thingspiel. Rückschau und Forderungen. Berlin: Volkschaft. Brauneck, M. 1993. Die Welt als Bühne. Geschichte des europäischen Theaters, vol. 1. Stuttgart: Metzler. Bröckling, U. 2017. Gute Hirten führen sanft. Über Menschenregierungskünste. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Brossette, U. 2002. Die Inszenierung des Sakralen: Das theatralische Raum- und Ausstattungsprogramm süddeutscher Barockkirchen in seinem liturgischen und zeremoniellen Kontext. Weimar: Verlag für Geisteswissenschaften. Daisenberger, J. A. 1934. Das Passions-Spiel in Oberammergau: Ein geistliches Festspiel in drei Abteilungen. Mit 20 lebenden Bildern. Mit Benützung der alten Texte. Offizieller Gesamttext für das Jahr 1934 überarbeitet und neu herausgegeben von der Gemeinde Oberammergau. Diessen vor München: Huber. Davies, A. T. 2008. The Crucified Nation. A Motif in Modern Nationalism. Portland: Sussex Academic Press. Devrient, E. 1851. Das Passionsspiel in Oberammergau und seine Bedeutung für die neue Zeit. Leipzig: Weber. Engemann, J. 1991. Hirt. In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, vol. 15. Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 577–607. Euringer, R. 1934. Deutsche Passion 1933. Berlin: Volkschaft. Fischer, M. and D. Rothaug (eds.). 2002. Das Motiv des Guten Hirten in Theologie, Literatur und Musik. Tübingen, Basel: Francke. Foucault, M. 1996. What Is Critique? In: What is Enlightenment?: Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions, ed. J. Schmidt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 382–98. Foucault, M. 2016. On the Government of the Living. Lectures at the Collège de France 1979–1980, ed. M. Senelart. New York: Picador. Gamm, H.-J. 1962. Der braune Kult: Das 3. Reich und seine Ersatzreligion. Ein Beitrag zur politischen Bildung. Hamburg: Rütten & Loening. Hänschen, H. 1933. Das erste nationale Festspiel in Köln. Spielgemeinde 6: 305–8. Heiber, H. (ed.). 1991. Goebbels Reden 1932–1945. Bindlach: Gondrom. [H. K.] 1934. Euringers Deutsche Passion. Die Reichsfestspiele in Heidelberg. Germania, August 1. Hochschildt, A. 2016. Strangers in Their Own Land. Anger and Mourning on the American Right. New York, London: New Press. Jaron, N. and B. Rudin. 1984. Das Oberammergauer Passionsspiel. Eine Chronik in Bildern. Dortmund: Harenberg. Kirsch, S. 2020. Chor-Denken. Munich: Fink. Krochmalnik, D. 1990. Oberammergau – ‘eine deutsche Passion’. In: Hört, sehet, weint und liebt. Passionsspiele im alpenländischen Raum. Exhibition catalog in Ammergauer Haus, Oberammergau from May 28th – September 30th, 1990, eds. M. Henker, E. Dünninger, and E. Brockhoff. Munich: Süddeutscher Verlag, 211–4. Lauer, E. 1934. Ein Volk spielt sich selbst! Gedanken zur Aufführung der Deutschen Passion 1933 von Richard Euringer bei den Heidelberger Reichsfestspielen. Heidelberger Fremdenblatt 10: 1–4.

Quoting the Passion  107 Legner, A. 1970. Hirt, Guter Hirt. In: Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, vol. 2. Freiburg/ Br.: Herder, 289–99. Leutzsch, M. 2014. “Jesus der Mann” im Prozess der Differenzierung und Transformation der Männlichkeitsideale 1863–1945. In: Genderaspekte in der Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit, eds. A. H. Leugers-Scherzberg and L. Scherzberg. Saarbrücken: universaar – Saarland University Press, 33–54. Luhmann, N. 1983. Liebe als Passion. Zur Codierung von Intimität in den Massenmedien. 2nd ed. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Lurz, M. 1975. Die Heidelberger Thingstätte. Die Thingbewegung im Dritten Reich: Kunst als Mittel politischer Propaganda. Heidelberg: Schutzgemeinschaft Heidelberg e.V. Marx, P. 2006. Max Reinhardt. Vom bürgerlichen Theater zur metropolitanen Kultur. Tübingen, Basel: Francke. Massumi, B. 2015. Politics and Affect. Cambridge, Malden, MA: Polity. Moser, D.-R. 1990. Die Bühnenformen der Passionsspiele. Eine Skizze. In: Hört, sehet, weint und liebt. Passionsspiele im alpenländischen Raum. Exhibition catalog in Ammergauer Haus, Oberammergau from May 28th – September 30th, 1990, eds. M. Henker, E. Dünninger, and E. Brockhoff. Munich: Süddeutscher Verlag, 95–111. Payr, B. 1933. Kurt Eggers. Leben und Werk eines deutschen Hörspieldichters. Rufer und Hörer 8: 371–7. Rischbieter, H. 2000. NS-Theaterpolitik: NS-Theaterpolitik als Prozeß. Theatermetropole Berlin. Die deutsche Theaterlandschaft 1933–44. In: Theater im “Dritten Reich”. Theaterpolitik, Spielplanstruktur, NS-Dramatik, eds. H. Rischbieter, H. Eicher, and B. Panse. Seelze: Kallmeyer, 9–277. Sarkowicz, H. 2010. ‘Nur nicht langweilig werden . . .’ Das Radio im Dienst der nationalsozialistischen Propaganda. In: Medien im Nationalsozialismus, eds. B. Heidenreich and S. Neitzel. Paderborn: Fink, 205–34. Schmidt, W. 1934. Heidelberger Reichsfestspiele III. Rich. Euringer: Deutsche Passion 1934. Stuttgarter Neues Tageblatt, 31 July 1934. Schramm, W. v. 1934. Neubau des deutschen Theaters. Ergebnisse und Forderungen. Berlin: Schlieffen. Schulze, U. 2012. Geistliche Spiele im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit. Von der liturgischen Feier zum Schauspiel. Eine Einführung. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. Shapiro, J. 2000. Oberammergau. The Troubling Story of the World’s Most Famous Passion Play. New York: Pantheon. Stommer, R. 1985. Die inszenierte Volksgemeinschaft. Die “Thing-Bewegung” im Dritten Reich. Marburg: Jonas. Szondi, P. 1978. Theorie des modernen Dramas. In: id.: Schriften I. Theorie des modernen Dramas (1880–1950). Versuch über das Tragische. Hölderlin-Studien. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 9–148. Voegelin, E. 2007. Die politischen Religionen. 3rd ed. with a new foreword. Munich: Fink. Wehner, J. M. 1934. Oberammergau rüstet zur Passion. Westermanns Monatshefte. Illustrierte deutsche Zeitschrift 6: 347–50. Weidner, D. 2012. ‘ER ist nicht hier, denn er ist auferstanden’. Die Auferstehung erzählt. In: Medien der Auferstehung, ed. H. Finter. Frankfurt/M.: Lang, 29–45.

7  Volksschauspiel as Trade Mark The Oberammergau Passion Play as a Paradigm of Imagined Folk Play Toni Bernhart

1. What does Volksschauspiel mean? Oberammergau, in the nineteenth century and still at the present time, serves as the paradigm and main model to explain what “Volksschauspiel” means.1 It is like referring to a tomato to explain someone what the colour red looks like. So, if someone asks: what is “red”? It is quite likely that any responder will point to a red object, a tomato, for example, to explain: red looks like this. So, by analogy, if someone asks: what is Volksschauspiel?, it is quite likely that Oberammergau will serve as a point of reference to explain the phenomenon of Volksschauspiel. “Volksschauspiel” is a German term and an over-coded concept in German cultures. It is rooted in the idea of the “Volkslied” [folk song] by Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) and eventually found its way to the realm of theatre.2 It has been used and reused for about two and a half centuries for a lot of different theatre genres like the peasant play, the passion play, the national theatre, the agitprop and workers’ theatre, the mass theatre, the anti-folk play, the social drama, as well as in avant-garde, crossover, and pop art theatre.3 In contrast, it is much more difficult to answer the question of what Volksschauspiel does actually mean. Christopher Balme and Klaus Lazarowicz have noted that it seems hopeless to define the concept, since it has different meanings in different linguistic and cultural contexts (“Volksschauspiel”, “théâtre populaire”, and “folk theatre”, for instance, do not mean exactly the same thing), it also tends to address different societal classes in different periods (the peasant class in the countryside and the bourgeois in towns during the early modern period, the working classes during the twentieth century).4 On the one hand, a huge number of works on Volksschauspiel have been published during the last two and a half centuries, most of them in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.5 On the other hand, the anthropologist Hermann Bausinger, in his early and highly relevant book Formen der “Volkspoesie” [Configuration of “Folk Poetry”] (1968, 2nd ed. 1980), decidedly criticized the idea of folk poetry for being a chimaera or mirage (Bausinger 1980: 11–9). For this reason, Volksschauspiel cannot be defined convincingly and in an empirically verifiable way. Tout le monde, however, keeps on talking about it. This paradox DOI: 10.4324/9781003106319-9

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can be solved by considering Volksschauspiel a successful invention, imagination, or statement. Volksschauspiel claims its existence from being named again and again for a very long time. The term “Volksschauspiel” is a German compound noun. It consists of the simplex “Volk” (people, folk) and the complex “Schauspiel” which is another, somewhat tautological, compound noun and means, literally translated, a play to be watched. According to German word grammar, “Volksschauspiel” is classified as determinative compound noun: The first part, “Volk” (people), determines semantically the second part, “Schauspiel” (play). “Volksschauspiel” is thus a play that is defined by a group of persons related to each other in a certain way. As a result, “Volksschauspiel” often is considered to be a play made by, for, and on a “Volk” (see, for instance, Hein 1997: 71). In that case, “Volk” can function as author (or performer), audience, or subject of a “Volksschauspiel”. When translating the term into English, different solutions are appropriate: folk play, popular play, people’s (or peoples’) theatre, community theatre, or vernacular play. All of them cover important dimensions of the term’s semantic field, but none of them seems to include all of the relevant denotative and connotative aspects. In using the term “vernacular play”, the linguistic aspect is highlighted, a country’s own language or a national language is emphasized, in contrast to the Latin language which was the “koine” in Middle Ages and Early Modern Times. “Popular play” may be an option which underlines its proximity to the popular, even pop culture, and which tends to include the role of theatre and drama as an early phenomenon of mass media.6 Terms like “community theatre” or “peoples’ theatre” have presumably a too limited meaning. For two reasons I consider “folk play” the most appropriate translation of Volksschauspiel: First, it features its rootedness in Herder’s “theology of folk-literature” (term by Clark 1946: 1095), which was essentially inspired by James Macpherson’s Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760), The Works of Ossian (1765), William Shakespeare, and Early Modern English literature. Second, the term “folk play” is strongly related to ethnography and ethnology which have been interested in folklore and non-canonical literatures and cultural practices from the beginning.

2. Four theses on folk play In folk theatre historiography, a number of features have been identified as characteristics of folk plays and several theses have been developed. Some of them have contributed to the folk play myth and still continue to do so. Others have destabilized the perception of folk play since the nineteen-sixties. I would like to point out four of the most persistent theses on folk plays and contextualize the Oberammergau Passion play therein. First, folk plays are to be found mostly in the southern part of the German-speaking area. Second, folk plays are ancient plays. Third, folk plays are performed for tourists and for commercial purposes. Fourth, folk plays are dead plays.

110  Toni Bernhart 2.1. Folk plays are to be found mostly in the southern part of the German-speaking area

Bavaria, Swabia, and Tyrol have been defined as the “core lands” of the folk play tradition. Oberammergau is situated in Bavaria. For this reason, the Oberammergau Passion play must be considered a genuine and authentic folk play. However, the firm belief, that Bavaria, Swabia, and Tyrol constitute the “core lands” of folk plays, was formed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century only. By then, folk plays were identified in various German-speaking regions: for instance, in Dithmarschen and Pomerania, in the Harz as well as in the Moravo-Silesian Region, in Switzerland, and in any county of the Habsburg Empire. The thesis, that folk plays come to the fore predominantly in the south, was broadly laid down, entrenched, and carved in stone by the Austrian literary historiographer and later Nazi ideologist Josef Nadler (1884–1962) in his Literaturgeschichte der deutschen Stämme und Landschaften (“Literary History of German Tribes and Landscapes”; 4 vols., 1912–1928). In the first volume of 1912 entitled Die Altstämme (800–1600) [“The Ancient Tribes (800–1600)”], Nadler wrote the programmatic sentence: “For the Bavarian, all things have become action, the Bavarian is the creator of German folk play” (Nadler 1912: 187).7 For Bavarians Nadler uses the historical names “Bajuwaren” and “Baiern” referring to the autochthonous sixth to eighth century population and expanding the meaning ethno-linguistically to include the population of the Upper German area (excluding the Allemannic region), which is roughly the population of later Austria and Bavaria. These “Bajuwaren” or “Baiern” represent the indigenous inhabitants to whom Nadler attributes great natural talent for theatre. The most important representatives of this Bavarian dramatic genius, after Nadler, were Vigil Raber (1490–1552), Ferdinand Raimund (1790–1836), Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872), Johann Nestroy (1801–1862), and Ludwig Anzengruber (1839–1889). The late Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929), however, was the first who felt prominently addressed and inspired by Nadler’s theory on Bavarian theatre. He was borrowing from and adopting Nadler’s central thoughts for his programmatic writings on the Salzburg Festival which was initiated by himself and Max Reinhardt and established in 1920.8 According to Hofmannsthal, the idea of the Salzburg Festival was to celebrate the Austro-Bavarian dramatic spirit and genius, to function as their centre, and to culturally compensate the Habsburg Empire’s collapse after World War I. Hofmannsthal writes in Deutsche Festspiele zu Salzburg (“German Festival in Salzburg”, 1919): The idea of the festival is actually rooted in the artistic spirit of the Austro-Bavarian tribe. The foundation of a Festival Theatre right at the border between Bavaria and Austria is a symbolic expression of the strongest inclinations, which are as old as half a millennium, while at the same

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demonstrating a vivid and undegenerate cultural union up to Basle, up to Sopron and Eisenstadt, and down to Meran. Southern German life in its entirety will emerge; the massive substructure dates back to the Middle Ages, in Gluck the development found its pre-peak, in Mozart its true peak and centre. . . . Herein, Weimar approaches Salzburg; Goethe’s brilliant theatrical genius . . . is comparable to a sublime tectonic activity of all dramatic genres which have sprouted from southern German soil: from mystery play and morality play to puppet play and Jesuit school theatre through to courtly opera with choirs, stage machinery, and acts. (Hofmannsthal 2011a: 229)9 Hofmannsthal aimed to concretize Nadler’s ideas in a festival and to situate it in Salzburg. In his manifesto Die Salzburger Festspiele (“The Salzburg Festival”) from 1919, he contrasted Salzburg with other festivals and cultural centres: Bayreuth, Vienna – and Oberammergau. Salzburg, according to Hofmannsthal, should be in the service of the entire classical heritage of the German nation and evoke contemplation in those who perform and in those who attend, while Bayreuth, famous for its Wagner Festival since 1876, is dedicated solely to Wagner’s stage works and the capital of Vienna is for entertainment and distraction only.10 Oberammergau was praised as a role model for the Salzburg Festival: “Oberammergau remains one of a kind, a venerable remnant of ancient art practice; the same spirit shall guide the building process in Salzburg, only on different grounds” (Hofmannsthal 2011b: 233).11 A lot of aspects emerge which are considered to be characteristic for Oberammergau and which, in Hofmannsthal’s view, should become relevant for Salzburg, too: geographical and physical isolation from metropolitan distraction in a rural ambience, contemplation both in performers and spectators, and the revival of an imagined ancient art practice which breathes a distinctive spirit. Old age also is considered to be highly significant for southern German dramatic genius, for folk plays in general, as well as for the Oberammergau Passion play in particular. 2.2.  Folk plays are ancient plays

A number of scholars share the firm belief that folk plays are ancient.12 However, their old age is often not specified by a date. By the end of the nineteenth century, according to some historians, folk plays were said to originate from times immemorial, comparable to the poems of Ossian which Macpherson thought to be ancient (until they were exposed as forgery). They are meant to be “quite old”, “mostly old”, or “very old”. Such a vague determination started with Herder who stated that folk songs are “eldest” poems.13 Ilse Wolfram has perpetuated this cliché even in her dissertation thesis from 2010 in which she reports: “In Tyrol, the joy of performing folk plays is age-old. Passion plays from the fifteenth century were their pinnacle moments” (Wolfram 2010: 158).14

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Some folk plays became older and older throughout their careers. The trend to resort to antique texts can be documented by numerous examples. Sebastian Sailer’s (1714–1777) musical comedy entitled Die Schwäbische Schöpfung (“Swabian Genesis”), which was written in 1743, was republished in 1784 under the title Melodrama Adam und Eva im Paradeiß. Ein musikalisches Bauernspiel vom Jahre 1250 in vier Aufzügen (Sailer 1784: “Musical drama Adam and Eve in Paradise. A musical peasants’ play from the year 1250 in four acts”). The play, factually written in 1743, now was dated back to the Middle Ages. The Christmas plays entitled Deutsche Weihnachtspiele aus Ungern (“German Christmas Plays from Hungary”), generally known as Oberuferer Weihnachtsspiele (“Oberufer Christmas Plays”), are further examples of plays that undergo an antique finish. The collection includes the three plays Das Oberuferer Christi geburt spil, Das Oberuferer Paradeisspiel, and Das Salzburger Paradeisspiel (“The Oberufer Nativity Play”, “The Oberufer Paradise Play”, “The Salzburg Paradise Play”) and was first edited by the Austro-Hungarian literary historian Karl Julius Schröer (1825–1900) in 1858.15 The plays became prominent later when Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), philosopher, writer, and founder of anthroposophy, adopted Schröer’s plays for performance in Waldorf Schools and anthroposophical institutions during the Advent season. Up to the present time, the Steinerian Oberufer Christmas plays are constantly performed in anthroposophical institutions all over the world. In his foreword, Schröer reported that his edition was based on written role texts and own transcripts of performances he attended. He explicitly noted that the dramatic texts stemmed from rather recent times even though their language reminded him of fifteenth and sixteenth century poetry and of comedies by Hans Sachs (Schröer 1858: 1–2). From about 1910 onwards, Steiner adopted and directed Schröer’s plays in Berlin, Munich, and Dornach near Basle, the later headquarter of the anthroposophical movement. In 1922, Steiner wrote in an essay that the plays dated back to the sixteenth century and had since been passed down from one generation to the next (Steiner 1922). In contrast, Schröer wrote that a peasant was the owner of the plays’ manuscripts since 1827 precisely and that the plays’ language just remembered him of sixteenth-century poetry (Schröer 1858: 1–2). Steiner made the Christmas plays older than they truly were. This hyperbolic making older was exceeded once again a few years later when Leipzig-based publisher Breitkopf und Härtel reedited Spiel vom Sündenfall. Paradeisspiel aus Oberufer bei Preßburg (Schröer 1917: “Fall of Man. Paradise Play from Oberufer near Bratislava”). The monograph, based on Schröer’s 1858 edition, was the first volume of the Deutsche Volksspiele des Mittelalters (“German Folk Plays of the Middle Ages”) series. On the title page, the play was dated back to the fourteenth century (ibid.: see title page). Steiner’s Oberufer Christmas plays collection was published posthumously by his wife, the actor Marie Steiner, née von Sivers (1867–1948). The book was entitled Weihnachtspiele aus altem Volkstum (Steiner 1938: “Christmas Plays from Ancient Folklore”). This title, especially by the German word “Volkstum”, matches Nazi

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ideology which Marie Steiner has been highly affected with (Staudenmaier 2014: 19, 108, and pass.). The long-lasting strategy to make a play older than it actually is serves as a stylization. This aims at highlighting the plays’ importance, giving them supposedly greater cultural value and elevating their alleged greatness. This strategy works independently from ideological background and political intention. The enumeration of examples detailing strategies to give plays an antique finish could be continued ad infinitum. Last, an extreme example and a recent one will close this account. The most exaggerated attempt to make believe that folk plays are extremely antique can be found in research work by Nazi scholars Hans Moser and Robert Stumpfl who dated folk theatre’s origins back to prehistoric times: to Ice Age and to Bronze Age (Moser 1935: 356–57; Stumpfl 1936: 427). Seemingly, the eldest German folk play can be found in the Bavarian Furth im Wald, near the Czech border. On the festival’s website, the annual Drachenstichspiel (“Spearing the Dragon”) is announced as being “Deutschlands ältestes Volksschauspiel” (“Germany’s eldest folk play”).16 In fact, an early version of the play dates back to late Medieval times. Declaring the play the eldest folk play in Germany reflects two topoi: first, labelling a play a folk play and, second, claiming it to be the eldest one. Volksschauspiel is a trade mark and the superlative is useful for marketing purposes. This leads to the next thesis to be discussed. 2.3.  Folk plays are performed for tourists and for commercial purposes

Folk plays are commercial events. This statement has been regarded as one of the most characteristic attributes of folk plays and of the Oberammergau Passion play, too. It has been strongly related to the development of tourism in the Alps in the second half of the nineteenth century (see Edelman 2017; Mohr 2018; Annuß 2019: 232). It is not by chance that the Oberammergau passion theatre was institutionalized, the audience increased, and reception became broadly international exactly during this period. The bigger and more successful Oberammergau has become, the louder the assertion has been stated that the Passion play is performed predominantly for tourists and commercial purposes. I would like to point to a rather parallel phenomenon that is not related to Oberammergau itself, but to Schliersee which is another Bavarian popular theatre centre of that time. In contrast to the Oberammergau actors, the Schliersee company performed comedies of the time like Jägerblut (“Huntsman’s Blood”) by Benno Rauchenegger and Almenrausch und Edelweiß (“Alpine rose and Edelweiss”) after Hermann von Schmid’s novel with the same title. They went on tour to Munich, Berlin, Vienna, and other theatre cities. A tour to the USA was also planned, but not realized. In the summer of 1894, the Schliersee company guested in Vienna for the first time. Karl Kraus (1874–1939), the sharp-tongued Viennese thinker and writer, attended the performance and called it a “torture”. In his journal Die

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Fackel, famous for polemical essays, he attacked the “shabby naivety” of the Schliersee actors by which the Viennese audience was molested. In the history of theatre, it is the episode of the performing peasants that has for long been overrated. This most primary naturalness will never be capable of raising from the abyssal lowlands of literature, and it is only due to dialect – which abets inferiority in performance – that we perceive this episode as natural. (Kraus 1899: 19–20)17 One year later, Kraus hoped to be bothered by the “Schlierseerei” (Kraus 1900: 7) the last time. “Schlierseerei” is a word created by Kraus to ridicule the Schliersee performers’ manner of acting. But Kraus was met with disappointment as the Schliersee company would continue to perform with great success in Vienna for years to come, until 1909. The hope that butchers and byre women would bring about a renaissance of German drama has turned out to be elusive. The Schliersee mania is over, and a conscientious critique recollects that the time has come to divest the masqueraded peasants of the heartless and discerning eyes of the townspeople, but to encourage them to resume their old jobs and work. In spite of a taste of limelight and stage make-up, which both have tainted folksy mores and customs, the way back to the native stables is not yet blocked. But the bleating of the Schliersee calves is a call of longing for their owners to come back. (Kraus 1900: 8)18 The Schliersee theatre tradition does not exist anymore, the Oberammergau passion theatre however is still extremely vivid. Reasons may be found in different repertoire and performing practices. The Schliersee company performed contemporary comedies while Oberammergau villagers continued to perform the Passion of Jesus Christ which is a plot from antiquity as it is an a-historical topic at the same time. The Schliersee company went on tour while the Oberammergau actors never left their village with their show. In addition, they were able to continuously adapt their play text to aesthetic, political, and ideological change, while Schliersee actors were successful in the rather short period of touristic discovery of the Alps only. 2.4.  Folk plays are dead plays

In the end, the fourth and last thesis should quickly be discussed: Folk plays are dead plays. I got this idea from an essay by Fritz Nies, who stated that it is very easy to trace the emergence of a number of literary genres, but quite impossible to diagnose the final exitus of a singular genre. It may only be a state of ­apparent death which may be followed by the resurrection from a literary coma – in

Volksschauspiel as Trade Mark  115

some cases just a few centuries later (Nies 1989: 331). O ­ berammergau – as it is a folk play – continues to be an extremely vivid example of a cultural vigil coma, of a hibernating theatrical undead unequalled in our times.

Notes 1 For instance Devrient 1851; Mosen 1861: 10–2; Schröer 1879; Hartmann 1880: III–VI; Huyssen 1881; Burleigh 1917: 95–104 (chapter “The World’s Example of the Community Theatre”); Nadler 1918: 87; Moser and Zoder 1938: 11; Schöpel 1965: 25; François 2001; Renk 2007; Trabusch and Zipfel 2009: 752. 2 Herder explained his idea of “Volkslied” first and foremost in his essays Auszug aus einem Briefwechsel über Ossian und die Lieder alter Völker [Extract from a Correspondence on Ossian and Ancient People’s Poems], Shakespear [Shakespeare] (both published first anonymously in Von deutscher Art und Kunst [On German Character and Art] in 1773), and Von Ähnlichkeit der mittleren englischen und deutschen Dichtkunst [On Similarity of Middle English and German Poetry] (1777). The essay on Shakespeare has been translated by Gregory Moore in Herder: 2006, 291–307. Analogous to Herder’s folk song perception and to the fairy tale poetics by the Grimm Brothers, the idea of a popular, folk-related theatre and drama tradition has arisen as from the mid-nineteenth century. Prominent monographs were published by Lindner 1845, Pichler 1850, and Weinhold 1853. 3 For an attempt to integrate different and contradictory positions from the late eighteenth century to present time, see Bernhart 2019. For a focus on folk theatre’s audience, see Bernhart 2016. 4 Lazarowicz and Balme 2012: 571–3. 5 For bibliographical information, see Meier 1909: esp. 1290–7. See also Bernhart 2019: 317–71. 6 For this aspect, see Küpper 2018: 157–211 (chapter “Mass Media, Early Modern”). 7 “Dem Bajuwaren wurde alles Handlung, er ist der Schöpfer des deutschen Volksspiels”. For Nadler’s theory on Bavarian theatre history in general, see ibid.: 186–93 (chapter “Der Osten”); Nadler 1918: 3–109 (chapter “Die Baiern”); Nadler 1921. 8 Hofmannsthal 2011a, 2011b. On the relationship between Nadler and Hofmannsthal, see Volke 1974; Stern 2006, esp. 369–76; Apel 2006: 213–21; Janke 2010: 179–208. On establishment and history of Salzburg Festival, see Steinberg 2000; Müller 2007; Janke 2010: 188–208 (chapter “Die Salzburger Festspiele”); Wolf 2011; Kriechbaumer 2013; Müry 2014; Fischer 2014; Wolf 2014. 9 “Der Festspielgedanke ist der eigentliche Kunstgedanke des bayerisch-österreichischen Stammes. Gründung eines Festspielhauses auf der Grenzscheide zwischen Bayern und Österreich ist symbolischer Ausdruck tiefster Tendenzen, die ein halbes Jahrtausend alt sind, zugleich Kundgebung lebendigen unverkümmerten Kulturzusammenhangs bis Basel hin, bis Ödenburg und Eisenstadt hinüber, bis Meran hinunter. Süddeutsches Gesamtleben tritt hier hervor; der gewaltige Unterbau ist mittelalterlich, in Gluck war der Vorgipfel, in Mozart war der wahrhaftige Gipfel und das Zentrum . . . Hier tritt Weimar an Salzburg heran; was in Goethe wahrhaft theatralisches Element war .  .  . ist ein großartiges Übereinanderschichten aller theatralischen Formen, die dem süddeutschen Boden entsprossen sind: vom Mysterium und der Moralität über das Puppenspiel und das jesuitische Schuldrama zur höfischen Oper mit Chören, Maschinen und Aufzügen”. 10 Hofmannsthal 2011a: 233: “Bayreuth should remain how it is currently, even if it serves one great artist only; Salzburg wants to serve the entire classical intellectual property of the nation.” (“Bayreuth bleibe wie es ist, aber es dient einem großen Künstler; Salzburg will dem ganzen klassischen Besitz der Nation dienen.”) Regarding Vienna: “A metropolis is for entertainment purposes, a ceremonial performance requires contemplation

116  Toni Bernhart in those who perform as well as in those who attend.” (“Die Großstadt ist der Ort der Zerstreuung, eine festliche Aufführung bedarf der Sammlung, bei denen die mitwirken, wie bei denen, die aufnehmen.”) 11 Oberammergau “[b]leibt einzig in seiner Art, ein ehrwürdiges Überbleibsel alter Kunstübung; aus dem gleichen Geist soll in Salzburg gebaut werden, auf anderen Fundamenten.” 12 On this topic, see also the chapter by Mariano Barbato in this volume. 13 Herder: Von deutscher Art und Kunst, passim. 14 “Die Freude am dramatischen Volksspiel ist in Tirol uralt. Einen Höhepunkt stellten die mittelalterlichen Passionen aus dem 15. Jahrhundert dar”. 15 Schröer 1858. A second edition followed in 1862. 16 www.drachenstich.de/index.php (accessed 27 May 2022). 17 “Die in der Geschichte des Theaters immerhin bemerkenswerte Episode agierender Bauern ist seit jeher stark überschätzt worden. Aus den tiefsten Niederungen der Literatur vermag sich diese primärste Natürlichkeit nie und nimmer zu erheben, und dass sie uns noch als Natürlichkeit erscheint, hat sie eigentlich auch nur dem Dialect, diesem argen Vorschubleister aller darstellerischen Minderwertigkeit, zu danken”. 18 “Die Hoffnung, dass dem deutschen Drama durch Metzger und Kuhmägde zu einer Renaissance verholfen würde, hat sich als trügerisch erwiesen, der Schlierseer Wahn ist dahin, und eine gewissenhafte Kritik besinnt sich, dass es endlich an der Zeit sei, die geschminkten Landleute den Blicken herzloser und anspruchsvoller Großstädter zu entziehen und zur Wiederaufnahme der alten Beschäftigung zu ermuntern. Noch ist, mögen auch Rampenluft und Schminke die rusticalen Sitten verdorben haben, der Anschluss an die heimatlichen Ställe nicht versäumt. Schon aber drückt das Blöken der Schlierseer Kälber Sehnsucht nach ihren angestammten Hütern aus”.

Works cited Annuß, E. 2019. Volksschule des Theaters. Nationalsozialistische Massenspiele. Paderborn: Fink. Apel, F. 2006. Gemeinschaft aus dem Elementaren. Hugo von Hofmannsthal und Josef Nadler. In: Essayismus um 1900, eds. W. Braungart and K. Kauffmann. Heidelberg: Winter, 213–21. Bausinger, H. 1980. Formen der “Volkspoesie”. 2nd ed. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. Bernhart, T. 2016. Imagining the Audience in Eighteenth-Century Folk Theatre in Tyrol. In: Dramatic Experience. The Poetics of Drama and the Early Modern Public Sphere(s), eds. K. Gvozdeva and T. Korneeva, and K. Ospovat. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 269–88. Bernhart, T. 2019. Volksschauspiele. Genese einer kulturgeschichtlichen Formation. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. Burleigh, L. 1917. The Community Theatre in Theory and Practice. With Illustrations. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. Clark, R. T. 1946. Herder, Percy, and the Song of Songs. Publications of the Modern Language Association 61/4: 1087–100. Devrient, E. 1851. Das Passionsschauspiel in Oberammergau und seine Bedeutung für die neue Zeit. Mit Illustrationen von F[riedrich] Pecht. Leipzig: Weber. Edelman, J. 2017. Spiritual Voyeurism and Cultural Nostalgia: Anglophone Visitors to the Oberammergau Passion Play, 1870–1925 and 2010. In: The Oberammergau Passion Play: Essays on the 2010 Performance and the Centuries-Long Tradition, ed. K. J. Wetmore. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 66–87.

Volksschauspiel as Trade Mark  117 Fischer, M. (ed.). 2014. Die Salzburger Festspiele. Ihre Bedeutung für die europäische Festspielkultur und ihr Publikum. Salzburg: Pustet. François, E. 2001. Oberammergau. In: Deutsche Erinnerungsorte, vol. 3, eds. id. and H. Schulze. Munich: Beck, 274–91. Hartmann, A. (ed.). 1880. Das Oberammergauer Passionsspiel in seiner ältesten Gestalt. Zum ersten Male herausgegeben. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel. Hein, J. 1997. Das Wiener Volkstheater. Raimund und Nestroy. 3rd ed. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Herder, J. G. 2006. Selected Writings on Aesthetics. Trans. and ed. Gregory Moore. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hofmannsthal, H. v. 2011a. Deutsche Festspiele zu Salzburg. In: id.: Sämtliche Werke XXXIV. Reden und Aufsätze, vol. 3, eds. K. E. Bohnenkamp, K. Kaluga, and K.-D. Krabiel. Frankfurt/M.: S. Fischer, 229–30. Hofmannsthal, H. v. 2011b. Die Salzburger Festspiele. In: id.: Sämtliche Werke XXXIV. Reden und Aufsätze, vol. 3. eds. K. E. Bohnenkamp, K. Kaluga, and K.-D. Krabiel. Frankfurt/M.: S. Fischer, 231–5. Huyssen, G. 1881. Christi Leiden im deutschen Volksschauspiel, namentlich im Oberammergauer Passionsspiel. Barmen: Klein. Janke, P.  2010. Politische Massenfestspiele in Österreich zwischen 1918 und 1938. Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: Böhlau. Kraus, K. 1899. [no title, incipit] Von der Qual der “Schlierseer”. Die Fackel 1/9: 19–21. Kraus, K. 1900. Secessionsbühne. Die Fackel 2/48: 7–16. Kriechbaumer, R. 2013. Zwischen Österreich und Großdeutschland. Eine politische Geschichte der Salzburger Festspiele 1933–1944. Vienna, Cologne, Weinar: Böhlau. Küpper, J. 2018. The Cultural Net. Early Modern Drama as a Paradigm. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. Lazarowicz, K. and Ch. Balme (eds.). 2012. Texte zur Theorie des Theaters. Stuttgart: Reclam. Lindner, H. (ed.). 1845. Karl der Zwölfte vor Friedrichshall. Eine Haupt- und Staatsaction in vier Actus, nebst einem Epilogus. Mit einem Vorwort. Dessau: Aue. Meier, J. 1909. Deutsche und niederländische Volkspoesie. In: Grundriß der germanischen Philologie, vol. 2/1, ed. H. Paul, 2nd ed. Strasbourg: Trübner, 1178–297. Mohr, J. 2018. Wege nach innen. Die Reise zum Oberammergauer Passionsspiel seit dem 19. Jahrhundert. In: (Off) The Beaten Track? Normierungen und Kanonisierungen des Reisens, eds. U. Schaffers, St. Neuhaus, and H. Diekmannshenke. Würzburg: Königshausen  & Neumann, 97–116. Mosen, G. 1861. Die Weihnachtsspiele im sächsischen Erzgebirge. Zwickau: Verein zur Verbreitung guter und wohlfeiler Volksschriften, 10–2. Moser, H. 1935. Das Volksschauspiel. In: Die Deutsche Volkskunde, vol. 1: Textband, ed. A. Spamer, 2nd ed. Leipzig, Berlin: Bibliographisches Institut, 349–87. Moser, H. and R. Zoder. 1938. Deutsches Volkstum in Volksschauspiel und Volkstanz. Mit 24 Tafeln. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Müller, K. 2007. Eine Zeit “ohne Ordnungsbegriffe”? Die literarische Antimoderne nach 1918 – ein Fallbeispiel: Hugo von Hofmannsthals Programmstück der Salzburger Festspiele und die “Konservative Revolution”. In: Literatur und Kultur im Österreich der Zwanziger Jahre. Vorschläge zu einem transdisziplinären Epochenprofil, ed. P.-H. Kucher. Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 21–46. Müry, A. 2014. Jedermann darf nicht sterben. Geschichte eines Salzburger Kults. 2nd ed. Salzburg: Pustet.

118  Toni Bernhart Nadler, J. 1912. Literaturgeschichte der deutschen Stämme und Landschaften, vol. 1: Die Altstämme (800–1600). Regensburg: Habbel. Nadler, J. 1918. Literaturgeschichte der deutschen Stämme und Landschaften, vol. 3: Hochblüte der Altstämme bis 1805 und der Neustämme bis 1800. Regensburg: Habbel. Nadler, J. 1921. Das österreichische Volksstück. Literatur- und Musikgeschichte in Einzelheften für Theaterbesucher. Ed. Bühnen-Volksbund, Frankfurt am Main. Augsburg, Stuttgart: Filser. Nies, F. 1989. Für die stärkere Ausdifferenzierung eines pragmatisch konzipierten Gattungssystems. In: Zur Terminologie der Literaturwissenschaft. Akten des IX. Germanistischen Symposions der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft Würzburg 1986, ed. Ch. Wagenknecht. Stuttgart: Metzler, 326–36. Pichler, A. 1850. Ueber das Drama des Mittelalters in Tirol. Innsbruck: Wagner. Renk, H.-E. 2007. Volksschauspiel. In: Metzler Lexikon Literatur. Begründet von G. und I. Schweikle, ed. D. Burdorf, Ch. Fasbender, and B. Moennighoff, 3rd ed. Stuttgart: Metzler, 815. Sailer, S. 1784. Melodrama Adam und Eva im Paradeiß. Ein musikalisches Bauernspiel vom Jahre 1250 in vier Aufzügen, verfasset von Sebastian Relies OSB, verbessert und vermehret von M. H. und A. M. zur privat Unterhaltung, musikalischer Dilettanten, aus dem Schwäbischen in die Oesterreicher Bauernsprache übersetzet. S. l. Schöpel, B. 1965. “Naturtheater”. Studien zum Theater unter freiem Himmel in Südwestdeutschland. Tübingen: Tübinger Vereinigung für Volkskunde e. V. Schröer, K. J. 1858. Deutsche Weihnachtspiele aus Ungern. Geschildert und mitgeteilt von K. J. Schröer. Vienna: Keck. Schröer, K. J. 1879. Ein Ritterschauspiel in Tirol. In: Neue Freie Presse, 24 August: 6–7. Schröer, K. J. 1917. Spiel vom Sündenfall. Paradeisspiel aus Oberufer bei Preßburg. 14. Jahrhundert. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel. Staudenmaier, P. 2014. Between Occultism and Nazism. Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race in the Fascist Era. Leiden, Boston: Brill. Steinberg, M. P. 2000. Austria as Theater and Ideology. The Meaning of the Salzburg Festival. With a New Preface. Ithaca, NY, London: Cornell University Press. Steiner, M. (ed.). 1938. Weihnachtspiele aus altem Volkstum. Die Oberuferer Spiele. Mit einer Ansprache von Rudolf Steiner und einem Gedenkwort. Dornach: Philosophisch-­ Anthroposophischer Verlag. Steiner, R. 1922. Von den volkstümlichen Weihnachtsspielen. Eine Christfest-Erinnerung. Das Goetheanum. Internationale Wochenschrift für Anthroposophie und Dreigliederung 2, n. 18/19: 137–8. Stern, M. 2006. Die Raimund- und Nestroy-Rezeption Hofmannsthals mit einem Seitenblick auf Josef Nadler, Heinz Kindermann und Herbert Cysarz. Hofmannsthal-Jahrbuch 14: 369–81. Stumpfl, R. 1936. Kultspiele der Germanen als Ursprung des mittelalterlichen Dramas. Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt. Trabusch, M. and F. Zipfel. 2009. Volksstück. In: Handbuch der literarischen Gattungen, ed. Dieter Lamping in Zusammenarbeit mit Sandra Poppe, Sascha Seiler und Frank Zipfel. Stuttgart: Kröner, 751–61. Volke, W. 1974. Hugo von Hofmannsthal und Josef Nadler in Briefen. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 18: 37–88. Weinhold, K. 1853. Weihnacht-Spiele und Lieder auß Süddeutschland und Schlesien. Mit Einleitungen und Erläuterungen. Mit einer Musikbeilage. Graz: Damian & Sorge.

Volksschauspiel as Trade Mark  119 Wolf, N. Ch. 2011. Ordnungsutopie oder Welttheaterschwindel? Hofmannsthals Salzburger Festspielkonzepte in ihrem kultur- und ideologiegeschichtlichen Kontext. HofmannsthalJahrbuch 19: 217–54. Wolf, N. Ch. 2014. Eine Triumphpforte österreichischer Kunst. Hugo von Hofmannsthals Grün­ dung der Salzburger Festspiele. Salzburg, Vienna: Jung und Jung. Wolfram, I. 2010. 200 Jahre Volksheld Andreas Hofer auf der Bühne und im Film. Munich: Utz.

Part III

Layers of Authenticity

8 “Jesus-Casting” as a Public Event Oberammergau’s Wilhelm Tell (2018) Céline Molter Oberammergau’s Passionstheater is packed. Crowds of people have made their way from the buses through the pouring rain on this July day to watch the villagers’ performance of Wilhelm Tell. The dresscode ranges from casual to traditional Bavarian chic, and grey hair is dominant. The room is still bright with daylight when the play (and Passion play) director Christian Stückl enters the scene, and the audience remains quite noisy and responsive to his introductory speech: “As you know, preparations for the 2020 Passion season have already started and we use this performance to train and test our players, musicians and choir, all of which are Oberammergau laypeople, for the upcoming Passion play. You may scout for talents during the next hours”.1

In July and August 2018, the villagers of Oberammergau performed Wilhelm Tell in their Passionstheater. Play director Christian Stückl, who would also be directing the famous Passion play in 2020 for the 4th time, made sure to frame the performance as “Jesus-Casting”, thereby launching the promotional campaign for the 2020 passion season and heating up the debate over the sensitive topic of lead roles for the passion both inside and outside the village. This procedure is tried and tested: practice plays to train new actors and introduce them to the public have a long history in Oberammergau, and since 1933 Leo Weismantel’s Pestspiel2 had been performed for this purpose (cf. Schaller 1982: 87). For 2020, Stückl has brought the Spielerwahl3 (selection of players) forward, making the 2018 Tell performance his main (public) source for talent scouting and the Pestspiel, which is scheduled for 2019, the first stage test for the newly appointed Passion cast. However, tradition’s grip on the selection process is strong as well, and while the frame of the casting show suggests a more or less objective choice by talent (and maybe personality), there are far more rules to be followed: For example, players must be born in Oberammergau or have lived there for more than 20 years, a principle which has tied especially the oldestablished families to certain roles. Or, to cite Stückl: “My father and grandfather, they have all played Caiaphas. Switching to the other side (e.g. Jesus) as an actor was never an option for me, I didn’t even think about it”.4 As in the past decades, in October 2018 the Spielerwahl culminated in the ritual proclamation of the lead parts. This ceremonial event launches the public relations campaign DOI: 10.4324/9781003106319-11

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for each Passion play season and thereby builds a trade mark of the Oberammergau Passion play, which is both universal through tradition and individual for each season (Figure 8.1). Although Oberammergauers frame their productions as lay theatre, every major German newspaper has reviewed the performance of Wilhelm Tell in 2018, which is quite remarkable. All of them did it in the light of the coming Passion season, granting Oberammergau an amount of publicity that widely excels the regular coverage of religious topics in German mass media. So why is the question of who plays Jesus in Oberammergau of public interest at all? Or rather, how did the Oberammergauers manage to make it a question of public interest? To answer this question, I will take a closer look at the front stage discourses of the lead role choices in Oberammergau. With a collection of media snippets from Passion periods between 1900 and 2010, I will illustrate how the premises and registers of choosing Jesus have been communicated to the outside world during the last century until today. From early on, Oberammergauers have taken an active part in shaping the media reception of their play. With the emergence of mass media, back stage village politics and traditions had to

Figure 8.1 Spielerwahl: waiting for the players’ names to be written on the chalk board. Oberammergau, 20 October 2018. Photo: CM

“Jesus-Casting” as a Public Event  125

be choreographed into a growing public interest in celebrities and adapted to ever-changing socio-political circumstances in Germany. The Oberammergau Passion play is a ritual complex (Michaels 2003) that stretches way beyond the actual play, from the preparation phase with the Spielerwahl to the ritual collective haircut at the end of the season. Alterations to the manifold rituals, rules, and taboos of which the Passion play is comprised, allow for change in continuity and also maintain Oberammergau’s singularity.5 It is this entire ritual complex that symbolically expresses the significance of the Oberammergau Passion play even beyond the play season and thus shapes the brand Oberammergau. The lead roles in Oberammergau are public positions and bring their bearers social status gain, sometimes even fame, but also moral obligations. They represent the village for a decade. Therefore, the integration of the public into the process of choosing Jesus (and the rest) is already vital for trade mark building in Oberammergau. In the second part of this paper, I  will take a closer look on the dynamics of the Spielerwahl rituals for 2020 and show how they work to legitimate upcoming changes without endangering the stability of the “traditional” play complex. For that purpose, I will use ethnographic data from my visit of the Wilhelm Tell performance and contrast my own observations to the media coverage of the preparation phase in 2018 and 2019. I will end with observations from the Spielerwahl climax, the ceremonial role assignment in October 2018 and show how Tell had paved the path for the legitimation of the decisions taken there inside and outside Oberammergau.

1. Looks, talent, tradition, politics: premises for choosing Jesus between 1900 and 1970 1.1.  Beard or no beard? The first 20th-century Jesus

In prospect of the 1900 Passion play, Alfred Holzbrod published a report, titled “With the Oberammergauers” (Bei den Oberammergauern), in which he commented on the possible choices for Jesus: For Christ, there are three suitable players. The son of potter Lang, and Rendel junior, the wonderful impersonator of John in 1890, and of course, Christ-Mayer. Young Lang, who makes a quite serious appearance, has his hair already grown to match the lead. He has a beautiful Christ-head, but his manner of speaking is said to be insufficient. Rendel junior, who has married the daughter of Christ-Mayer, . . . was and is with his mild and soft appearance the ideal of John. Much had been promised for him, he had been expected to become Christ, but now, all hope is lost. Everything, everything stamps young Rendel as the impersonator of Christ, his physical appearance, his face, his talent, yet one thing has destroyed all the longing and wishing: the beard, it won’t and won’t grow. Young Rendel will play John again. And Christ-Mayer! He is now at the center

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of Oberammergau’s discussions. Will he play Christ? Will he be chosen? Will he accept the choice, if it is him? Yes, they will vote for him, albeit the silver threads in his beard. They certainly fear that he won’t accept his nomination, his bad stomach-condition and the decease of his loyal spouse weigh heavily on him. But he will play Christ anyway, and should he, whose name and work is so closely intertwined with the Passion, would finally be too tired, then young Lang, who has been preparing for this high task for years, could be considered after all. (Holzbrod 1899/1900: 293–4) It is peculiar how Holzbrod creates suspension in his account, where the actual matter is quite obvious to him: Christ Mayer is old and Rendel Junior doesn’t have a beard. And his prediction might be read more like an appraisal of Joseph Mayer, who had not only played, but famously impersonated Christ before, and had thus for the first time made it difficult to imagine any other actor in that role. Mayer had been Oberammergau’s first celebrity-Jesus “with an international following, particularly with English women” (Waddy 2010: 21). He raised the bar for his successors and thereby sparked public interest in the process of their selection. Anton Lang, who was selected that year despite his – according to ­Holzbrod – lack of talent, remained Jesus for three seasons until 1922 and, as he documented in his autobiography “From my Life” (Aus meinem Leben, 1938) measured up to the expectations which Mayer had raised and became an international celebrity. Yet, following Holzbrod’s matter-of-factly assertion: no beard, no Jesus – the question of iconography and the perfect representation of Jesus, not just as character, but as human body, was then as much of an issue as it is today. In 1890, Wilhelmine von Hillern published her scandal novel On the Cross (Am Kreuz, 1893), an erotic fan fiction about the Oberammergau Passion play centered on the fictional Jesus actor “Joseph Freyer”. The name suggests that the character is based on Joseph “Christus” Mayr, who had a reputation for being particularly attractive. His successor Lang in turn “was the very image of Jesus in the Western imagination” (Waddy 2010: 21). The Oberammergau role permeability supports the tremendous success of its Jesus figure in the late 19th and early 20th century: in von Hillern’s novel, it is the role that makes the actor attractive, the Oberammergau Christ, who “oscillates between near-animal archaism, peasant naivety and the presentiment of a divine” (Stenzel 2017: 327). The visual proximity of the actors Mayer and Lang to the well-known iconography, and the attractiveness attributed to them (therefore or additionally) made the Oberammergau Jesus a cult figure in his day. Even in the present, where director Stückl tries to avoid “slipping on the ever-same clichés” of portraying Christ (Stückl 1999: 263), the physical representation of Jesus remains rooted in these traditions. “If my belly grows or I lose

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my hair, no chance”, stated 2010 Christ actor Frederik Mayet when asked if he would reclaim his role in 2020 (Mason 2017: 167). 1.2.  Jew or Aryan? Jesus and the Nazis

After Anton Lang’s era, in the Passion seasons of 1930 and more so 1934, the premises for choosing Jesus remained largely in the grip of tradition, yet the public media debate which surrounded the choosing process underwent a radical change: the choice was announced as a highly controversial political matter and with broad coverage in the international press. Rumors spread about the cast being assembled according to National Socialist ideology: As early as May 1933, worries surfaced about the New York Times picking up the false idea that all of the roles would go to Nazis. That August foreign newspapers mistakenly reported that Goebbels was angling for an Aryan Christ, “a blond man with blue eyes” clothed in swastika-covered garments. Similarly, the “Apostles were to be the Aryan-Germanic type. Only Judas will be portrayed as a pronounced Semitic type”.6 Yet village politics seemingly ruled out the national agenda: the lead parts were (re-)claimed by members of the old-established families, representing a broad range of political affiliations. Alois Lang was chosen for Christ in 1930 and reclaimed his role in 1934 despite his membership in the forbidden catholic BVP. However, as many others, he later joined the NSDAP. The few meeting transcripts of passion committee and players’ subcommittee meetings for these two Passion seasons show no signs of discussions over Nazi ideology in relation to the choice of actors but speak of rather unanimous decision-making.7 Yet as Zerhoch describes in this volume, the actors’ portrays were displayed in an official advertising booklet for the tercentenary of the play, embedded in Nazi ideology. Waddy (2010: 126ss) recounts how mayor Raimund Lang and director Georg Lang, both more or less enthusiastic NSDAP party members, established close ties with the new regime and thereby legitimated the continuation of long-established decision-making processes and hierarchies. Oberammergau had always been analyzed in the light of the geo-political present, but whereas tradition and family ties had made the choice for the main roles a sort of natural, obvious thing that concerned mainly the village population, as described by Holzbrod, every season after 1934 saw local and national press commenting on the process of choosing as a political act. 1.3.  Post-war Jesus: denazification as premise

After the cancelled season of 1940, in 1950, the tides had turned completely. In 1946, an article in Schwäbisches Tagblatt asks the provocative question: “Was

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Oberammergau a ‘brown nest?’ ” (“War Oberammergau ein ‘braunes Nest’?”).8 The intent of the article though is to counter accusations in this direction which, according to the author, had been made by various media and needed to be rectified. Without giving a source, the author cites media who “had reported in satirical style” about the village as follows: The Oberammergauers have grave sorrows. Christ was a Nazi. Not Christ, the Lord, but Alois Lang, the Christ. Hence he is no more allowed to play. And the whole Holy Family, . . . they were all members of the party, whereas they should have been nothing but Jews. Only Judas Ischariot, a hell of a guy, the innkeeper Hans Zweckel9, has been the smartest one once again. He was anti-fascist. That’s how it goes, you farmers and holy people, if you won’t listen to the village Judas, but to the devil in the radio. You may play as Christian as you want, the rich Americans won’t believe you anything no more.10 In the course of his article, Schwenger puts great effort in invalidating these “malicious distortions of the facts”. The article argues in strong favor of the village, ridicules the other media and downplays the village’s relations to the Nazi regime. However, the Oberammergau party comrades do not seem to have shown too much activity. For neither Adolf Hitler nor any other of his vassals was granted honorary citizenship by the municipality of Oberammergau And of the picturesque alleys and squares, which bore names for the first time in 1934, not a single one had to be renamed after the end of the war.11 Another article from the same year in a Bavarian newspaper12 is written in the same way. The headline asks: “Was Pontius Pilate Nazi?”, but the author visits “the earthly paradise Oberammergau on a wonderful day”, blesses the artistic talent and beauty of the inhabitants, reiterates the story of the vow and states that from 1684 (sic!) until 1930, the play had regularly been staged. He ignores Hitler’s 1934 jubilee season. And he does not even bother to answer the question of whether Pilate was a Nazi. The only reference to Pilate is in a citation from the vice mayor, stating that the community was still awaiting permission to play from the US authorities, who had insisted that no former NSDAP member was allowed to participate. Because: “Could you even imagine Saint John or Mary Magdalene being a Nazi? Or Pontius Pilate? Certainly not!”13 It is interesting though that the media discuss the topic long before the choice of players became even an issue in the village. Official meetings of the Passion play committee began in 1948, two years after the articles were published. However, the transcript of the meeting on 14 October 1949 reports a heated reaction about how Judas actor Hans Zwink had presented himself to

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the international press as “the only non-nazi” among the 1934 Passion players. The mayor points out that Hans Zwink was only given this great role through the personal initiative of the mayor, who wanted to dissuade him from his bad lifestyle (as a drunkard) by giving him the role of Judas. At that time, no difference had been made in the casting of the role whether someone had been a member of the party or not. . . . Therefore, one can no longer stand by silently watching as Zwink plays the only “white sheep” to the press and throws stones at others who helped him to get the role. He asks the committee to influence Zwink to stop this unpleasant behavior. The mayor declares that he is making this request because he fears that in the coming election season Zwink will increasingly make sensational and incorrect statements to the press.14 The rather emotional back-and-forth discussion of Oberammergau’s Nazi-past found its climax in 1947 with an extensive media coverage of the denazification trials of former Jesus, Alois Lang, Lazarus Anton Preisinger, stage manager Robert Breitsamter and usher Jakob Burger. Lang, Preisinger and Breitsamter were categorized as Followers and got permission to participate in the play. The verdict silenced the rumors on both sides and gave way to the regular passion preparations. Finally, on 10 November 1949, the Neues Weilheimer Tagblatt titled: “Decision in Oberammergau”: How much have our papers driveled, not only about the candidates for the parts, but about the election battles and the fever that had grasped the village. . . . Meanwhile the election happens unhurriedly. There are hardly 20 men who fulfil the responsible task of choosing the actors. And they have made their choice, everyone by himself, during the practice plays and through observing their fellow villagers. Those who know the affairs in Oberammergau know that not talent alone makes for the decision, but that the carrier of a role must be a worthy representative. Even for playing Judas, a man must be well-respected in the village. A lightheaded man or a loose woman can never be honored to participate in the play. Oberammergauers know that, which is why they trust in their committee and why there is no election fever. The excitement comes only after the announcement of the leading part actors.15 In this article, the media reflects on its own role of turning the choice into a spectacle, yet following the author, the Oberammergau adepts, to whom he seemingly counts himself, know that the spectacle is for outsiders, whereas the “real” choice is a thing that only the long-established Oberammergauers understand. This narrative openly admits the existence of a front stage and back stage in the decision process and thereby fosters the image of a secret

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community to which outsiders have no access, and thus perpetuates Oberammergau’s singularity as an entity in the strong and stable grip of worthy traditions. In fact, the back stage scenes in 1949 were quite dramatic: in the last round of voting, the votes for the leading candidate for Christ up to that point, Arthur Haser, suddenly resulted in a draw, so the decision went to the mayor, who chose the second-placed candidate Anton Preisinger (the former, but denazified NSDAP member). Thereupon Haser left the committee in a rage. He accused his colleagues of collusion, and let it be known that he was no longer available to the community under mayor Lang for any public office. “[He had] sworn during his war captivity that he would never again submit to a dictatorship”.16 But despite this rift that would never heal, Haser waited for the lunch break to leave in silence and without the press noticing,17 so that the public would receive the image of “generally satisfactory results”18. Still, soon after the election, the Passion play committee had to deal with some negative press concerning the election of former party member Preisinger. The passion committee meeting transcripts reveal that two fractions had formed: the ones who agreed with the press that choosing a former Nazi, especially through the intervention of former Nazi mayor Lang, had not made an ideal impression, and the other ones (mostly former party members around mayor Lang) who pointed to the denazification trials, to Preisinger’s success in the test plays and his outstanding character and sought closure of the topic.19 1.4.  1960–1990: the introduction of the double cast

While sticking to tradition had “saved” the Oberammergau Passion play through the Nazi and post-war era, the following decades asked for significant changes in the play text and its organizational structure to maintain its credibility to modern audiences. Naturally, tensions surfaced during the Spielerwahl, as it was the first medially important event in the passion cycle. Despite his old age (47), Preisinger was re-elected in 1960. He was quite powerful as an actor and as a citizen, so in the Passion play committee meeting transcript of 8 September 1959, the Lang brothers argue in great favor of him, framing the possible selection of the younger candidate, Hans Fischer, a “de-selection” of Preisinger, which would stir questions from the press. However, the Haser/Preisinger controversy, together with the decision to increase the number of shows, opened the path for a major reform: the double cast of the lead roles. Understudies for the lead parts had always been common, but the idea to let them actually play first came up in the middle of the ­voting ceremony in 1949 as a proposal to calm down Haser (who rejected it) and to avoid losing important actors in the voting process. The effort was blocked by director Lang, who understood it as a criticism of his way of working.20 In 1959, the meeting transcripts are full of heated debates on the issue, with the ones in favor arguing that turning the understudies into official deputies (Stellvertreter), who were allowed to play once in a while, would give the leads pauses to recover and bind the youth to the play by empowering

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promising talents. Again, the idea was strongly opposed by director Lang. In his argumentation, the quality of the performance was directly linked to the players’ physical condition – the double cast would be a sign of weakness: “it is very difficult to eliminate the main actor when he is still completely healthy. The visitors would like to see the main actor”.21 Committee member Schwaighofer even read the proposal as an attack on his own physical performance and presented a doctor’s certificate that retroactively justified his use of drugs during the 1950 season as a preventive measure against jaundice22. Nonetheless, in 1960 the second cast was planned to be deployed in at least 14 of the 83 shows. This gives the opportunity to compare, to measure the talents, the “perceptions”. But perhaps it also slows down the move towards the star cult, which Oberammergau in particular cannot tolerate and cannot allow to proliferate without betraying the message of the game. (Rappmannsberger 2000 [1960]: 253–4) For the 1970 Passion season, former deputy Jesus and later head of the district authority Hans Fischer was elected for Christ. After the Rosner/Daisenberger text controversies (see, e.g., Shapiro 2000), that overshadowed individual stardom, the path was open for the first double-cast season in 1980. It was commented in the press as the end of Oberammergau’s celebrity cult.23 As the overview of the Spielerwahlen of the last century has shown, the path to double casting introduced a shift of meaning in the ritual complex of the Passion play: while at the beginning of the 20th century the actors, especially the actor of Jesus, represented the entire play as icons, today the preparation phase rituals are the most important carriers of meaning that refer to the past and thus legitimize the play. However, this concerns mainly the front stage, the performance for the media. On the back stage, the Spielerwahl is and has always been professional talent scouting, complicated by politics.24 In the following part of this paper, the Tell performance will be used as a case study to show how the cast changes are ritually embedded, framed, and thereby legitimized. How does the play director manage to inspire the young generation for tradition without repelling the old, and simultaneously arouse the interest of an ever more secular public for the Bavarian village’s Passion play?

2. Framing the 2020 Passion play at the Wilhelm Tell performance As the examples have shown, the framing of a new Oberammergau Passion season was usually initiated with the media-effective role assignment. Starting from his coup d’état in 1990 until today, director Christian Stückl has dominated the preparation phase media coverage. His quarrels with the Passion play committee, his role choices and his more or less radical reforms led the attention away from the lead actors and re-ignited the battle over textual and dramaturgical

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changes. In 2018, the test play brought the first peak of public attention to the passion preparations for 202025. On the front stage, the test play links tradition to the present and sets the direction for the new Passion production, while on the back stage it not only trains the actors but sensitizes them for the universal topics of their play which have to be transmitted to ever-changing audiences. I will show this now with observations from the Wilhelm Tell play in 2018. It was performed under the direction of Christian Stückl, with Stefan Hageneier as stage designer and Markus Zwink as musical director: the same trio26 who had brought the 2010 Passion play to stage, and does so in 2020/22. 2.1.  Stückl’s production of Tell (2018)

On July  21st, I  visited the third of seven performances of Tell. The Passion theatre was almost sold out, and with buses and coaches packing the streets and visitors swarming into the theatre from every direction, one could almost sense Passion atmosphere. The play was opened by Christian Stückl himself, who told the audience that what we were about to see, from performance to stage to music, was produced solely by Oberammergau citizens, all non-professionals, who would use this play as trial and practice for the Passion play in two years. Stückl would scout for talents among the actors, and so should we. “When you watch them play”, he said, “you can already imagine which role would suit them in the Passion. Who will be the next Jesus? Who will be Mary or Judas? It’s like ‘Oberammergau sucht den Superstar’ ” – laughter from the audience. Stückl’s speech met a very colloquial tone, he used the informal address, “du”, and created a sense of community for the audience, many of whom were, as he said, “Wiederholungstäter”, frequent visitors to the village. After Stückl’s speech, the stage (yet not the open sky) darkened and the play began. There was no expectant silence among the audience though – triggered by Stückl’s speech, discussions would only slowly quiet down during the first minutes of the play. Stückl’s production was based on a close but simplified version of Schiller’s text.27 The reference to the present, or rather, to a bricolage of time periods, was made through costume and stage design. The Habsburg oppressors were dressed in uniforms resembling the Nazi-SS, whereas the Swiss Eidgenossen wore cliché revolutionary Che Guevara costumes. The villagers in their shades of blue and gray reminded me of the 2010 Passion crowds. The stage was designed as a bombed-out village, merely walls, blackened by fire. Yet the passion theatre’s characteristics remained visible in the background, as well as the Oberammergau landscape and open sky28. So on the representational level, too, the play was framed as a part of the Passion play ritual complex, inseparable from the village and its historic mission. Since Stückl had already made clear to any spectator that the players on stage were not professional actors, but Oberammergau laypeople, the play could consequently not be watched without permanently paralleling it to the Passion,

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and to the village. The figures seemed transparent: Jesus shone through Frederik Mayet, who shone through Stauffacher, and future Jesus shone through Tell and Rochus Rückl (who would later become the second Jesus actor in 2022). Second 2010 Jesus Andreas Richter had switched sides and played a convincingly evil Gessler, maybe foreshadowing a role change to High Priest or Pilate, both adequate roles for older players. And the honest mountain villagers fighting their greedy oppressors from the outside world, invoking their rural values and traditions, and standing united for their goal albeit all the quarrels and differences among them, could be too easily confused with the Oberammergauers themselves. In a newspaper interview Stückl drew this parallel too, recounting how the actors, when they first played the Rütli-Schwur-scene had laughed and said: “This is like our community council meeting”.29 Yet Stückl has made it clear in various press interviews that there would be no alpine romantic in Tell. The stage should rather resemble, in his words, a “bombed out Syrian village”,30 his interest lay rather – regardless of location – in the person of the involuntary hero who is forced to fight against the tyrant: “Today we live in a world where many tyrants arise. What happens in the mind of a journalist, who finds himself suddenly captured in a Turkish prison? That’s what I  found interesting, beyond Switzerland”. So finally, in Stückl’s Tell, villagers, Arab Revolutionaries or Che Guevaras, whose quarrels among each other resemble the Oberammergau community politics, find themselves fighting Nazis, while their involuntary leader Tell parallels journalist Deniz Yücel,31 or, alternatively, Jesus. Since Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell version shares a history with Oberammergau of being exploited for Nazi propaganda (Sommer 2015), one interviewer in the Abendzeitung asked whether the nationalism and pathos in Tell wasn’t a problem for Stückl in times of a new right-wing nationalism in Germany. Stückl denied and called the latter “a very different kind of nationalist drivel”. In another interview, he stated that the play had a “timeless relevance” and “would give impulses to re-think conflicts in the world”.32 Against this background, dressing the evil as Nazis should probably counteract the possible association of the play’s pathos with right-wing nationalism and clarify Stückl’s ideological position (also in prospect of the coming Passion). Yet this decision created a bit of friction between front- and back stage, as it was not so well received among some of the actors. “It’s too simple”, one of them complained during a discussion in a local tavern. “If you want show that something is evil, just present it as a Nazi. Very creative”. As some journalists, too, observed, there was never a mere theatrical atmosphere, but the very professional performance of unprofessionalism. “How everything here is so familial and casual”, remarked the Spiegel Online reviewer and went on: “You can meet Tell while having a beer in front of the theatre during the break, and the boy is surrounded by giggling old ladies. During the legendary apple-shot, spectators pull out their cellphones and no one complains”.33 As Zerhoch notes in this volume, in Oberammergau, the stage reaches way beyond the theatre.

134  Céline Molter 2.2.  Oberammergau’s passion Tell: media reviews

In order to show how the previously discussed amalgamation of Oberammergau, the Passion and the production of Tell was taken up and continued in media discourse, I  will discuss three exemplary theatre reviews from various political spectra. Spiegel Online, one of the most frequented German media portals cited Stückl’s introduction and accordingly rated the play under the premises of a casting show for the Passion play for 2020. It is titled: “Germany’s next TopHeiland?” After a short introduction to the Passion play history and remarks on stage and costume, reviewer Bernd Noack turns back to Stückl’s speech: But it is strange, one always thinks about the director’s opening remarks: the Passions’s characters are visible inside Schiller’s characters, and one constantly finds oneself assigning roles, dismissing them and discovering others. Who is the new Jesus Christ Superstar? Frederik Mayet, who impersonates Stauffacher free from ideology, considerate and deliberative? Cengiz Gürör, whose Melchtal is so convincingly short-tempered and radical? And is Eva Reiser, who plays the tough rich heiress, the perfect Mary, or is it Sophie Schuster as Tell’s helplessly condoning wife? Would Andreas Richter, who plays Gessler so evil and inhuman, be the right Judas? Martin Güntner, who converts from suppressor to liberator as Uli von Rudenz would actually be predestined as Saul/Paul. A talentshow: Now the High Council of Oberammergau will meet and decide. . . . And in the end . . . stands Rückel [playing Tell] there, awestruck, like the perfect suffering of Christ. And on this stage, this can only be understood as an explicit candidature for the Redeemer lead in the next passion. Oberammergau’s next Top-Heiland?34 The casting show vocabulary brings English terms into the Passion context: Jesus Christ Superstar and Germany’s next Top-Heiland – especially the language play in the latter combines the old-fashioned term Heiland (Redeemer) with Heidi Klum fanciness and literally integrates past and present. Volks-kultur is metaphorically translated into popular culture, aimed at the potential next generation of Passion visitors. In the left-wing newspaper taz (11 July  2018), reviewer Sabine Leucht focuses on the community and Stückl’s reforms: “It’s not the first non-biblical play in the Herrgottschnitzer-village of Oberammergau, and yet another step on the way of their emancipation from tradition, initiated by Christian Stückl in 1987”. Tradition, I would argue here, is used implicitly synonymous with religion. There is no mentioning of any religious motifs for the Passion play in Leucht’s review, nor in most of the others. The official press release for Tell is just as cautious with the topic, religion only comes up in the statement that the

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roles will be announced in October after a church service. And the taz reviewer treats the stories of Tell and Jesus as similar: On the stage though, there is unambiguousness. Nazi uniforms and an evil laugh identify the henchmen of the Habsburg monarchy, whereas the leaders of the three tribes carry the casual revoluzzer-style. It’s kind of like the Passion: good against evil. Only that here freedom can be won, instead of redemption. But isn’t that the same somehow?35 She finishes her text with a praise of the community: “the whole village recommends itself, all the workers, worriers and brave men, who have overcome their differences and fight convincingly for their matter, even though that matter is just theatre” (ibid.). Teresa Grenzmann’s review in the economy- (center) oriented Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung takes a different angle and associates the Rütli-Schwur-scene with the living pictures from the Passion play: It is one of these odd tableaux vivants which are produced in series in the Oberammergau Passion play, since they became fashionable in the late 18th century, and which nowadays seem to belong to a different era. . . . And yet another memorable picture comes up, when Anton Preisinger, Frederik Mayet and Cengiz Gürör cross their hands for the Rütli-Schwur: Now, the grandson of the Christ-celebrity from 1950 and 1960, who even shares his name, is united with one of the two celebrated lead actors from 2010 and another young man, who, just speculatively, would be a talented Jesus-aspirant for 2020.36 So in Grenzmann’s eyes, the Rütli-Schwur shows past, present, and future Jesus taking a vow together in a living picture. It is peculiar: the performance of a ritual, the Rütli-Schwur, takes place in a ritual performance for Oberammergau: the test play, and it has past, present, and future swear to join forces against evil. Shapiro (2000: 202ss) makes a similar observation, with Stückl’s staging of Shakespeare’s plays: “Those who saw Stückl’s reworking of Romeo and Juliet in 1986 might have felt that Shakespeare had been writing the play with Oberammergau in mind” (ibid.: 204), and: The subplot of Shakespeare’s play [A midsummer night’s Dream (1987)] was tailor-made for Oberammergau: the story of Bottom, Quince, Starveling, and the other rustics who rehearse and perform their much-revised play was a wonderful vehicle for exposing the working of Oberammergau’s own Passion playing. (ibid.: 203) Shapiro admires how Stückl frees those old masterpieces from encrusted traditions and reveals their once revolutionary power, and assumes that he might do

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the same with Oberammergau’s own piece, the Passion play. Stückl’s rehearsal and casting plays are identity work, for Oberammergauers, and for their audience alike. Aronson-Lehavi (2017: 56) notes about the Oberammergau Passion play, that as in religious theatre in general, here too, a profoundly anachronistic design of dramatic time enables the artists to create timeless images, that simultaneously refer to an imagined past of the sacred history as well as to a more concrete present. Tradition, in the case of Oberammergau, is a rich pool of rituals, family histories, anecdotes, anachronisms, and quirks to draw from, to create depth, and to “feed the experts” since Holzbrod and his contemporaries (the author of this text included), and thereby to maintain public interest in the Passion play. This might be another speciality of Oberammergau, not just in but beyond the play: to create mystery through symbolically charged acts like the Rütli scene in Tell, and let the dedicated experience the joy of (allegedly?) deciphering them. In the given examples about the Tell play, it is the media experts who do the remembrance work for Oberammergau and thereby legitimate its singularity and contribute to its trade mark building.

3. Epilogue: the 2020 ritual proclamation of the roles On 20 October 2018, Oberammergau celebrates the public announcement of the lead parts. After a catholic service, the crowd ( judging from the languages and conversation topics around us mostly tourists) followed the Trachtenverein in their traditional costumes and marched to the Passion theatre, stopping along the way for a short speech and blessing at the protestant church. The theatre was packed, the stage had been designed for this special purpose with a cross, resembling the one in front of which the vow had allegedly taken place, and Bavarian TV had installed their cameras for live broadcasting. This second service starts with a short speech from the mayor, Arno Nunn. Then play director Stückl welcomes everyone. The Passion choir and orchestra, whose members have already been cast, performs songs from the Passion play. The Regional Bishop asks a group of 2010 lead actors in a staged interview about their experience as participants – the answers had clearly been rehearsed before. Tell actors Rochus Rückl und Cengiz Gürör read the Pestmatrikel together with 9-year-old Sophie Maderspacher, recounting the story of how the plague had hit the village and calling out the names of the villagers who had died back then. Towards the climax of the show, Maderspacher repeats the vow, that Oberammergauers would proceed to play the Passion just as their ancestors had once promised. A children’s choir, mostly in traditional costumes, rushes on stage and sings the Oberammergau hymn song from the Passion Heil Dir – and

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Stückl invites all the Oberammergauers in the audience to join (Figure 8.2). Finally, the Bavarian Minister of Arts contextualizes the performances and praises the commitment of all the participants. Although Stückl and the mayor repeatedly stated that this was an event “from Oberammergauers for Oberammergauers”, the whole performance suggests otherwise. For Oberammergauers, there would not have been the need to interview participants, and to contextualize the story. This was maybe a ritual, but it was turned into an impressive public relations event for potential visitors, and for TV audiences. Some Oberammergauers had been invited to it, a great part of them participated either as artists, family members of artists, or because they were members of the Trachtenverein, but another great part had decided not to go there, because it was just “staged for the tourists”. Of course, there are always objectors and protesters, but for the dedicated local Passion participants and fans, there were other, more private events to participate (Figure 8.3). Like a well-attended motto party, “Who will become the right felon?” (Wer wird der rechte Schächer?), in a local tavern, where role decisions could be discussed before and after the announcement and people could bet on the lead parts (yet hardly any of the serious candidates for the leads showed up there, for good reason).

Figure 8.2  Children’s choir. Oberammergau, 20 October 2018. Photo: CM

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Figure 8.3 Invitation to motto party on the election of Passion play performers. Photo: CM

After the service, the live broadcast ends and the crowds move accompanied by a huge number of journalists to the front entrance of the Passion theatre where the actual ritual of the role proclamation will take place. Traditionally, the names are written with chalk on a board, so the audience can start guessing

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when the first letters appear. This year, the old “chalkboard-master” who had been in charge since 1950 has retired and is replaced for the first time by a young woman from the village. The audience applauds both of them. Before the ritual starts, Stückl addresses those present: “I  have chosen many young people, and I hope that the old won’t be disappointed. We have to make sure to include the younger generation, to survive in the future”. The proclamation begins, and Frederik Mayet, who as the first Jesus to be named, is loudly applauded, just like Rochus Rückl, “Tell”, who will also play Jesus. When Cengiz Gürör gets named for Judas, the cheers intensify: he will be the first Muslim playing a lead part. Stückl had made clear before that Gürör would probably play a disciple, since he was still too young for Jesus. He would not yet put the burden of publicity for a potential Muslim Jesus on his shoulders. Judas the traitor, of course, is still a controversial choice, as many in the audience mumble. But it is also one of the most interesting roles for one of the most talented players, who has proved his potential in Tell, as Stückl will argue later. Surprised cheers follow the naming of Abdullah Karaca, Stückl’s second director, for the part of Nikodemus. So there would be two Muslims playing in the 2020/22 Passion. Some younger people have brought beer, they watch from the side in groups of friends. As the roles become less known, the tourist crowd dissolves slowly, only the villagers and the dedicated stay. Soon after the role proclamation, the next ritual of the Passion preparation phase follows: The Haar- und Barterlass, marking the day from which on every participant, except for the “Romans” stops cutting their hair and beard to let it grow for the Passion, and thereby, to start “growing into our roles” (2010 and 2020 Jesus, Frederik Mayet, in a TV interview). The role proclamation is not only the official kickoff for the Passion season, but it is also a crucial moment of crisis, in which changes are made that will always only please parts of the population (and of the frequent visitors), and most certainly offend others. Oberammergau has grown over the years, and it has become much more diverse. Together with local activists, Stückl has opened the tradition for women, Protestants, and now Muslims, all of them long-established Oberammergauers. Every decision suffered backlashes. But as the public of course plays an integral role in the (commercial) survival of the Passion play tradition, winning public approval for role assignments can stabilize the inner frictions caused by controversial decisions. As I  hope to have shown, stardom has a long history of being integrated in the Oberammergau Passion play promotion. It may have begun in the late 19th century with famous Jesus actors, but since Stückl’s coup d’état, focus has shifted more and more towards the play director. With this shift of attention, the discussion of individual acting skills (or hair style) has moved on to a metadiscourse on how the play is to be directed, financed, and organized. Whatever happens in 2022, there will be two Jesuses, but only one director.

Notes 1 Based on field notes by the author, 21 July 2018. 2 “Pestspiel” is a play about the founding myth of the Oberammergau Passion play.

140  Céline Molter 3 The citizens of Oberammergau refer with this term to the complex process of choosing the lead roles as well as to the ritual public proclamation of the final choices. In Oberammergau it carries a meaning beyond the literal translation, “selection of players”, which is why the German term will be used here. 4 Private conversation notes, also mentioned in an interview with Tagesspiegel, see Prosinger and Kippenberger 2020. 5 For the concept of singularity, see Reckwitz 2017: 11ss and Mariano Barbato’s chapter in this volume. 6 Waddy 2010: 137, original citations from GAO: AXV/123. See pp.  138ss for more information on the players and the committee. 7 For example, the meeting transcript of the players’ subcommittee meeting on 4 October  1933, in which the proposals for the main roles are collected for the Passion Committee. Most of the proposals were unanimously approved – something that never happened again in later years. Yet the absence of documented dispute does of course not prove consensus and is rather suspicious, especially during this historic period. 8 Schwenger, A. 1946. Schwäbisches Tagblatt 103: 4 (30 December 1946). Brown was the color of the SA uniforms and hence became the signature color of the Nazi regime. 9 “Zweckel” is wrong spelling, his correct name is Hans Zwink. 10 Schwenger, A. 1946. Schwäbisches Tagblatt 103: 4 (30 December 1946). Translation by the author. 11 Ibid., translation by the author. 12 N. N. 1946. Tageszeitung 42: 3, 20 February 1946, translation by the author. 13 Ibid., translation by the author. 14 Passion play committee meeting transcript, 14 October 1949. 15 K. R. 1949. Neues Weilheimer Tagblatt 33: 3 (10 November  1949), translation by the author. 16 Passion committee meeting transcript, 14 November 1949: 216. 17 Election day transcript, 8 November 1949 (among the Passion play committee meeting transcripts, pp. 189, 191, 193–5). 18 K. R. 1949. Neues Weilheimer Tagblatt 33: 3 (10 November  1949), translation by the author. 19 Passion play committee meeting transcript, 14 November 1949, 215–20. 20 Election day transcript, 8 November 1949 (among the Passion play committee meeting transcripts, p. 192); translation by the author. 21 Passion play committee meeting transcript, 22 August  1959, p.  6; translation by the author, emphasis added. 22 Ibid., p. 3; the certificate is attached to the transcript. 23 See e.g. the heading in Süddeutsche Zeitung 143, 5 May 1979, p. 16: “Kein Starkult um Christus in Oberammergau”. 24 It must be noted, that, like most Bible-based events, the Oberammergau Passion play is dominated by men, at least on stage. Yet of course the role choices for the female parts were also widely discussed in the media, especially from the 1960s to the 1980s, when the main framing was the chosen girl’s reputation, looks, and marital status. The role of women in the Oberammergau Passion play is a huge topic of its own, which will be discussed elsewhere (e.g., Thoran 1990, Molter 2023). 25 The nomination of Abdullah Karaca as second Passion play director in 2015 was already broadly covered, since the young director with Turkish family roots would not fit the still conservative-catholic public image of the Oberammergau Passion play. Yet the village was busy with other projects and productions in the meantime until 2018. 26 From 1990 to 2010, Otto Huber, as second director, played a decisive role in the dramaturgical design and content revision of the Passion play. He still supports the director as a consultant, continuously pursuing the erasure of anti-Judaism from the historical play text.

“Jesus-Casting” as a Public Event  141 27 “I have cut the too-long play down considerably. . . . But no new poetry has been written. With the means of deleting and setting modern German words, I am trying to make the language so that lay actors can also get it into their mouths”. Christian Stückl in N. N. 2018. Frankfurter Neue Presse Online, 29 June 2018, translation by the author. 28 The stage of the Passion theatre is roofless. 29 Stückl in Hejny: Abendzeitung München Online, 7 June 2018, translation by the author. 30 Ibid., translation by the author. 31 Although he doesn’t name him, Stückl supposedly refers to the case of Deniz Yücel, a German journalist with Turkish roots who from February 2017 to February 2018 was in Turkish custody on remand for alleged “terror propaganda”. The case sparked massive public interest for imprisoned journalists and a solidarity campaign by German artists, politicians, and celebrities. See, e.g., Gottschlich 2018. taz online, 16 February 2018. 32 Stückl in Knoll, L. 2018. BR Online, 7 June 2018; translation by the author. 33 Furthermore, when I visited the Heimatsound music festival which took place in the Passion theatre on July 27/28, causing a two week break in the middle of the Tell season, I was surprised to find that the whole stage set of the play had been left unchanged for the festival. Music bands were playing their concerts in front of the bombed-out village of the Tell stage in front of the well-known Passion diorama stage. The festival host from the Bayerische Rundfunk didn’t mention the play though when he commented on the very special-looking stage. He just joked: “it reminds me of my old student housing”. And the main actors from Tell could be found selling beer outside the theatre during the festival. 34 Noack, B. 2018. 7 July 2018; translation by the author. 35 Leucht, S. 2018. taz Online, 11 July 2018; translation by the author. 36 Grenzmann, T. 2018. FAZ Online, 9 July 2018; translation by the author.

Works cited Aronson-Lehavi, Sh. 2017. Dialectical Aesthetics of Change and Continuity in the 2010 Oberammergau Passion Play. In: The Oberammergau Passion Play. Essays on the 2010 Performance and the Centuries-Long Tradition, ed. K. J. Wetmore. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 53–64. Gottschlich, J. 2018. Endlich wieder blauer Himmel. taz Online, 16 February 2018. Grenzmann, T. 2018. Passionsspiele in Oberammergau. Tyrannenmörder trifft Trümmerfrau. FAZ Online, 9 July 2018. Hejny, M. 2018. Christian Stückl über ‘Wilhelm Tell’. Abendzeitung München Online, 7 June 2018. Holzbrod, A. 1899/1900. Bei den Oberammergauern. Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte XIV: 293–4. K. R. 1949. Entscheidung in Oberammergau. Eine glückliche Mischung von Passionsveteranen und nachstrebender Jugend. Neues Weilheimer Tagblatt 33 (10 November 1949): 3. Knoll, L. 2018. Premiere im Passionstheater Oberammergau. Wilhelm Tell im Stil von Christian Stückl. BR Online, 7 June 2018. Leucht, S. 2018. Die braven Männer proben den Aufstand. taz Online, 11 July 2018. Mason, D. 2017. An Interview with Frederik Mayet (Actor, Christ). In: The Oberammergau Passion Play. Essays on the 2010 Performance and the Centuries-Long Tradition, ed. K. J. Wetmore. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 160–7. Michaels, A. 2003. Zur Dynamik von Ritualkomplexen. Diskussionsbeiträge des SFB 619 “Ri­tualdynamik” der Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, eds. D. Harth and id., no. 3.

142  Céline Molter Molter, C. 2023. Christian Theme Parks and the Oberammergau Passion Play. Unpublished diss. University of Mainz. N. N. 1946. War Pontius Pilatus Nazi? Judas flickt Autoreifen. – Gespräch über Passionsspiele mit dem Dorfpfarrer . . . Tageszeitung Bayern 42/3 (20 February 1946). N. N. 1969. Jede will Maria sein. Praline, n. no., n. p. [informations cut off the sheet], 7 May 1969. N. N. 2018. [Interview:] ‘Wilhelm Tell’: Christian Stückl über die Aktualität des 200 Jahre alten Stückes. Frankfurter Neue Presse Online, 29 June 2018. Noack, B. 2018. Sommertheater-Premiere. Germany’s Top-Heiland? Spiegel Online, 7 July 2018. Prosinger, J. and S. Kippenberger. 2020. ‘Jesus war mir nicht vergönnt’. Wie Christian Stückl für die Oberammergauer Passionsspiele lebt. Tagesspiegel Online, 27 January 2020. Rappmannsberger, F. J. 2000 [1960]. Das große Gelübde. Oberammergau. Legende und Wirklichkeit. In: Leiden schafft Passion. Oberammergau und sein Spiel, eds. G. Holzheimer, E. Tworek, and H. Woyke. Munich: A1 Verlag, 251–2. Reckwitz, A. 2017. Die Gesellschaft der Singularitäten. Zum Strukturwandel der Moderne. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Schaller, St. 1982. Die ersten hundert Jahre des Oberammergauer Passionsspiels. Neues zum Beginn und zur Textgestalt. Jahrbuch für Volkskunde N. F. 5: 78–125. Schwenger, A. 1946. War Oberammergau ein ‘braunes Nest’? Schwäbisches Tagblatt 103/4 (30 December 1946). Shapiro, J. 2000. Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World’s Most Famous Passion Play. New York: Pantheon. Sommer, F. 2015. Ein Feierkult um Schiller? Untersuchung der Schillerfeiern im Dritten Reich in seiner Geburtsstadt Marbach am Neckar. Marburg: Tectum Verlag. Stenzel, J. 2017. Der Körper Jesu. Der Oberammergauer Christus als Chiffre alternativer Männlichkeiten im ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert. In: Re/produktionsmaschine Kunst. Kategorisierungen des Körpers in den Darstellenden Künsten, eds. F. Kreuder, E. Koban, and H. Voss. Bielefeld: transcript, 325–38. Stückl, Ch. 1999. Leinwand und Bühne. Im Gespräch mit Otto Huber und Reinhold Zwick. In: Von Oberammergau nach Hollywood. Wege der Darstellung Jesu im Film, eds. R. Zwick and O. Huber. Köln: KiM, 259–82. Thoran, B. 1990. Frauenrolle und Rolle der Frauen in der Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Passionsspiele. In: Hört, sehet, weint und liebt. Passionsspiele im alpenländischen Raum, eds. M. Henker, E. Dünninger, and E. Brockhoff. München: Süddeutscher Verlag, 113–20. Unterstöger, H. 1979. Kein Starkult um Christus in Oberammergau. Das Passionskomitee besetzt diese Rolle mit zwei Darstellern/Eine Wahl ohne Überraschungen. Süddeutsche Zeitung 143/16 (5 May 1979). Waddy, H. 2010. Oberammergau in the Nazi Era: The Fate of a Catholic Village in Hitler’s Germany. Oxford Scholarship Online. Weismantel, L. n. d. Die Pestnot anno 1633. Das Spiel vom Oberammergauer Passionsgelübde. Oberammergau: Gemeinde Oberammergau. Newspaper Articles. Transcripts (source: Gemeindearchiv Oberammergau [GAO]) Players’ subcommittee (“Spielerausschuss”) meeting transcript, 4 October 1933 Passion play committee meeting transcript, 14 October 1949

“Jesus-Casting” as a Public Event  143 Election day transcript, 8 November  1949 (among the Passion play committee meeting transcripts) Passion play committee meeting transcript, 14 November 1949 Passion play committee meeting transcript, 22 August 1959 Passion play committee meeting transcript 8 September 1959

9 Let it Grow The Holy Hairstyles of Oberammergau Julia Stenzel

The Passion play is a hairy affair:1 Flipping through the role portraits and early theatre photography up to the voluminous Photo books appearing in several languages today makes it obvious that the iconography of the Italian Renaissance has played its part in establishing the exemplary Christ and Saints of Oberammergau (cf. Moser 1987). Thus, as it has been an iconographical convention at least since Early Modern times, the theatrical version of the Son of God conventionally wears long, slightly curled hair, mostly blonde or brown: The Jesus Christ of the Passion stage recalls images carved into the collective imaginary of European Christendom. Though, for the 17th and 18th centuries, it can be assumed that the holified heads on stage wore artificial hair; wigs and false beards have been standard parts of the Oberammergau costume ever since (cf. Günzler and Zwink 1950: 15). Nevertheless, in the 19th century, when the Passion play was transformed into a veritable trademark and worldwide tourist attractor, the growth of ‘real’, ‘authentic’, ‘individual’, of ‘natural’ human body hair, seemingly out of a sudden, gets an essential part of Oberammergau’s performance of identity. Hair growth emerges as a material sign of the actors’ intense, long-time involvement in the production (cf. Spear 2011: 837, 843–4). It visibilizes their continuous growing together as a community of hereditary players, growing apart from the rest of the world. The hair frames the actors as sacred figures even beyond the actual performance; thus, it functions as a margin that embodies the specific chronotopology defining Oberammergau as the village of the Passion play. By allowing their hair to grow, the impersonators of the biblical figures distinguish themselves as part of a singular ‘we’, a latent communio sanctorum (community of saints). Departing from the history of hair in Oberammergau, this chapter investigates the materiality of human body hair and its potential to be charged with charisma deriving from the performance of the Passion and the sacred figures embodied on stage. It shows how the presumed ‘naturalness’ of hair matters, producing authenticity and materializing devotion, thus functioning as an interface and reservoir of time. The obligatory free-growing hair is manifesting the subordination of the actors to a biopolitical regime derived from an iconographic tradition that, by the beginning of the 19th century, was brought to scenic life in Oberammergau. Ironically, it was at the same point in its history DOI: 10.4324/9781003106319-12

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that the play was not only revised but rewritten by the Geistlicher Rath (Spiritual Counselor) Othmar Weis, who erased any baroque indecencies to better meet the expectations of the clergy as well as secular authorities of that time (for the different text versions cf. Schaller 1950, 1982). By reenacting the iconic remains of the Passion in early modern Europe, the re-invented play was supposed to return to its pre-modern tradition, but in the manner of 19th-century historicism and theology. Paradoxically, the then-established attempts to materially verify the authenticity and effectuality of the reenacted Passion gave way to its pluralization and deconstructive exploration, open to a world of implicit and liquid religion (de Groot 2009) as well as multiple secularities (WohlrabSahr and Kleine 2021; Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchardt 2012). Thus, the following considerations engage with the techniques, practices, and materialities involved in reenacting sacred suffering and bodily stigmatization, the extraction of relics from stigmatized bodies, and the performance of charisma. The main focus is on the ambivalent function of hair and hairstyle: Although it is a part and product of living bodies, entangled with biopolitical practices, hair can be made use of as a malleable material, subject to tradition, fashion, and individual lifestyle. Moreover, it can remain as a fragment of a deceased body but also be separated from a body that continues to live and produce new bodily material. In both cases, it can be transformed into a memento or even a relic. Finally, to explore how the hair of Oberammergau matters beyond the Passion play, the chapter considers, as a current case in the context of the 2022 Passion play season, an exhibition resulting from an artistic research project involving the last season’s performers’ hair. The first part of the chapter (1.) addresses hair as a body part and a material grown on and by the body, concentrating on how ‘natural’ hair became essential for the Oberammergau Passion play. At least since the early 19th century, though, hair has been seen as an index for not only a psychological but also bodily transformation of the impersonators of the Passion during the preparation and rehearsal phase (model: resurrection in the flesh). A second part (2.) will elaborate on the concept of charisma in relation to that of stigma (Lipp 1985), applying it to the holy hairstyles of Oberammergau. The third part of the chapter focuses on the Catholic relic typology that allows for the mobilization and stabilization of personal charisma (3.). Relics can be seen as charged remains that allow for the reenactment and thus activation of the charisma ascribed to holy figures. Practices involving the activation of and by relics follow a logic of contiguity: By touch and contagious transfer, relics can be either produced, recharged, or even used as a means of charging: Objects and even human bodies can be enchanted, healed, or otherwise transformed by bringing them in physical contact with the relic. After it has been cut, hair as a body fragment can be auratized and transformed into a relic; but it also can be and has been used as a substance and material in arts and crafts. The hair of the former Jesus has a reciprocal relation to the body it stems from, evidencing the same performance through which it gained its charisma.

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Consequently, the last part of the chapter (4.) focuses on the specific materiality of hair, significantly when transforming the hair of a living body into a relic is concerned that perpetuates its charismatic potential and makes it transportable through space and time. Thus, the concluding section focuses on an exhibition in the Oberammergau Museum conceived and built around hair as a material signifier, pointing toward an immaterial context. The exhibition associated with the 2022 Passion play season adopts the semantic web of Oberammergau’s hair: Entitled (IM)MATERIAL ([IM]MATERIELL), the show involves the precarious materiality of human body hair as a substance that can be spun and woven, felted and frisked, still carrying the genetic information encoding the body the hair stems from. The exhibition envisions the hair traditionally cut after the dernière as remains of the performances and a relic, signifying entanglement and interweaving as well as individuality. Therefore, it explores a topic crucial for the Passion play as a communal and communitarian affair beyond Oberammergau.

1. The hair of Oberammergau Since the mid-19th century, any visitor travelling to Oberammergau to witness the Passion play has been likely to be well aware that the anachronistic hairstyles of the participants are the visible and palpable result of a months-long preparation, involving not only the improvement of acting skills and the performance on stage (cf. Stenzel 2022). To an even greater extent, it affects the participants’ personal lives, even beyond the Passion play. As the covering or cutting of hair is related to admission to the monastery, the inverse obligation to let it grow both signals and materializes belonging and subordination to a more than human, transcendent order – at least temporarily. The end of the season is traditionally performed and celebrated in a carnivalesque, collective haircut. Therefore, it is not surprising that, in the narratives, imagery and material culture agglomerating in the Passion play, hair is conceived and conceptualized as a thing and a body part, a material and a substance of a specific kind. It has been loaded with the effort invested in the month-long rehearsal and performance process and charismatized by bodily assimilation to the holy figures of the biblical stories. Thus, the impressive beards and long hair on the Passion stage are far more than an iconographic convention. Their authenticity has to be proven over and again. It is guaranteed by an institutionalized practice that can be estimated as the opening ritual of each Passion play season: Traditionally, the impersonators of the main characters are elected on Ash Wednesday of the year before the premiere of the season. The hair of the actors is not part of the costumes but of the actors’ bodies, which is performatively promised by the so-called hair and beard decree (Haar- und Barterlass; cf. Fritsch 2021). The proclamation of the decree coincides with that of the main actors and opens a months-long rehearsal and preparation phase. It solemnly requests the on-stage participants, except Pilate and the Roman soldiers, not to get ah ­ aircut until the end of the Passion play season (Mohr and Stenzel 2020).

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The obedience to the hair and beard decree, materializing in the growing hair, stands for the convergence of the actors’ bodies with their roles and the reemergence of the biblical figures on-stage and beyond the theatre. Essentially, it is incorporated in a set of rules that aims to authenticate and reproduce the singularity (Reckwitz 2017; Barbato in this volume) of the play and its village, involving the players’ everyday life. However, it indexes the emergence of a community of the Passion play as a transitory communio sanctorum. Thus, it visibilizes both singularization and its suspension in participation and collectivity. Moreover, since the hair and beard decree was established, the form of authenticity it supposedly guarantees experienced continuous change and transformation. Opening a phase of intensified latency one year before the actual performance series commences, the hair and beard decree ostensively indicates the specific chronology that contributes to distinguishing Oberammergau from the rest of the world and that is defined by long but predictable cycles, personal dedication, and the perpetuated reenactment of seemingly anachronistic models of community and communio. Moreover, the growing of ‘real’ hair and ‘authentic’ beards makes the passage of time devoted to preparing the holy play visible and palpable. Thus, the semi-ritual haircut after the last performance can be seen as emitting remnants that stand for the separation of the holy figures and their impersonators. In these remnants, the ‘performance remains’ (Schnei­ der 2011): the practice of impersonation leading to charismatic charging is stored in the hair. In fictional and documentary texts of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the hair of the former Jesus on stage has been re-read as bearing essential characteristics of a Catholic relic. However, it does not rely on the death of a martyr or saint but their disappearance from a singular theatrical constellation, the de-figuration of an elevated situation (Mohr and Stenzel 2022). However, in reminding the performance of the Passion play, they evoke and evidence the reenactment of exemplary lives and the Passion of Christ, analogizing it to Christian martyrium. Undoubtedly, the reenactment of Jesus as a paradigm to follow is deeply rooted in medieval devotional practices: As sculpted and painted images, the theatrical representation of the suffering Christ, the Maries, and the apostles was seen as a legitimate means of channelling the affects of fear and sorrow and transforming them into misericordia (mercy toward the neighbor), compassio (toward the suffering Christ), and the practice of charity. The r­elation between martyrdom as Imitatio Christi and the reenactment or re-performance of the Crucifixion has been investigated in greater detail before, with an emphasis on the function of the Arma Christi (Stenzel 2022). In the discussion to elaborate on now, though, the focus is rather on the modern transformation and dissemination of the compassion and imitation models. The accomplishment of the imitatio Christi is reassured by the body’s performance in producing ‘authentic’ hair. In the 19th century, the imitatio as a theatrical model in Oberammergau is steadily transformed into a paragon of his impersonators. Thus, every body of Jesus on stage enters this paragon involving his

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predecessors in the role: The quest for the most authentic Christ is also a social affair. Even today, most of the main actors would have a haircut before the one-and-a-half-year-long fasting period. This creates a starting point in an implicit competition for magnificent long hair. The hair authenticates the play, which, by this, is turned into an agon of bodies. Accordingly, the hair and beard function to increase authenticity: Every Christ on stage must come closer to a fulfilment of his role than that of former Jesuses on the Oberammergau scene, reassuring the singularity of the Passion play compared to the numerous playing traditions all over the world. Today, it is not this compassion-like closeness to the Passion of the Christ it points at but a somehow diffuse sense of anachronism. By abandoning wigs, the Passion play infers to be more legitimate than its origins by claiming to come closer to an alleged historical reality. However, the reenactment as an interface of salvation history and the competition with historical bodies today’s performers engage in is not established through mimesis alone but by biopolitical practices, making the body produce what it is supposed to physiologically. Thus, the sanctified figures of the Passion play are not so much represented and acted out but produced and presented as physical realities on stage. The performances of each new season and its aesthetics enter not only into a tradition but a virtual agon with it. In line with the emergence of historiography in the 19th century, a process starts in which authenticity aligns itself with several reference values. Today, it is mainly the metaphors of growing into the roles and growing together as a community that shapes the perspective on the hair and beard decree and its relevance for the play and players. The decree, it is repeatedly emphasized, allows the impersonators of Jesus and his disciples to prepare themselves, over time, to ‘grow into’ the holy figures they are supposed to represent on stage. In a report by Bayerischer Rundfunk 2020, Frederik Mayet, the Jesus of 2010 and 2022, was paraphrased: ‘Just like the hair, he is now growing back into the role’.2 Moreover, the hair and beard decree also acts as a great leveller: Significantly, the term ‘hair and beard decree’ originally belonged to the military context. In the early 1970s’ FRG Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces), it was intended to strengthen discipline and order, visualized in the obligatory haircut. Even if the Oberammergau convention is, in fact, closer to older military fashions, what it has in common with its military-historical origins is the idea of subjecting the individual to public interests and benefits. Like military hairstyle regulations contributing to a standardization of the individual and visualizing his inclusion in a superordinate context of order, the hair growth for the Passion play demonstrates the player’s dedication to the common cause. However, as a loose flipping through the illustrated volumes of the last Passion play seasons infers, the hair and beard decree has been subject not only to historical imaginations of longhaired yet attractive Saints but also to contemporary hair fashions. When scrolling the illustrated volumes of the past playing seasons, it is evident that the Oberammergau beards and hair have grown alongside the respective

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hairstyle conjunctures. Pictures of 1980 show a Jesus who wears his hair barely longer than any of his coevals. In contrast, nowadays, the player’s long hair hardly stands out in the context of hipster fashion and male buns. At the first reading of the (later postponed) 2020 season at Oberammergau’s ‘Kleines Theater’ (7 December 2019), you did not know with everyone pushing through the narrow entrance area whether they belonged to the community or were external observers. Some of the most impressive beards belonged not to players but to journalists. In Oberammergau, long beards and hair function as a short cut, both singling out those involved on stage and tagging the village as the village of the Passion play: “Mit dem Haar- und Barterlass beginnt im Ort eine ganz besondere, vom Passionsgedanken erfüllte Zeit”,3 as a staff member of the press office states in the official blog of the Passion play 2020 (Greza 2019). Thus, the hair of the Passion demonstrates the totalizing effect of Oberammergau as an institution, affecting even the participants’ everyday lives. It is instrumentalized in PR strategies to authenticate the Passion play as a reenactment of biblical stories. The organological metaphor shows itself to be a fertile instrument of self-curation. It qualifies as such not only because it is based on a collectively supported biopolitical intervention: Along with the hair, the village grows into the fulfilled time of the Passion play, and it grows together in its appearance and visibly actualizes its latent identity as the locus and topos of the Passion play. ‘Oberammergau’ as a place of Passion begins to manifest as a fabric of history and stories, individual and collective identity, physical and mental transformation. Nevertheless, this also means that an invisible line is drawn between them and the uninvolved others in Oberammergau, for the socium of Oberammergau is by no means monolithic. However, the biopolitics of the play is also linked to a notion of theatre and performance. In any case, more is demanded of the actors’ bodies than in the 18th century. Although counterproductive for the aim of magnificent hair and beards, the aforementioned practice of the last haircut creates a common starting point in an implicit competition for magnificent long hair that proves authenticity to the play. Significantly, this last haircut has since long been accompanied by the media. However, with the multiplied PR strategy of the Passion play officials, the idea of performance has recently been accentuated. Actors are encouraged to regularly send selfies to the press office to be published as beard growth time lapses. After the season’s postponement in March 2020, a TV report told that the impersonator of Judas had cut his hair all by himself and quietly at home. Thus, he performed a symbolic act: his hair should only grow for the Passion play; without this task, it had no justification.

2. Stigma and charisma: on the chargeability of bodies German sociologist Wolfgang Lipp described the voluntary submission to martyrdom as the culmination not only of following Christ but also of a process of stigmatization and as an almost paradigmatic turning point from the stigma

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of social exclusion into the charisma of holiness: “[D]ie erlösende Kraft, die Opferhandlungen innewohnt, [muss] ihren Trägern und Bewirkern in der Tat charismatischen Glanz verleihen. Jesus, der Geschundene, ist auch Christus, der Verklärte” (Lipp 1985: 225).4 In the legends of the Christian Saints, martyrdom is usually preceded by a series of self-stigmatizing acts that do not necessarily involve physical pain and torture but do implicate acts of discontinuity, biographical or chronotopological cuts: Thus, for example, the renunciation of the family and social environment, the abandonment of a permanent residence or worldly possessions tag and marginalize the blood witness even before they receive physical stigmata through violence and torture. By disengaging from worldly relations, the prospective martyr engages in the ‘other’ order of a communio sanctorum. The model of stigmatization, however metaphorically transferable, remains related to the stigmata of Christ, which are received in the process of Crucifixion and identify the (charismatic) risen Christ as the stigmatized one. However, they are always tied to processes of constellation and reconstellation of human and non-human agents. Thus, rather than considering ‘charisma’ an individual attribute or a divine gift of grace to those who are supposed to be dignified, I will argue that the epithet ‘charismatic’ qualifies either situations and site-specific processes that involve human and non-human, even immaterial agency. Thus, complementing the well-known sociological definition by Max Weber (Weber 1978[1922]: 241), and extending the dynamics of stigmatization as Lipp described them, the production of charisma, experienced by the agents involved as a form of social energy, comes into sight ( Joosse 2014; Mohr and Stenzel 2022; Vedeler 2018): In Oberammergau, hair growth works as a visualization of increasing charismatic authority. The growing hair evidences the body’s performance, bearing its genetics and indexing it in color, shape, and structure. However, it is also involved in the emergence of charisma from the reenactment of biblical figures. The singularity of Oberammergau and its overtly specific, historically contingent theatrical constellation claims a universal impact on the charismatic situations it generates. Thus, its dynamics are still backgrounded by a logic of stigma and charisma, correlating practices of singularization and exclusion on both personal and collective levels. Stigma is a visible marker of difference and distinction. Departing from a view of stigma as a scar that points toward ‘the fact of having had a wound’ (Bréhier 1970: 32) of a specific kind, a wound that healed but that may start bleeding again and thus reperform the act of hurting, I aim to understand the specificity of the cut of hair, violating the integrity of physical appearance without injuring any bodily function. The cycle of the growth and cut of hair can be seen as deliberate but transitory transfiguration, inversely reenacting the act of stigmatization: First, in the growth of hair and subordination to a system of disciplining, transforming one’s body into a sacred body. Second, in the cut that cuts the human body out of the sacred logic of inhabitation: It is the hair that remains and continues to index the Passion play. The stigmatizing cut can be seen as a model of the production of relics of touch, bearing the charisma of the impersonation of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless,

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this is not how the story of the hair of Oberammergau goes on. Starting in the late 19th century, when the specific masculinity of Jesus on stage became a matter of concern, depictions of women trying to hijack the impersonator of Jesus – or at least one of his locks – get notorious (cf. Stenzel: What kind of man, in this volume; Mohr and Stenzel 2022). Hair as a material remaining from the performance can be translated from the order of relics in many ways to a different logic described here as the order of spolia: As a fetish, souvenir, or material sign of shared identity. By the example of hair, the following parts will demonstrate how attending, remembering, and materially evoking the Passion play as an elevated situation can function when the Christian salvation story ceases to be a matter of course.

3. Relics and remains Not surprisingly, since the second half of the 19th century, when the Passion play started to attract an international audience and contribute significantly to an emerging local tourist industry, Oberammergau was also blamed for turning the sacred representation of the Passion into an economical affair, making it mere theatre and assuming, as Richard Burton pointed it, “the histrionic phase” (Burton 1881: 50). As a response, the community of Oberammergau always claimed that their Passion play gained legitimacy through being part of a broader tradition and singularity by following this tradition until today. The last two parts of the chapter aim to explore how the presentation of hair on- and off-head contributes to establishing a specific time of the Passion play; a time that goes beyond the actual performance on stage and serves to materialize the asserted singularity of Oberammergau and stabilize it despite the fact that the Passion play entered a phase of pluralization and transformation. For the concept of relics and spolia has been explained in greater detail before (Stenzel 2022, cf. also Mohr and Stenzel 2022), it will only be outlined briefly here and furthered where necessary. I first assume that [a] relic is ontologically different from a representation or image: it is not a mere symbol or indicator of divine presence, it is an actual physical embodiment of it, each particle encapsulating the essence of the departed person, pars pro toto, in its entirety. (Walsham 2010: 9) More specifically, the notion of relic I complemented by the concept of spolium departs from the Catholic dogmatics of relic veneration. In this logic, the relic appears as an object that conserves and transports specific beneficial energy (cf. Vedeler 2018). Thus, it may be used to charge or recharge bodies or things that get in physical touch with it, providing them with the ability to heal (physically, psychologically, and spiritually) or empower. In the three-level model of relics that defines veneration practices since early medieval times, body parts of Saints and typically also the Arma Christi, the instruments of

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torture and stigmatization involved in the Passion of the Christ, occupy the highest position of first-order relics. However, the hair of any figure supposed to be sanctified counts as a relic, thus a relic that does not necessarily index the preceding death of the body it stems from, other than bones or other body parts (cf. Stenzel 2022; Mohr and Stenzel 2020). As outlined earlier, the hair of Oberammergau has been seen as charged by the charisma emerging from the holified bodies on stage, thus, structurally, bearing significant similarities to a relic in the Christian Catholic logic. Inversely, the growing hair is steadily distinguishing and holifying the actors’ bodies, transforming them into impersonations of Jesus and his contemporaries. Thus, in the reenactment of the biblical stories, hair functions as an interface between a biblical and an eschatological ‘then’ and a historical and contemporary ‘now’, between saints and players. Although it is significantly different from a relic stemming from the body of a saint, it is brought forth in the process of assimilation into a holy figure. To further understand these dynamics, it is helpful to take a closer look at the aforementioned typology of relics established by Catholic practices of relic veneration, despite its blurred margins and vague definitions. The order of relics elaborated in European Christianity over the centuries is based on a logic of touch and contiguity in two respects. The first relies on the material involvement in the Passion of Christ, and the second on the grade of relation to sacred bodies. Thus, for Roman Catholic dogma, relics fall into one of three categories. The first category includes every object involved in the torture and death of Christ and every surviving part of the bodies of Jesus or saints, such as bones or hair. Relics not meeting these criteria are categorized as ‘contact relics’ and allocated to the secondary or tertiary categories. The logic and dynamics of contamination complement both secondary and tertiary relics to the undeniable authenticity and authority of first-order relics: Secondary relics are items that came into contact with a saint during his or her lifetime, such as the tunic of Francis of Assisi. Tertiary relics are items that have come into contact with relics and thereby absorbed some of their power, becoming another form of contact relic, such as the strips of cloth (brandea) that were touched to the tombs of saints. These tertiary contact relics allow for the power of the holy to spread. (Montgomery 2012; cf. Mohr and Stenzel 2022) The hair of Oberammergau as a substance and material pragmatically and semantically oscillates between the classes of primary, secondary, and tertiary relics: “As the hair is traditionally cut after the dernière, it is the only remain of the body of Jesus on stage, for his impersonators regularly return to their roles in families and society” (Mohr and Stenzel 2022). The figures generated by the reenactment of the Passion dissolve, leaving behind nothing but their hair and the objects involved in the performance – its material remains (cf. Schneider 2011).

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As Jan Mohr and Julia Stenzel lately pointed out, “[t]he ambivalence of hair between remain, memento, relic, and a nauseating remnant is a recurring motive in the satirical Oberammergau discourse of the early 20th century” (Mohr and Stenzel 2022). Relics need images and narratives to stand out, and this is especially true for hair. As early as in the Greek tragedy, the authenticity of hair separated from its body of origin is questioned (e.g., Euripides, Elektra). If the waves of Jesus (or its human impersonator) shall function as a fetish, the hair must be natural (or be taken for natural), and its origin must be perceptible. Here, the concept of spolia comes into play, for hair as a substance and material of human bodily origin can function as a paradigmatic spolium, as it can be stolen from the living body, turning it into a part of the communio sanctorum. If cut, it is transformed into a material of human bodily origin that can be used in arts and fashion. In contrast to other parts of the human body, hair can be sold and donated without any physical harm to the spender; it is made into hair extensions and even wigs for people who lost their hair due to illness (for the history of hair as a material cf. Tarlo 2017). On the occasion of the 1922 Passion play – the 1920 season had to be postponed due to WW1 – the Munich-based satirical weekly Simplicissimus released a special issue dedicated to Oberammergau, packed with ironic texts and caricatures on the commercialization of the Passion play. Not surprisingly, the proverbial appeal of the locks of Jesus to allegedly mainly female visitors is a recurring motive, as in the drawing shown in Figure 9.1. The centre figure, long-haired, in archaic clothing, can easily be identified as a histrionic version of Jesus due to established iconographic markers: The eyes are turned upwards, and the hands show a blessing gesture. The right palm is ostensively turned towards the viewer, exposing a stigma. Two female figures seem to impend him: they are about to cut off and steal his flowing locks. There is no doubt about the authenticity of Jesus and His hair for the women. The caption (‘The curls will not be handed out anymore. In autumn, they will be put up for auction’) alludes to the fact that from the late 19th century on,

Figure 9.1 Hair hunters: satirical response to the notorious fascination with the long-haired Passion players. Simplicissimus 26/53, 29 March 1922, extra issue: On to Oberammergau! (Auf nach Oberammergau!): 2.

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Oberammergau was blamed for a sellout of the holy issue and commercializing the Passion. However, the picture implies another thing: The lord’s locks have to be taken regardless of their owner – the impersonator of Jesus. Human hair is transformed into a fetish, analogous to the religious relic, which preserves bits of the power and identity of the bearer and pieces of his holiness. Coeval caricatures on Oberammergau repeatedly show largely English ladies failing to distinguish the ‘illusion’ of the theatrical performance from the ‘reality’ of everyday village life. They tend to mistake the actors for the Saints they represent, and the relic hunt depicted here only carries this to the extreme. The illegitimate haircut can be described ‘as a strategy of mobilizing charisma by relic theft, as “furtum sacrum” ’ (Mohr and Stenzel 2022). The motive of Englishwomen falling in love with the impersonator of Jesus refers to an increasing number of female visitors from England attending the Passion play around 1900 (Edelman 2017; Groeneveld 2016a). Many of these modern pilgrimages have been negotiated in travelogues and fiction (Mohr 2018), and they repeatedly voice the immediate attraction triggered by the body of Jesus on stage (cf. Groeneveld 2016b). However, the hairy spolia of the Passion play can also be used to recollect and affirm the singularity of Oberammergau. In the remains produced in the cycle of growing, cutting, and re-growing body hair, the institutional time logic of Oberammergau materializes itself. Etymologically, ‘spolium’ refers to the skin of hunting prey, ready to be transformed into something useful. It is this semantic thread that will be focused on in the following.

4.  (IM)MATERIAL – an exhibition of bodily remains Since on 19 March 2020 the provisional end of the Passion play season had to be announced, increased activity on social media aimed at maintaining attention and fueling anticipation of the postponed season (cf. introduction and resume, in this volume). A video uploaded to YouTube on 17 February 2021 spreads optimism: Corona does not make everything harder. A calming jovial voice explains the hair and beard decree and sums up how the two Jesus actors reacted to the season’s postponement. Corona will not prevent the play; on the contrary, the hair is only longer with more advance. The growing of hair, which since the 19th century has defined the rhythm of Oberammergau’s history and set it off as specific against its surroundings, is not limited to self-reference anymore. Since the pandemic, the hair and beard decree is no longer based on the mimicry of a historicized salvation story or an aemulatio of its history alone. After 2020, it is no longer conceivable without the background of COVID. The hair in performance and the yearlong preparation phase also appear to be a repetition of the shared experience of the pandemic with its biopolitical limitations. What the Jesus actor Mayet had said in an interview is redeemed: After Corona, the Passion play will be different because we all will have changed. The shared experience of a pandemic expands the history of the Passion play. However, this is not a categorical

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change: Oberammergau and its Play have ever since been characterized by integrating different, even heterogeneous historical and religious realities into a microcosm. Moreover, they will also incorporate the pandemic experience with its biological and biopolitical violence into their very own history in which relations between vulnerable bodies, their exposure and protection are negotiated. The reenactment of the Passion is transmuted to a global scale. The Oberammergau Museum mainly displays remains of the centuries-old regional local woodcarving culture, as well as finds from the early Roman history of the town. In the context of the 2020/22 season, an exhibition has been conceived that closely relates the heterogeneous collection to the Passion play. For this purpose, the historic museum building (1910) has been enclosed by a cube whose color scheme is determined by the gray-blue tones of the costumes of the two previous seasons (2000 and 2010). The dresses from the collection were cut into pieces, applied to wooden panels, and now form an outer skin that also cuts diagonally through the interior of the museum building and the exhibition (Figure 9.2). The exhibition (IM)MATERIELL – Stoff, Körper, Passion seeks to experimentally explore the relationship between skin and body, an alleged human condition and individuality, anthropological and cultural imprints. This is intended to show in a more binding coherence what is factually related to what is initially a relatively loose connection. The objects of the permanent exhibition could just as easily find their way into a toy museum, a museum of farming and agriculture, or an archaeological museum. Their connection is primarily established through the reference to the location. However, the exhibition

Figure 9.2 The museum’s new dress: outer view of the Oberammergau Museum during the temporary exhibition (IM)MATERIELL, 2022 (official exhibition video [www. youtube.com/watch?v=ok-AYx7awxI], screen shot).

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now claims (and perhaps not always entirely plausibly) a more profound, quasiorganic connection that it does not aim to evidence en détail but evoke. The core of the museum’s holdings comprises carved wooden figures from five centuries that address the subjects of life and suffering, as well as the fears, concerns and hopes of humankind – and, as such, are closely linked to the subject of the Passion. Through the focussed [sic] presentation of the collection, the museum is turned into a place of reflection on regional, cultural and social influences and notions.5 Where the permanent exhibition only documents practices of collection, the scenography of the installation suggests coherence, visualized by an actual red thread guiding the visitor through the rooms. The hair cut off after the 2010 season had been twisted into strings with a diameter of barely a centimeter. In the exhibition, these strings are led through the entire museum building and onto its exterior; inside, holes were drilled close to the door jambs through which the hair strings enter and leave the individual rooms (Figure 9.3). In one of the first rooms, the hair strings form a double helix; in the penultimate exhibition room, the words “wir sind verbunden” and their English translation, “we are connected” (Figure 9.4).

Figure 9.3 The hairy thread guiding the visitors through the exhibition, (IM)MATERIELL show, Oberammergau Museum 2022. Photo: JS

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Figure 9.4 Double helix made of hair, (IM)MATERIELL show, Oberammergau Museum 2022. Photo: JS

The assertion is supposedly evidenced in the materiality of the hair. ‘All of us involved in the Passion play are a community, and: together, we form an Oberammergau genom’ (for the somewhat problematic implications of this metaphor, cf. Groeneveld 2021). This is probably the main impetus of the exhibition. It aims to point to the interplay between the individual and the collective via the presupposition of generally human qualities and the local specifics as they are entangled in the individual’s body. In the first room of the exhibition, a short video illustrates its concept. The curator Constanze Werner explains: “These strands symbolise the collective group in the extreme. Hair carries our DNA and all the hairs originate from this village, so they are all connected. It is . . . what we also express through the fabric of the garments” (3:30–3:50).6 A shared passion for the play connects the villagers not only externally, in the uniform costumes of those representing the ‘people’ on stage, but already in their genealogical disposition. This seems to (essentially) prioritize the claimed ‘naturalness’ of the body over the accidental materiality of the clothes. However, it is precisely the clothes in which a connection between the individual wearer and the collective is authenticated.

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Furthermore, the relationship between the skin and the core is reversed here: Our starting point was the clothes of the Passion play – the material so to speak. The actors wore them for two cycles of the play. We have i­ ndividuals in body contact with the fabric, sweating, leaving their personal marks. At the same time, they form a group, a collective. We have been working with these materials, these fabrics, their materiality and consistency. Everything is woven together. (ibid., 0:55–1:19) This totalizes the claim to create meaning: The dresses follow the logic of contact relics, like a depotentiated and distributed cloth of Veronica that becomes a collective singular as a spolium: In the reconfiguration as the outer skin and dress of the Oberammergau Museum, concealing its architectural structure, and asserting ‘Oberammergau’ as a collective subject. Since the costumes were to be completely remade for the 2022 season, it is not surprising that the older costumes had to make way for the upcoming old ones. Using them for an installation takes the controlled disposal under memorial upcycling. Oberammergau materially stores its history, but it shares a fundamental problem of any archive: the tension between the mission to keep and the pragmatics of limited storage capacity. The solution is striking. The old costumes are monumentalized and fed into works of art – decently, respectfully, and sustainably. While the exhibition is running, individual panels of the transitory skin of the museum can be purchased online for 222 € (each 1.25 x 2 m; smaller pieces less). ‘The outer skin will be dismantled in mid-October and the individual panels will be handed over to the buyers’.7 This controlled distribution as removal from storage also means a virtual expansion of the collection context. The dresses go out into the world and announce the Oberammergau play tradition. In this way, they virtually connect the buyers and ideally establish proximity between fans (or devotees) and performers. According to the pre-modern logic that underlay the late medieval spiritual plays, salvation becomes present in the bodies who were enrolled in the reenactment of the Passion and in the clothes they have worn in the process.

Coda: globalizing the hair of Oberammergau The exhibition-installation in the Oberammergau museum expands over the three floors of the building. Following the red thread, the visitor finally reaches the top floor. Here, she meets not only the table of the Last Supper that had been in the Passion play from 1850 to 2010 (for a closer consideration cf. Mohr and Stenzel 2022) or enter a light installation simulating bodily resurrection. Moreover, the way of hair takes a surprising turn. On the right wall seen from the staircase, the hair strands form the aforementioned lettering, reading “we are connected” (Figure 9.5).

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Figure 9.5 ‘We are connected’ – lettering in the penultimate room of the (IM)MATERIELL show, Oberammergau Museum 2022. Photo: JS

Figure 9.6 Assemblage of photographs, hair, and other objects connected to the Passion, (IM)MATERIELL show, Oberammergau Museum 2022. Photo: JS

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Figure 9.7 Collage: hair on photograph, (IM)MATERIELL show, Oberammergau Museum 2022. Photo: JS

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On the wall vis-à-vis the entrance, several photographs are arranged together with a long blonde braid, a couple of hair strands and locks (some of them labelled with German prenoms), bits and pieces of haircords, but also a crown of thorns and its miniature, and a Crucifixus without cross (Figure 9.6). To a closer look, the assemblage of items and images reveals its asymmetrical heterogeneity. The photos, mainly portraits, show by far exclusively people from Oberammergau. A male Person of Color with extremely long hair almost vanishes behind the thick braids of Oberammergau (Figure 9.7). The torso of a Black person, holding pieces of felt (looking like cacti) in both hands, is decorated with blondish, flowing locks. The tiny white Crucifixus is integrated in the bottom end of a braid, whose top wears the crown of thorns en miniature. The motto of the show – ‘we are connected’ – seems to be evoked anew as a planetary concept, the double helix and the genealogical metaphor of the genome embracing ‘all of us’ to refer not to Oberammergau alone but humankind as a whole. Actually, here a common and recursive assumption resonates, suggesting to re-read the Passion play in 2022 as negotiating the pandemic experience of the world. As the costumes are physically sent out to the world (everybody can have their relic and use it as a spolium), the hair is (in the last room) cut off its self-evident context and literally put on other bodies. But this unilinear lecture is only half of the story: Considering the materiality of the hairy installation on the wall, the hair of Oberammergau performs not only connection but also overgrowth, appropriation, and the loss of individuality. Photographs and applicated hair can be seen in a continuous figure-ground-reversal. Each can be the other’s new skin, detached from its original context, bringing new meaning by loosening up the bonds to its history. Clearly, this interchange and interconnection touches relations of power and hegemony; it continues to remind to the role of Christian narratives and performances in the subalternization of the southern hemisphere. However, this context needs to be addressed in more detail elsewhere.

Notes 1 Parts of this contribution were presented at the international conference ‘Hairy Affairs’, LMU Munich, May 2021. I would like to thank the discussants and chair for their valuable questions and remarks. 2 Oberammergau: Für Passionsspiele 2020 wachsen Haare und Bärte (Oberammergau: Hair and beards grow for Passion play 2020); BR-online, 6 March  2019, www.br.de/ nachrichten/bayern/oberammergau-fuer-passionsspiele-2020-wachsen-haare-undbaerte,RJrEz00 (accessed 7 January 2020). Unfortunately, the interview is not available online any more. For a similar account cf. Passion play 2022, press release, 17 February  2021, www.passionsspiele-oberammergau.de/de/news/detail/f874531b-7128-11ebb42f-002590812774 (accessed 24 May 2022). 3 ‘The hair and beard decree marks the beginning of a very special time in the village, filled with the idea of Passion’. My translation. 4 ‘[T]he redemptive power inherent in sacrificial acts [must] indeed give charismatic ­splendour to their bearers and agents. The tortured Jesus is also the transfigured Christ’. (my translation)

162  Julia Stenzel 5 www.oberammergaumuseum.de/en/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/immateriell-stoffkorper-passion (accessed 12 August 2022). 6 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok-AYx7awxI (accessed 8 July 22). 7 www.oberammergaumuseum.de/en/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/immateriell-stoffkorper-passion (accessed 17 August 2022).

Works cited Bréhier, E. 1970. La théorie des incorporels dans l’ancien Stoicisme. Paris: Vrin. Burton, R. F. 1881. A Glance at the “Passion-Play”. London: W. H. Harrison. Edelman, J. 2017. Spiritual voyeurism and Cultural Nostalgia: Anglophone Visitors to the Oberammergau Passion Play, 1870–1925 and 2010. In: The Oberammergau Passion Play: Essays on the 2010 Performance and the Centuries-Long Tradition, ed. K. J. Wetmore. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 66–87. Fritsch, A. 2021. Haarige Zeiten: Der Haar- und Barterlass am Aschermittwoch (8 February  2021). www.passionsspiele-oberammergau.de/de/blog/detail/haarige-zeiten-derhaar-und-barterlass-am-aschermittwoch-20210208 (accessed 17 August 2022). Greza, J. 2019. Eine haarige Angelegenheit (6 March  2019). www.passionsspieleoberammergau.de/de/blog/detail/eine-haarige-angelegenheit-20190306 (accessed 24 May 2022). Groeneveld, L. 2016a. ‘He Showed Himself in Response to Your Longing’. Women Spectators at the Oberammergau Passion Play. In: Women Rewriting Boundaries: Victorian Women Travel Writers, Hrsg. Precious McKenzie Stearns. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 133–66. Groeneveld, L. 2016b. ‘I Felt as Never before, under Any Sermon That I  Ever Heard Preached’. Word, Image, and the Oberammergau Passion Play, 1840–1900. Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film 43/2: 131–59. Groeneveld, L. 2021. Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Representations of the Oberammergau Passion Play: Heredity, Eugenic Theatre, and “Epic Selection”. Theatre Survey 62: 67–88 (doi:10.1017/S0040557420000484). Groot, K. J. 2009. Three Types of Liquid Religion. Implicit Religion 11: 277–96. Günzler, O. and A. Zwink. 1950. Oberammergau. Berühmtes Dorf – berühmte Gäste. Drei Jahrhunderte Passionsspiel im Spiegel seiner Besucher. Munich: Münchener Dom-Verlag. Joosse, P. 2014. Becoming a God. Max Weber and the Social Construction of Charisma. Journal of Classical Sociology 14/3: 266–83. Lipp, W. 1985. Stigma und Charisma. Über soziales Grenzverhalten. Berlin: Reimer. Mohr, J. 2018. Wege nach innen. Die Reise zum Oberammergauer Passionsspiel seit dem 19. Jahrhundert. In: (Off) The Beaten Track? Normierungen und Kanonisierungen des Reisens, eds. H. Diekmannshenke, St. Neuhaus, and U. Schaffers. Würzburg: Königshausen  & Neumann, 97–116. Mohr, J. and J. Stenzel. 2020. Monument und Sediment. Dingpolitik und Bildregimes im Oberammergauer Passionsspiel. Newsletter des Zentrums für Historische Mediologie, University of Zürich 20: 10–24. Mohr, J. and J. Stenzel. 2022. The Ways of Things. Mobilizing Charismatic Objects in Oberammergau and its Passion Play. Religions 13/1: 71 (doi:10.3390/rel13010071). Montgomery, S. 2012. Contact Relics. In: Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage (doi:10.1163/2213-2139_emp_SIM_00235) (accessed 27 June 2021).

Let it Grow  163 Moser, D.-R. 1987. Das Passionsspiel von Oberammergau in der Bayerischen Literaturgeschichte. In: Literatur – Theater – Museum. Acta Ising 1986, eds. H. Kreuzer and D. Zerlin. Munich: Bayerischer Schulbuch-Verlag, 92–117. Reckwitz, A. 2017. Die Gesellschaft der Singularitäten. Zum Strukturwandel der Moderne. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Schaller, St. 1950. Das Passionsspiel von Oberammergau 1634 bis 1950. Ettal: Buch-Kunstverlag. Schaller, St. 1982. Die ersten hundert Jahre des Oberammergauer Passionsspiels. Neues zum Beginn und zur Textgestalt. Jahrbuch für Volkskunde N.F. 5: 78–125. Schneider, R. 2011. Performing Remains. Art and War in Times of Theatrical Reenactment. London: Routledge. Spear, S. E. 2011. Claiming the Passion: American Fantasies of the Oberammergau Passion Play, 1923–1947. Church History 80/4: 832–62 (doi:10.1017/S0009640711001235). Stenzel, J. 2022. Arma Christi. Passion als Glaubenszeugnis und die Lage der Dinge. In: Bezeugen. Mediale, forensische und kulturelle Praktiken der Zeugenschaft, eds. Z. Tuna, M. Wischoff, and I. Zinsmaier. Stuttgart: Metzler, 105–25. Tarlo, E. 2017. Entanglement: The Secret Lives of Hair. London: Oneworld. Vedeler, M. 2018. The Charismatic Power of Objects. In: Charismatic Objects: From Roman Times to the Middle Ages, eds. id. et  al. https://press.nordicopenaccess.no/index.php/ noasp/catalog/book/51, 9–30. Walsham, A. 2010. Introduction. In: Relics and Remains, ed. id. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 9–36. Weber, M. 1978 [1922]. Economy and Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wohlrab-Sahr, M. and M. Burchardt. 2012. Multiple Secularities: Towards a Cultural Sociology of Secular Modernities. Comparative Sociology 11: 875–909. Wohlrab-Sahr, M. and Ch. Kleine. 2021. Historicizing Secularity: A Proposal for Comparative Research from a Global Perspective. Comparative Sociology 20: 287–316.

Part IV

Compliance and Transgression – Literary Imaginations

10 Work on Myth, Work on the Institution On Narrating Oberammergau (19th–21st Centuries) Jan Mohr 1. When Oberammergau stories begin As is well known, the history of the Oberammergau Passion play does arguably not begin in 1633 when, according to the handed-down chronicles, the plague swept across the Bavarian Oberland and claimed many victims until the village community made their famous vow. It rather seems that the vow carried forward an older play tradition, maybe transforming it into the new decennial rhythm (Schaller 1982: 78–84; Shapiro 2001: 102–11). But whilst the history of the play is likely to go back some decades or even centuries, it would be misleading to determine a historical moment in which the story of the play begins: The story of the Passion play starts exactly when someone asks for it and wants to hear it. This is what one of the novels I would like to discuss suggests. The miracle of Oberammergau by Austrian mountain climber, actor, film director, and writer Luis Trenker, first published in 1960, is a frame narrative. The story of how the plague was brought to the village in spite of having made an extreme effort to keep it out is introduced by the story of a US-American television preacher whose mission is to persuade the Passion play committee to have the performance filmed and broadcast all over the Midwestern United States. Now, when this Patrick O’Donovan finally watches a Passion play performance himself, he not only realizes that a theater performance of that kind neither can nor must be broadcasted, “because the town is a part of it and the woods and the air and the breathing mountains. This all is but one” (Trenker 1960: 16). Moreover, he feels that “the experience of this passion has to continue to be a pilgrimage” (ibid.: 30), even if undertaken in Cadillacs. But most importantly, the priest experiences an internal conversion and now he wants to know exactly how everything began in 1633. The one in town who knows best, Sylvester Zwink, a member of the real existing Zwink family, first recommends the chronicle written by Oberammergau parish priest Alois Daisenberger. But then Zwink emphasizes that the old chronicle entries are inconsistent and contradictory, hence, they cannot be considered a trustworthy source (which again corresponds to reality). Therefore, arriving at a story can only be through the attempt of putting together DOI: 10.4324/9781003106319-14

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the different pieces of the puzzle. Consequently, Zwink feels capacitated to develop his own story. However, he warns O’Donovan not to take it at face value. And then the story of the beginnings of the Passion play is about to unfold. But this part of the novel is not the one I would like to concentrate on. Rather, the self-reflexive and poetological dimension of the frame narrative passage leads me to the theoretical framework to which I would like to refer my readings of a number of Oberammergau novels and narrations.

2. Work on myth: anthropological and ideological perspectives Calling the history of Oberammergau and its Passion play a myth is quite justified and allows for some fruitful aspects to grow apparent. In the everyday sense, “myth” may refer to the obscure circumstances of the beginnings in 1633 and 1634. However, for our purpose, I would like to use the term “myth” in a tighter sense along the reflections of German philosopher Hans Blumenberg and his study Work on myth. According to Blumenberg, myths result from the trial to cope with the inconceivable complexity of life and the world itself, something he calls the “absolutism of reality” (Blumenberg 1985: 3). Mankind is exposed to forces it cannot control, let alone dominate, and telling basic stories is one of the ways to keep the world in distance. It is one of myth’s primary functions, by telling stories, to “convert numinous indefiniteness into nominal definiteness” (ibid.: 25).1 This formula already hints at what, according to Blumenberg, is the first measure in coping with the complexity of what cannot be thoroughly understood; that is, giving names to it. By giving names, mankind gives notions to what is overwhelming. Thus, myths not only invite to be retold. Rather, they constantly provoke other versions of the same basic plots (for formal criteria of Blumenberg’s notion of myth see Hoffmann 2012: 38–41). Telling and retelling myths is a never-ending process, because there is no point in the history of mankind at which one could or can feel safe from being overwhelmed by the world. Blumenberg is quite flexible in calling narrative plots “myths”, and he is not in search for some “fundamental myth” (Grundmythos) or “original myth” (Urmythos) (Blumenberg 1985: 174–5). Rather, he wants to trace how relatively stable narrative kernels are augmented and accumulated by narrative satellites in a given historical situation. I take this as a justification to conceive the legendary Oberammergau story as a myth in the sense outlined earlier. On that basis, the question of how far the pressure to tell and retell a story over and over again can stabilize Oberammergau and its Passion play as an institution in the sense outlined in the introduction to this volume shall be addressed. If one takes institutionality as an abstract category, it is very likely to be found in each and every social context, be it the juridical system, a university, the Arthurian court, or 19th century’s literary salons. Institutionality can be identified with

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those moments of social structures which symbolize their prestigiousness. In that perspective, the re-telling and telling anew of the myth and the symbolization of the tradition, rules, and claims of the Oberammergau Passion play converge. If one wants to go a step further, it is quite obvious to consult Roland Barthes, who in his Mythologies traces the myths of modern France. Generally, the connection to Blumenberg’s myth theory seems justified. Barthes, too, does not determine the myth through content but as a form of statement: “myth is a type of speech” (Barthes 1972: 107). Accordingly, the myth knows no limitations on content. “Myth is not defined by the object of its message, but by the way in which it utters this message” (ibid.: 107). According to Barthes, this uttering of the arbitrariness of sign relations is abandoned in favor of a motivated sign relation. The myth makes use of an already existing relation between a signifier and a signified and makes it the starting point for a new relation. Thus, according to Barthes’ well-known definition, myth creates a “second-order semiological system” (ibid.: 113) while hiding itself in the secondary sign. The “naive” reader experiences its meaning and form as an inextricable whole; for him, the sign relation of the myth is a quasi-natural one. Or, as Blumenberg puts it: By providing answers to questions before they arise, myth makes unquestionable. It “does not need to answer questions; it makes something up, before the question becomes acute and so that it does not become acute” (Blumenberg 1985: 197). Thus, the speaker appropriates the object of his speech. According to Barthes, however, speaking in the mode of myth is carried out by a small, usually socially dominant group, which ideologically influences the majority of society as a consequence. For Barthes (his book was first published in 1957), myth serves as a political tool of the “right-wing”, the “bourgeoisie”, to oppress and control the working class. It is not necessary to accept this rather simple social dichotomy. What is more important is the fact that for Barthes it is a matter of perspective whether one takes things for granted and “natural” or analyses them and uncovers a “mythical” and ideological background. At this point, Barthes’ theory of myth, like Blumenberg’s, offers a model to describe how fictional literature contributes to building and stabilizing Oberammergau and its Passion play as a trademark. Trademarks want to be without alternative. They want to make the choice of a product a natural decision, which is, to make the choice between several competing products invisible. The literary work on a “Myth Oberammergau” generates a naturalization of the signs and strengthens the foundation on which the extraordinary and significant nature of the entire Oberammergau phenomenon and its validity can be asserted. The literary work on myth intensifies an aura. It is not only about repeating the same story over and over again. It is also about variation, about new accents that form new stories and at the same time update their mythical core. With regard to fictional literature, the question of institutional change and work on the prestigiousness of the Oberammergau Passion play arises as well as the question of the variation of (relatively) constant cores, of the

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supplementation and enrichment of historical data, of the combination of set pieces, of the cross-fading, entanglement and overwriting of motifs and themes – in short: of the productive poetic handling of the specifications of a narrative tradition and, last but not least, of ideological appropriation.

3. Naming the beginnings Nearly 30 novels and stories on Oberammergau have hitherto been published – as well as several poems and around a dozen of theater pieces. The first narrative texts stem from around 1880 and the so far latest from 2021. In a very preliminary way (and for the purpose of my argument) they can be divided into three groups. First, there are novels and narrations on the plague raging in the Ammergau valley as well as on the alleged beginnings of the play tradition. This group of texts can quite likely be considered the largest. Secondly, novels focus on single famous Oberammergau inhabitants or persons whose lives are somehow deeply connected with the village. In these novels, the Passion play and its tradition are already established and constitute the backdrop against which the actual plot is developed. And thirdly, in the course of the decennial discussions on the play, some works with a certain postmodern appeal have occurred. In these texts, Oberammergau as well as historical and current discourses on the Passion play can be combined more or less deliberately with other, say, mythical plot cores. Once I come to that point, the examples will illustrate what I mean. When, as discussed earlier, according to Blumenberg giving a name to the unknown is about the first of the measures of reducing the complexity of the world surrounding by narrating, this could easily be illustrated by the novels and stories of the first group I just made up. Telling of the beginnings of the plague vow over and over again is not least work on the indefiniteness and indeterminacy of the historical events handed over. An example of that indeterminacy is the fact that we do not even know for sure the name of the one who introduced the epidemic into the village. In the chronicles, there is some disagreement as to the name of the person carrying the disease. According to tradition, we have at least three variants Schüssler, Schisler, and Schuchler. Regarding the relatively loose writing conventions of the 17th and 18th centuries, this is not surprising at all. But the very fact that the origins of the disease cannot be connected to one unequivocal name seems to be a first crack in the tradition which sets free an imagination that not only commits itself to one of the name versions in every given story but tries in general to go beyond the information of the chronicles. The basic historical facts and circumstances such as the 30 Years’ War, the plague spreading almost all over the German-speaking territories and the entry of the plague via the village of Eschenlohe beyond a mountain range despite all trials to keep it out have mostly been maintained. Quite in line with 19th-century storytelling conventions, the constant elements detailed earlier are often combined with a young couple’s love story. This allows for contrasts or parallels between the microcosm of the love story and the macrocosm of general events.

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The female protagonist may then be portrayed as a femme fatale leading the main character into temptation or as quite the opposite, as the chaste bride waiting and worrying at home for her groom. In a story first published shortly before or after 1900, The Judas of Oberammergau,2 we learn that it was actually not Schuchler’s fault that the plague entered the village. Rather, it was a local peasant that felt offended and thus held a grudge against the other villagers who then betrayed the village to the Swedish aggressor, an act that consequently forced him to live outside the village. In the woods surrounding the village he then passed the disease on to Schuchler during a random encounter (Schaching 1901). Retelling the myths tends to find (or rather, create) stories behind the story and thus new explanations for what happened.

4. A case study in contingency A comprehensive effort to look beyond the traditional historical facts in order to find a trace of the beginnings of the play’s tradition is made by British author Bernard Charles Newman in his early novel Death in the Valley, published in 1934. Again, not Schisler is the first person infected, but the mayor’s son Anton Rendl, who happens to live with Schisler in Eschenlohe when the village is hit by the plague and the mountain trail to Oberammergau is closed. In order to keep his relatives safe, Anton stays away from his hometown. But at the town’s border, where guards are supposed to defend the villagers, Anton is seduced by his bride Maria, who happens to be Schisler’s daughter. She then brings the plague to Oberammergau. Schisler, her father, later is the first to die of the disease. There, the novel is very much in line with the chronicles’ tradition while at the same time adding an even deeper layer. The seduction of Anton runs parallel to that of Adam in the Garden of Eden. Maria was introduced into the plot as a hot-blooded young girl; the metaphor is then mixed with her concrete physiological constitution when she asks: “warm blood . . . can you feel my warmth?” (Newman 1934: 199). This may be a first hint at Maria’s endangered state of health. But most notably, the character’s self-description closes a semantic circle of heat, disease, sensuality, and the plague. It is only for a moment that Anton breaks down and gives in to the temptation (ibid.: 195, 197, 199), thus proving his father wrong who assertively claims: “Rendls do not weaken” (ibid.: 207). In the sticky air on a mountaintop, Maria and Anton will touch and embrace each other in order to finally unite, thus repeating the fall of man, the seduction of Adam by the woman. However, in the seduction scene, Maria for her part is already subject to a demonic power that pushes her but also causes her initial “exuberant health” (ibid.: 6) to turn into its opposite. To provide some evidence in support of that aspect: He turned his head away, but her bewitching voice pursued him. “You cannot resist love,” it said in a serpent’s whisper (ibid.: 197) – His head was

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again on her breast; its gentle warmth intoxicated him (ibid.: 199) – “Why do you tempt me?” – a piteous age-old cry . . . she laughed feverishly. (ibid.: 200) Hereafter, the motif of sultriness is consequently transposed into the macrocosm of the village community. When the epidemic reaches its peak, the parish priest has the village community vow to perform the passion of the savior. If nothing else, he does so due to a vision the village’s half-wit Peter has – a character in which the types of the fool and the clairvoyant come together. Immediately after the vow the wind changes and a cool breeze from the mountains brings first relief (foolish Peter will be the first to perceive it). The novel ties in with the pious legend of the villagers’ pact with God to save them from the plague while offering a rational explanation of that traditional reading. This is just another aspect of the novel which can be conceived as work on myth. The numinous – which can either be interpreted as a miracle or be dismissed as a distortion of facts – takes on a form of such insistent specificity that further questions are settled for the time being. The historical facts handed down through generations are overwritten with an individual love story that will have no happy ending. For sure, Maria will not survive the union of love at the border of the locked-down village. What is even worse, she will penetrate a second ring of guards and get through to her father’s house, to which old Schisler just returned. Maria will embrace and thus infect her father who is traditionally considered to have brought the plague to the village. The fictional search for a reason behind the allegedly historical cause is implemented in a game of variation combining motifs of pernicious sensuality, lust, and female seduction. In Maria’s several transgressions, the author unfolds the impression of an unbound desire defying every order and rationality even if the village community’s welfare and survival is at stake. In this pattern, the Oberammergau story takes on a completely new shape. And there is also another, maybe even more important point. Between Chapter II and Chapter III, after the personal constellation is built up and the plot has begun, Newman places an interlude of no less than 80 pages (corresponding to almost a third of the whole novel). Here, the narrator recounts in 23 episodes how the plague goes west, from the depths of the Asian steppes in China via Tibet and India where it finds two Venetian merchants as hosts who bring then the plague to Gibraltar, where it changes – or rather multiplies – its hosts and wanders east in the clothes of a pirate. The next stations on its way are Tunesia, Egypt, Jerusalem, and Damascus, where the plague turns westward again and spreads over – among others – Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, moving unstoppably to middle Europe, until finally an old fellow soldier of Swedish general Tilly returns to his home town, which is: Murnau, only some 11 miles from Oberammergau. From there, it’s just a stone’s throw to Eschenlohe, the town from where according to the chronicles the plague finally entered the village.

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Not only are these 23 episodes stuffed with historical and geographical information. But also, they are framed by two brief reflections on the butterfly effect. By the end of Chapter II, Anton Rendl has left his village and is headed for Murnau; wanting to meet (with) his future father-in-law, Rendl plans his way back via Eschenlohe. It is just happenstance that Rendl starts his trip a day early. When the message of the imminent plague reaches Oberammergau which results in the village to be sealed off immediately, Rendl has only just left. Thus, at the end of the chapter, a cliffhanger is placed: readers will likely expect the plot to straightforwardly lead to the dramatic incidents in the mountains between the two towns and the catastrophe in Oberammergau. But rather surprisingly, the narrator starts his “Interlude” with a rock formation in the Peruvian mountains: Very near the source of the river Amazon is a great boulder; the tiny stream, barely a day’s journey from its birthplace, finds the boulder right in its path. It strikes the point of the boulder, then passes smoothly along its left face, scurrying down the mountain-side. Had it happened, in the days of Cosmos, that the head of the boulder has been turned six inches to the south, the stream would have passed by its right face; it would have trickled down another slope of the same mountain into a different valley, it would never again have seen its present course; the mighty Amazon would have flowed a hundred miles to the south of the river we know.   The course of the world’s greatest river is directed by a matter of six inches: 4,000 miles – six inches. (ibid.: 55) One begins to understand: what the author is concerned with is the small accident that affects the way of the world. The interlude aims at contingency in its most radical form, the butterfly effect. In this regard, the prehistory of the passion vow focusses on how the plague made its way into the Bavarian highlands. Newman does not take for granted the generally assumed background for the Passion play’s origins – that is, the Thirty Years’ War, the plague, or going more into details maybe Swedish soldiers marauding in Bavaria and thus spreading the disease. Instead, in asking for its prerequisites and inserting it in a succession of causes and effects, thus narrativizing it, he creates a story behind the traditional facts. If – if – if! If something had happened, something else would not. . . . These are the trifles which go to make up the destiny of man; singly they are insignificant, cumulatively they are all powerful. It was a train of ifs and chances that brought the plague from its home in China to Eschenlohe in Bavaria; and Eschenlohe is not more than five miles as the crow flies from Ober-Ammergau, with but a range of mountains to bar its path. (ibid.: 55–6)

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The last half-sentence is exactly repeated at the end of the interlude, figuring there as the last episode (XXIII) and creating a somehow fatalistic mood. After all the accidents that contributed to the deadly spores’ spreading all over Eurasia, the plague is most likely to make also the last step into the isolated and geographically well-shielded town. The historical events of Oberammergau seem to make up a case study of contingency. The interlude marks that what will be told in the following might have been different. In the course of the narrative plot, the chain of coincidences will continue. And once the reader has become aware of that, she will likely notice that the base for that was already built in the first two chapters. But the chain of coincidence is a reversible figure. Its excessive use in a narrative paradoxically points out that things might take a different turn and how easily that could have happened. As in Luis Trenker’s Miracle of Oberammergau, the reflection on contingency brings about a justification to enrich and garnish the rather sterilely handed-down occurrences and happenings in a fictional story using basic narrative patterns often used in popular narratives like seduction by the devil, the pact with god, martyrdom, and salvation.

5. A lighthouse in the dark In the second group of texts gathered, the tradition of the play is already well established, and Oberammergau has turned into – in the everyday sense – an institution. Thus it can be a background for historical events unfolding later. Moreover, it fits the analogy of a lighthouse offering orientation and moral support for the later generations. A  good example to highlight this constellation is the novel Die sonnige Not (The sunny Need), “High Need” being the name of one of the mountains around the Ettal monastery in close proximity to Oberammergau. The novel tells the story of Ettal monk Othmar Weis who, as is generally known, in 1811 and 1815 substantially revised the baroque Passion play text from 1750. But Weis is but one character in a panorama unfolded in this story of the end of the Ettal monastery which in the course of the secularization was closed in 1803. Explicitly, the hard times in the monastery and the villages around, the end of Ettal and a new beginning with a light of hope is to be taken as an example. In the preface the narrator declares the symbolic character of the plot: A piece of world history unfolds in the solitude of the Ettal mountains. . . . The evil enemy only temporarily triumphs. . . . The great Passion becomes a symbol of life, the poet of the Passion play and his brethren become prophets. We, the later born generations, see their longings fulfilled in the valley of the vow. (Prosch 1927: 3) Published in 1927, the novel shows significant parallels to the difficult economic situation in the Weimar Republic that still suffered from reparation payments to the victorious countries after World War I. Back in the 1920s, the

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reading public had to remember that the real Passion play season in fact had to be postponed by two years because all too many male inhabitants including half the musical orchestra of the village had died in the battles. In The sunny Need, the Passion play and its first endangered, then secured continuity not only show a clear parallel to the real repertory season of 1922, but also they are not merely a symbol of constancy and hope in times of tribulation. Moreover, the parallels connote a valuation in which Germany appears to be the victim of unjustified and excessive impositions of who in the words of the preface figures as “the evil enemy”. Here, the work on myth takes up nationalist resentments which are exacerbated by the parallels to a historical situation and the clear valuation in the narration.

6. Ideological pedagogy: Oberammergau in post-war Germany I would like to discuss in more detail the convergence of work on myth (Blumenberg) and ideological subversion of cultural historical topoi (Barthes) with regard to a novel set in Germany after World War II that explicitly addresses the young generation: Cornelia experiences Oberammergau. A story taken from real life for the young people by educator, missionary, and author Elisabeth Dreisbach. First published in 1952 and reprinted several times until 1984, the novel takes us to post-war Germany with its optimistic atmosphere of departure and a new wealth – at least for a part of the people. But, alas, Cornelia, the main character, is not among those. As the eldest of five children whose father never returned from the battlefield, it is up to her to look after her four brothers while her mother works full-time to earn money that is so badly needed. Beside going to school herself, Cornelia has to cook, do the dishes, wash, and clean. But she carries her burden with great patience, which wins her the admiration of all her school mates. What keeps her going during the last weeks of the school term is the prospect of a vacation in the Black Forest with a friend of hers, but then also these high hopes vanish because there is nobody to look after her younger brothers, one of whom just fell ill. And with time, Cornelia not only feels more and more frustrated but shows what one could call a “spirit of contradiction” (Widerspruchsgeist; Dreisbach 1952: 102). She almost falls for a young guy despite his bad reputation in town, and while her mother thinks she is on a one-day trip with her girl mates she secretly allows him to drive her to the Black Forest. When he fakes a problem with the car engine and wants her to stay with him in some guesthouse it is lucky chance that she can flee from his invasiveness and find an elderly couple to drive her home to Stuttgart. With high precision the text accentuates the single steps downwards the moral stairs and the most crucial moment on that way down, that is, lying to her mother. This is nothing less than an original sin – the text also refers to “the devil’s seduction” (Bestrickungen des Teufels; ibid.: 68, 69), and his “sweet poison” (ibid.: 74). Not surprisingly, the narrating voice gives clear evaluations

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of her behavior and speaks of dissatisfaction (Unzufriedenheit), bitterness (Bitterkeit), grudge (Groll), lie (Lüge), dishonesty (Unaufrichtigkeit; ibid.: 68). And all these things are not classified within moral categories but explicitly in the system of values of Christian belief. When in the evening it becomes clear that Cornelia did not go with her friends but had lied, her mother worries and prays to god: “Dear god, please look after her” (Oh Gott, nimm du dich ihrer an; ibid.: 89). Then Cornelia finally arrives and they have a long discussion; her mother offers to pray together but the girl refuses saying “It’s too late” (ibid.: 116; cf. 95). She feels envious and jealous (ibid.: 99) of her friends who keep writing her letters from abroad. In the following weeks when school starts again Cornelia changes her whole behavior, gets a new and modern haircut, starts smoking, and hangs around with bad company. At the same time, she feels her life is empty and hopeless stuck between school and work at home looking after her brothers. This is when her godmother offers, as a birthday present, to take her to Oberammergau for two or three weeks. The Passion play village takes only a quarter of the entire text but within its dramaturgy it is clearly the climax. Very briefly, the novel repeats a whole string of discourses on Oberammergau. The whole town is clean and neat, and when Cornelia arrives it is particularly quiet because the play is being performed. Visitors have come from all over the world and all leave the passion theater deeply affected by the play. Everything is perfectly organized, and all the villagers are kind and ready to help. But the question is also raised if it is actually adequate to perform the lord’s passion. Last not least, doubt of whether the whole Passion play industry is only focused on money-making, is expressed. Cornelia and her godmother are accommodated in a wood carver’s home where Cornelia makes the acquaintance of the wood carver’s sister Andrea, suffering from a heart disease and bound to her wheel chair but accepting willingly her fate and only worried that she has to be a burden to the ones she loves. The highlight of the holiday – and of the novel – is a visit to the Passion play. When Cornelia finally watches (or rather, witnesses) the last performance of the playing time, she feels strong parallels to her own life and her behavior. The narrating style intensifies this by merging her and the actors’ perspective and by switching to the present tense. Cornelia identifies with the actors and during the Gethsemane scene, she feels that she has abandoned her mother whom she had once promised to stand by, just like Peter had failed in standing by his lord. The passion is not a mere play but reflects a truth of everybody’s life; the same goes for Andrea. The girl suffering from a heart condition wished to see the Passion play one last time and attends accompanied by her new friend. During the crucifixion scene, she suffers a heart attack and in the end she does not survive the performance. In their premonition, the levels of play and reality mix, as so often in the discourse on Oberammergau: “I will not be able to watch the end of the performance, the resurrection, but it will await me. I will resurrect with HIM – and – he will heal me”.

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But Cornelia has already learned from Andrea and from the play. The novel ends with her receiving a letter in which she is asked to return home before the end of her summer break, because her brothers do not get along with an aunt who is currently looking after them. Willingly she accepts her burden. In one of the last sentences she remembers the words with which Andrea had given her last carving to Cornelia, it was an annunciation scene: “Well, you know: ‘Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word’ ” (ibid.: 158). These words of Mary (Lk 1,38) are exactly what Cornelia is now making her own again. The novel reflects the climate of post-war Germany, which is gradually re-establishing itself, an atmosphere determined by a retreat into the private sphere (Schreiber 2006), a turn to religion (cf. Faulstich 2007) on the one hand, and an economic upturn and consumerism on the other, and all of this under precarious family conditions caused by the war. In addition, there are self-evident role distributions in society. Because the husband is absent from home, the mother has to go to work, but the daughter is not allowed to do so, especially because the brothers have to be looked after, the oldest of whom is already starting an apprenticeship. The author reproduces what countless stories in the post-war period held in store for young female readers: The girls’ literature of the time propagates renunciation, classification, and subordination (Kaminski 1993). This ultimately repressive social order is coded in categories of religiosity and piety. In fact, as cultural-historical works have reported, the role of religiosity and also the importance of the church declined significantly in the course of the 1950s (Faulstich 2007). In Dreisbach’s novel, too, society is divided. But the story is told only from one perspective, and the evaluation is clear. All the positively drawn characters are religious: Cornelia’s parents, her godmother, her friend Susanne, and her parents, and finally the forest ranger family in the Black Forest. They all form a paradigm of the, say, old order, against which the pleasure-seeking youth now stands with the young cavalier and Cornelia’s new friends, including individual visitors to Oberammergau (Dreisbach 1952: 148). With great care, Dreisbach unfolds the wide range of ideas of a visit to the Passion play in the early post-war period in a short dialogue between Cornelia and one of her new friends with bad reputation: “Of course, whoever goes to the mountains wants to see the Oberammergau Festival”. “The Passion play, you mean!” Cornelia corrected. “Well, it’s all the same. But hopefully there’s something else going on there. Maybe you’ll get yourself a rich foreigner”. (ibid.: 123) Against all this secular nonchalance, a whole string of religious places in the text constitutes a paradigm. First, there is the Black Forest, where Cornelia takes the young cavalier to a “steep, solemn cathedral” (steiler, weihevoller Dom; ibid.: 74), where they visit a forester’s family with the aptronym “Ehrenau”

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(tentative translation: “meadow of honors”; ibid.: 77). From England, their friend Susanne writes about the Lutheran congregation in London, in which the Christian faith represents a unifying bond “across all borders” of peoples and all come together in “one congregation of our Lord” (ibid.: 100). Parallels are carefully drawn to the experience of the Passion play in the Bavarian Highland, not only in the Völkerschau, but also in the ephemeral nature of the event and in the fact that faith is experienced as a “source of strength” (ibid.: 147) that creates a community and identification. And as if all that was not yet clear enough “for the youth”, the parallels are explicitly elaborated. “How strange”, Cornelia thinks, “Susanne has to go to England to recognize and find Christ, and I experience Oberammergau in order to get along inwardly again” (ibid.: 154). For today’s readers, the author is laying it on thick. But in an even more penetrating way, the heart of the religious paradigm is introduced: Oberammergau, of course, and the village no less than the Passion play. The common topoi are conscientiously invoked: The village is clean, wellkept, tidy, the organization on site is punctual and prudent, everything is handled in sovereign calm. Although the visitors come from all over the world – “Englishmen, French, Negroes [a common term in 1950’s Germany], Japanese, Swedes, Dutchmen and still others” (ibid.: 138) – it is absolutely quiet on the streets. For the foreign guests are in the Passion play house and the inhabitants not involved in the play respect the performance and keep quiet. This perfectly fits one of Cornelia’s first impressions: “It was like a secret benediction or blessing hovering above all the people that we saw”3 (ibid.: 127). The overwhelming impressions of the performances ignite the entire audience so that they remain deeply moved: “On the faces of most of the visitors” who leave the Passion play house during the intermission, “collected seriousness showed itself. Many, even men, could be seen crying with emotion” (ibid.: 131–2). The same holds true for the walk to Golgotha scene of the last performance, which Cornelia attends: “Men are not ashamed of their tears, women sob loudly”. But this gendering (at least conspicuous for today’s readers) is brought to an end when it comes to the crucifixion: “Dead silence reigns in the enormous room” (ibid.: 155). All of this, including the tendency towards a mystical show among the onlookers, has long been topical for the Oberammergau discourse around 1950, and one could understand the entire bundle of motifs in the sense of an associative whole as Barthes’ sign. But this sign is now ideologically coupled with other meanings; first of all, with the still patriarchal social order, in which women are solely there for the family, are absorbed in it and find fulfillment. Secondly, with a conservative religiosity, with which profane values such as order, diligence, and sacrifice for the family are also associated – as well as, for the woman, concern for her own good reputation. The retelling of Oberammergau here actually brings together unrelated themes and concerns and is transformed by them. In the delineation given by the author, the village as a place as well as the Passion play serves as a vehicle of deliverance from going to the bad, to which a “spirit of contradiction” may

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lead young girls. Immediately after the end of the performance, when Cornelia takes part in a communion celebration in the small chapel of the Protestant “Diaspora Community” (Dreisbach 1952: 156), she knows again where she belongs: “She was lost, but now she had returned home” (ibid.: 157). However, judging it from a more distant, detached vantage point, in this novel which is explicitly targeted at “young people”, Oberammergau and its play ultimately become part of disciplining procedures in which a somewhat sanctimonious religiousness and a repressive educational and family model are combined.

7. Chaucer and Dan Brown go Oberammergau In the last twenty years, the Oberammergau topic seems to have opened up new literary fields in which it can be combined with a number of other highly connotative issues and thus enter an intertextual cosmos which is potentially limitless. For example, this is the case when the journey to the Bavarian Alps is explicitly paralleled to that of the pilgrims’ group in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. In her novel Passion Play. The Oberammergau Tales (2013), Australian author Valerie Volk combines her years-long experience in teaching Chaucer and her fascination for the Bavarian village and its play. The parallel clearly consists of the heterogeneous audience arriving from virtually all over the world and from all sociotopes which allows for a panoramic view on today’s society: “Chaucer’s people show us a tapestry of the medieval world; my characters reveal a parallel spectrum of today’s social lives” (Volk 2013: 1). Despite this rather romantic notion, Chaucer does not immediately reflect medieval reality; instead, he creates a state satire by varying traditions of vernacular storytelling and (hereby adapting the example of Boccaccio’s Decamerone) integrating them in the frame narrative of a pilgrims’ journey. But maybe it is exactly this bricolage of available modular components in which the late medieval short story collection and the postmodern (though traditionally narrated) novel converge. Effectually, the Oberammergau travelers’ histories and fates seem typified (sometimes even stereotypical) rather than individual lives and fortunes. The politician trying to avoid a public scandal, the scientist who made his meteoric career by (mis)using his colleague’s research results, or the lesbian school principal responsible for her annoying lover’s deadly accident in the mountains are rather cliché, but in a way, this reduction of modern life’s plurality corresponds to the types of the knight, the yeoman, the pardoner, or the prioress in Chaucer’s stories. Volk explicitly parallels her characters to Chaucer’s wayfarers by their professions and careers, quoting the Canterbury Tales at the beginning of each chapter. Yet, this does not turn out to be all too convincing. What makes up the most obvious difference to Chaucer’s party of travelers is the mere fact that the Oberammergau wayfarers do not talk a lot to one another. Mostly, the novel consists of a series of inner monologues by the members of a package tour starting at Munich and making its way to the alpine village. The monologues allow for confessions of betrayal, guilt, and remorse but differ significantly from

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the fictional stories Chaucer’s characters tell and from the dialogic nature of the Canterbury Tales. But apart from the rather associative linking of the texts’ characters, Volk’s pilgrimage in secular (or post-secular?) times is a convincing plot that unfolds plausibly the “mix of curiosity, religious faith, tourist appeal and questioning” (Volk 2013: 1) one will likely associate with religious tourism.4 All of the travelers are looking for something and hope to find some kind of comfort in the Passion play village, be it consolidation of faith or just confirmation of their righteous point of view. Despite in part heavily questioning the sense of the Passion play, most attendees are deeply impressed by the performance; there is no mocking of the mise en scene. If visitors truly find what they have been looking for in the play, remains unanswered. But the plot speaks for itself. Even in (post) modern times, a certain healing power is attributed to the Passion play, thus, confirming and continuing the claim of its undoubted prestigiousness and keeping the Oberammergau myth alive. The Oberammergau Tales show modern life’s saints and sinners in a nutshell, thereby making use of the centuries-old plot structure of the frame narrative and thematically linking the wayfare by bus with a medieval story of a pilgrims’ group which is first and foremost literature. German Spiegel Magazine reporter Erich Follath took quite a different approach to having Oberammergau enter a postmodern literary cosmos in his thriller Who shot Jesus Christ?, published just in time for the Passion play season 2000. Here, it is not the plot structure that is borrowed from an intertextual echo chamber. Instead, the rather conventional who-dunnit plot combines the alpine Passion play village and several illustrious settings world-wide for a rapid and multiply interlaced story line which leads the protagonists to the cities of two continents, thus putting Oberammergau in a row of real yet imaginary places literally all over the world. To summarize the plot very briefly: When in the premiere of the playing season of 2000 the actor playing Jesus is shot while hanging on the cross, regional and federal police forces are alarmed, and a former top journalist starts his own investigations. Only shortly after, the Israeli Mossad sends an undercover agent to Bavaria because the murder weapon comes clearly from the stocks of the Mossad. Meanwhile, the alleged murderer hides in a radical Jewish community in New York, and in Berlin, a neo-Nazi group ready to use violence claims the deed for itself. The author of the novel is eager to combine highly connotative topics which for the average reader are connected to secrets and take an impression of something mysterious; even the extremist religious sect Corpus Christi plays a role. Last not least, the Bavarian fairytale king Ludwig II. is also part of the plot. What the novel presents is actually some kind of Dan Brown goes Bavaria. The author is eager to provide us with all the information necessary for understanding the village and its Passion play and he does so in a rather insisting way; reading the novel feels sometimes like preparing for an exam. But even if the novel is filled with historical information, the village does not lose its outstanding status. The main characters travel from the village to New York and Israel

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and back to Bavaria via Berlin. But amidst a world extensively connected by public transportation and media devices, Oberammergau is said to maintain a certain atmosphere of solitude and, even more importantly, of authenticity. In the end, the journalist who in a moment of life crisis quits his well-paid job, secludes himself and finds solitude in the alpine village, sorts himself out, and gets back into writing. Apart from that, myths seem to have come down to some kind of urban legends in the novel. And that perfectly fits the diagnosis Hans Blumenberg makes about the work on myth in the 20th century. Telling mythical plots, one could say with respect to Oberammergau, denies its own roots in the variation of a constant plot core. By completely absorbing history, the stories hide their own variability. Facing the sheer quantity of historical information on the village the author of Who shot Jesus Christ provides us with, nothing as it seems can be said anymore. But in contrast to his general result, the philosopher closes his voluminous book with a rhetorical question which already indicates that he does not really expect that telling myths might ever come to an end: “But what if there were still something to say, after all?” (Blumenberg 1985: 636) Facing another worldwide pandemic threat in 2020 and given the fact that the Passion play season had to be postponed by two years (thus making the 2022 season a centenary of the 1922 season) it is all the more likely that Blumenberg will be proven right.

Notes 1 Cf. Blumenberg 1996: “Wenn es eine der Funktionen des Mythos ist, die numinose Unbestimmtheit in die nominale Bestimmtheit zu überführen” (32). 2 The publication date cannot be determined for certain. The first verifiable publication of von Schaching’s Volkserzählungen (folk tales) which contains the Judas story is the 2nd edition (1901) but in the web one can find mentioned an earlier edition from 1898 as well as a French translation from 1900. Yet, both proofs do not seem all too reliable. 3 “Über allen Menschen aber, die man sah, lag es wie eine heimliche Weihe”. 4 See my chapter on Oberammergau tourism, in this volume.

Works cited Barthes, R. 1972. Mythologies. Selected and translated from the French by Annette Lavers. New York: The Noonday Press. Blumenberg, H. 1985. Work on Myth. Trans. Robert M. Wallace. Cambridge, MA, London: The MIT Press. Blumenberg, H. 1996. Arbeit am Mythos. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Dreisbach, E. 1952. Cornelia erlebt Oberammergau. Eine Geschichte aus dem Leben. Für die Jugend erzählt von Elisabeth Dreisbach. Stuttgart: Christliches Verlagshaus. Faulstich, W. 2007. “Der Teufel und der liebe Gott”. Zur Bedeutung von Philosophie, Religion und Kirche im zeitgenössischen Wertesystem. In: Die Kultur der fünfziger Jahre, ed. id. Munich: Fink, 23–34. Follath, E. 2000. Wer erschoss Jesus Christus? Munich: Blessing. Hoffmann, U. 2012. Arbeit an der Literatur. Zur Mythizität der Artusromane Hartmanns von Aue. Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter.

182  Jan Mohr Kaminski, W. 1993. Kinder- und Judenliteratur in der Zeit von 1945 bis 1960. In: Jugendli­ teratur zwischen Trümmern und Wohlstand 1945–1960, ed. K. Doderer. Weinheim, Basel: Beltz, 64–79, 90–98. Newman, B. Ch. 1934. Death in the Valley. A Tale Based on the Origin of the Oberammergau Passion Play. London: Archer. Prosch, M. M. 1927. Die sonnige Not. Historischer Roman. Regensburg: Manz. Schaching, O. von [Viktor Martin Otto Denk]. 1901. Der Judas von Oberammergau. Geschichte aus der Zeit des Schwedenkriegs. In: Volkserzählungen. Vol. I, ed. O. Denk. Regensburg: Habbel, 91–147. Schaller, St. 1982. Die ersten 100 Jahre des Oberammergauer Passionsspiels: Neues zum Beginn und zur Textgestalt. Jahrbuch für Volkskunde N. F. 5: 78–124. Schreiber, M. 2006. Das Brot der frühen Jahre. In: Die 50er Jahre. Vom Trümmerland zum Wirtschaftswunder, eds. G. Bönisch and K. Wiegrefe. Munich: Goldmann, 235–41. Shapiro, J. 2001. Oberammergau. The Troubling Story of the World’s most famous Passion Play. New York: Vintage Books. Trenker, L. 1960. Das Wunder von Oberammergau. Hamburg: Rütten & Loening. Volk, V. 2013. Passion Play. The Oberammergau Tales. Mile End: Wakefield Press.

11 Constructions and Enactments of the Christ Figure in Literary Passion Play Scenarios Martin Leutzsch 1. Introduction In this chapter, I am going to examine constructions and enactments of the Christ figure in literary passion play scenarios of the 19th through the 21st century.1 Emphases, characteristic qualities and transformations of the constructions of the Christ figure will be carved out and contextualized in religious, cultural, social history as well as in the light of political and gender history. Thereby, the chapter contributes to research on the constructions of the Jesus figure in modern times. Likewise, it addresses the literary reception history of the Oberammergau Passion play. Fictional texts in which a Christian passion play – that is, the performance of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ by actors – is narrated or depicted, I call passion play fictions. Fictional texts which do so can be found among all major literary genres – the novel, the novella, drama and poetry. The underlying text corpus for this chapter comprises 60 texts published between 1831 and 2021 (see Table 11.1). Passion play fictions have hardly been examined as a distinctive group of texts. On the contrary, so far, they have only been studied from various very specific perspectives so that only segments have been captured. For instance, passion play novels can be understood as a variant form of Jesus novels (for Jesus fictions, see Ziolkowski 1972), novels, in which Christ-like figures appear in the present and suffer a Christ-like fate. In contrast to other variants of the Christ figuration, in passion play novels one character is explicitly determined to represent the role of Jesus Christ. Provided that passion play novels and passion plays (dramas) portray events of the past – many Oberammergau novels are set in the 1630s – they could be classified as historical fictions or historical dramas. Most passion play fictions are set in a rural milieu, so that up to now they have been regarded as village fiction (Dorfroman respectively Dorfgeschichte). Certain passion play fictions can be read as artist’s novels (Künstlerroman) in which local artisans and visual artists, who put forward the idea of the passion play, are central, appearing as leading actors or artistic directors. DOI: 10.4324/9781003106319-15

Year

Passion play novel

1831 1857 1883 1890 1891

Wilhelmine von Hillern, Am Kreuz (eng. 1892)

Passion play in a novel Carl Spindler, Kapuzinerfahrt Josef Rank, Achtspännig; Jemima Montgomery Tautphoeus, Quits Richard Voß, Rolla

Passion play (short) story

Passion play in a (short) story

Passion play drama

Gustav Schollwöck, Vevi (epic poem)

1892 1897

Around 1900 1901 1902

Channing Pollock, Behold the Man

Karl Schönherr, Der Judas von Tirol (F: 1933)

Otto von Schaching, Der Judas von Oberammergau Fridolin vom Freithal, Das Hochgericht im Birkachwald

Passion play poem

William Allen Butler, Oberammergau, 1890 Ludwig Aegidi, Oberammergau

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Table 11.1  Literary Passion Play Scenarios, 1831–2022

1910 1918 1922 1923

Adolf Ott, Vitus Schisler der erste Christus von OberAmmergau (F: 1920) Charles Nelson Pace, The Passion of Herman Fritz MüllerPartenkirchen, Passion (F: 1932 failed)

Alois Frietinger, Der Lüftlmaler von Oberammergau

1924

1925 1927 1930 1931

1932

Felix Nabor, Das Wunder von Ammergau Paul Burg, Oberammergau 1630-1930

M. Magdalena Prosch, Die sonnige Not Lion Feuchtwanger, Erfolg

John Cowper Powys, Erich MüllerA Glastonbury Romance Ahremberg, Der schwarze Gast von Ammergau

Lion Feuchtwanger, Vom richtigen Benehmen Damen gegenüber

(Continued)

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Siegfried von Vegesack, Christus in München Klabund, Oberammergau in Amerika Walter Mehring, Oberammergau (chanson)

Year

Passion play novel

1934

Bernard Newman, Death in the Valley Leo Weismantel, Gnade über Oberammergau

Passion play in a novel

Passion play (short) story

Passion play in a (short) story

Leo Weismantel, Die Pestnot anno 1633 (stage adaptation of the novel)

1935 1937 1938 1948

1951 1952

1955

Passion play drama

Karl Schönherr, Die Fahne weht

Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, Pasje błe̥domierskie Nikos Kazantzakis, Ο Χριστός ξανασταυρώνεται (F: 1957; 1975/76) Clive Sansom, Passion Play

Hermann Nölle, Eine Göttin will ich lieben

Elisabeth Dreisbach, Cornelia entdeckt Oberammergau (Erzählung für die Jugend)

Passion play poem

Humbert Wolfe, X at Oberammergau

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Table 11.1 (Continued)

1957 1959

André Schwarz-Bart, Le Dernier des Justes Luis Trenker, Das Wunder von Oberammergau

1970

E. M. Nathanson, The Latecomers William E. Barrett, The Shape of Illusion

1972 1976 1981 1982 1985 1991

Jonas Gardell, Passionsspelet

Ingrid Möller, Meister Bertram Barry N. Malzberg, The Cross of Fire

Theodora Koob, Johann of the Trembling Hand

Ernst Brauner, Das Kreuz (F: 1960)

Peter Ury, The Kiss of Judas

George Tabori, Goldberg Variationen (Continued)

The Christ Figure in Literary Passion Play Scenarios  187

1960

Erika Türpitz, Der erste Christus von Oberammergau (novella)

Carlos Solórzano, El crucificado

Year

Passion play novel

2000

Andrea Camilleri, La scomparsa di patò Erich Follath, Wer erschoss Jesus Christus? Arnie P. Zimbelman, Recompense

2002

2005 2010 2012 2013 2014

Lucio Yudicello, Judas no siempre se ahorca Marcus Patrick Rehberg, Die Sehnsucht der Schatten nach Licht Valerie Volk, Passion Play. The Oberammergau Tales Verena Keil-Budischowsky, Spielmannskönig

Passion play in a novel

Passion play (short) story

Ellen Slezak, Last Year’s Jesus (or Passion Play) (first 1999 or 2000)

Passion play in a (short) story

Passion play drama

Sarah Ruhl, Passion Play

Passion play poem

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Table 11.1 (Continued)

2016

2018 2020

Oliver Pötzsch, Die Henkerstochter und das Spiel des Todes Hilary Salk, Eavesdropping at Oberammergau Michael Vögel, Quasi Jesus

F = film, italics = Oberammergau fiction

The Christ Figure in Literary Passion Play Scenarios

2021

Bernd Hagemann, Die Pensionsspiele von Oberammergau Monika Pfundmeier, Kreizkruzefix. Ein Oberammergau-Krimi Monika Pfundmeier, Die blaue Reiterin. Ein Oberammergau-Krimi

189

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A considerable part of the novels, stories and lyrics under consideration (39 texts within the examined corpus) is set in Oberammergau or explicitly references this village. These texts are in the focus of the following reflections. For examining the Oberammergau phenomenon from the point of view of history of discourse it might be worthwhile to assume a genre of Oberammergau fictions. For – and this will have to be pointed out – the texts of this group show significant similarities with those of more large-scale groups such as passion play fictions and Jesus fictions. These similarities help stabilize the trademark of Oberammergau. In this paper, I will initially go into the similarities between the figure of Christ and the actors representing it and for that matter I will time and again advert to overlappings of acting and real life (2.). Subsequently, I  will focus on the relation between the actors portraying Christ and sources of inspiration from the visual arts (3.). With that, I intend to inquire into prototypes of masculinity projected onto the figure of Christ and associated with the actors portraying Christ from a perspective of gender history (4.). Analyzing constructions of Christ’s return to earth (5.) will prompt questions of the Jewishness of Jesus (6.) and will lead to a final assessment of the profile conferred upon Jesus in passion play fictions (7.).

2. Acting and real life – similarities between the Christ figure and the actors portraying Christ In many passion play fictions, the qualifications that are considered necessary to assume the role of Christ are a subject of discussion by the almost always rural public, spectators from far and near as well as the potential actors themselves. Often, a crucial factor is the physiognomy of the contender, a Christ-like face (Christusantlitz, Voß n. d. II: 151), the hair and beard style, on which proper attention can be riveted during the preliminary stages. It is inconceivable to picture an “Ammergau Christus with close-cropped hair and a bristling red beard” (Hillern 1893: 296). Similarly, if a professional actor assigned the role of Christ cut his hair the night before the first performance, it would be considered a deliberate offense to spectators’ expectations. Ever since ancient times, notions of Christ as beautiful or as unsightly have competed with each other; passion play fictions show actors who portray Jesus Christ as handsome. Age is another crucial factor: contenders may be seen as too old or too young to assume the role of the thirty- or thirty-three-year-old Christ. Acting talent is mostly presupposed. How vital acting skills are as a criterion for casting a performer for the role of Christ is illustrated in the novella The Passion of Herman. An adolescent woodcarver (Herrgottsschnitzer), eager to portray Christ himself, advocates the performer’s nature as the crucial factor as opposed to physiognomy and acting skills. Thus, the central question is: Is the performer compassionate, helpful and affectionate (Pace 1918)? To this, his master retorts: But that would mean that notorious villains such as Judas and Christ’s adversaries would need to be cast according to their performers’ nature as well?

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In two Oberammergau novels, the portrayal of Christ faces the aesthetics of pain prevalent since the 19th century according to which the experience of pain is the true source of any artistic creation of high quality. In Wilhelmine von Hillern’s novel On the cross, the female protagonist, once in love with and married to the former actor who portrayed Christ, says: “He was no novice in suffering and had one powerful consolation, which she lacked: the perception of the divinity of grief – this made him strong and calm!” (Hillern 1893: 276) In Felix Nabor’s novel, the artisan Martin Ruetz, who looks like the Redeemer himself, dwells on a sculpture of Christ whose creation seems unachievable to him. He posits that the only adequate model for an artist is a young man virtually nailed to the cross. Alternatively, one could put oneself on the cross in order to experience and study the different phases of pain, to endure all the agony oneself! For, once you descend from the cross to carve your reflection in wood, this should result in the production of a miraculous masterpiece, something transcendental, divine! (Nabor 1925: 20) In the course of the plot, Ruetz, in his behavior and the way he feels, gradually becomes more like Christ. He is continually in pursuit of creating a sculpture of Christ that will outshine any other sculpture in beauty based on his own experience of suffering. Later he proposes to portray the suffering and death of the Lord in the form of a passion play, he then is nominated for the part of Christ and lands the role not least because of his looks. While performing in the passion play the identification with the character he portrays is seamless: Not only did he seem like a savior – he truly was a savior. The suffering and the endurance thereof were not mere acting, he truly lived through it, they became a vibrant reality. He offered himself up as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind to appease the raging heaven. Yes, he would have happily died on the cross if it had allowed him to appease heaven and ask for the plague to be averted. (ibid.: 342) Ruetz then reverts to his crucifix project and completes it. But after an encounter with Michelangelo’s oeuvre while travelling through Italy he drops all artistic pursuits in favor of a hermit’s life, devoting his final years to charitable acts and the offering of spiritual guidance. Recruiting an actor from nobility or the upper class is unthinkable in a chiefly rural society. What passion play fictions call into question explicitly is that the part of Christ be handed down to family members, that members of a certain class enjoy the privilege of claiming the role while other professions are excluded from asserting a claim. Can a merchant play the role of Christ? Is it conceivable for a servant or a farm hand to represent Christ if this role had

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traditionally always been played by the son of a farmer (cf. Schönherr 1927: 16–8)? Where two contestants compete, one is commonly the wayward son of a rich peasant while the other is a poor workman; in passion play fictions it is the socially weaker, the marginalized, the less integrated one that gets a chance. This corresponds with the social evolution of Christ in modern constructions of the figure of the savior shifting from the pre-modern king through the middleclass citizen (18th century) to the craftsman and proletarian (19th century). Since the 18th century, visual artists have figured Jesus as a helpmate or as his father’s apprentice in a modest carpenter’s shop. Accordingly, some passion play fictions portray their protagonists, that is, the actors playing the role of Christ, as woodworkers, prevalently as carvers in the field of arts and crafts, less frequently as carpenters. The piety or religiosity of the actor portraying Christ is implicitly presupposed. A contender for the role of Jesus, publicly admitting to be an atheist, disqualifies himself for the part, which in a more recent Oberammergau novel sets the plot going (Rehberg 2017 [2012]: 9–14). Further similarities between how one would paint Christ and how one would portray him as an actor are not key for qualifying for the part, but they may become an issue for the already chosen actors when it comes to identifying with their roles. In a number of fictions, the actors playing Jesus decide to live a life of sexual abstinence and practice celibacy even if it comes at the cost of giving up an existing relationship or breaking off an engagement. In one novel, the actor of Christ turned down his role after returning the love of a devotee (Hillern 1893). This matches with the idea of Jesus practicing celibacy, an idea that dates back to the 2nd century and continues to be dominant to this day. More recent fictions show the actor playing the role of Jesus as a child born out of wedlock and reference ancient and medieval polemics against Christianity according to which Jesus was born a bastard (Ruhl 2010: 46; Rehberg 2017 [2012]: 275). Often the actors portraying Christ show Christ-like behavior outside the situation of the play. Self-identification of the performer with the figure of Christ together with external identifications can lead to an overlapping of real life and the sphere of the play which is both desired and dangerous. This overlapping may notably place the power of the rural establishment in jeopardy. However, the Christ-like behavior of the performer outside the sphere of the play is less antagonistic but rather integrative – the martyrdom of the performer can be construed as beneficial to the village community.

3. Intermediality: paintings – sculptures – actors In his novel Achtspännig (1857), the author Josef Rank sends a couple of Swabians to a “prominent village” (Rank 1857: 122) in order to attend the performance of a renowned passion play. Before reaching their destination, the travelers meet a country parson. The clergyman emphasizes the historico-philosophical merits and benefits of Christianity vis-à-vis Judaism as well as the advantages of both religions over ancient paganism. Moreover, he praises the unsurpassable

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appearance of Christ as “the most unflawed ideal of a morally accomplished man” (ibid.: 124). In doing so, he cites, historically well-informed, three medieval descriptions of Christ’s appearance, all of which inspired visual artists since the late Middle Ages, led scholars to historical questions and physiognomic speculations from early modern times onwards, and were used by clergymen and theologians as reference points for standardizing and criticizing ecclesiastical art. In aesthetic, literary, and theological discourses of the 19th century, the physiognomy of Christ plays a crucial role both in attempts to reconstruct it historically and in an effort to draft pictures and images of Christ that serve the needs of the modern age and thereby identify those that are or have become inapt or unsuitable. In light of an increasingly physiocentric construction and perception of religion, the imitatio Christi often becomes an imitatio imaginis Christi. In this process, constructions of the Christ figure in the visual arts take a special position. Passion play fictions are replete with a broad range of intertextual and intermedial references. They quote, recount or reference stage plays (such as other passion plays or also frequently Goethe’s Faust), the plays’ rehearsal processes and performances, tableaux vivants, paintings and sculptures of Christ, musical compositions, films, photography, a television talk show, the version of the Harmony of the Gospels chosen for a particular production of the passion play, Bible translations, occasionally the Greek source text of the Gospels, literature on Oberammergau and other texts, including those invented by the author himself or herself. Any attested or alleged similarity between the actor portraying Christ and the physiognomy of the savior, implicitly or explicitly, makes reference to visual media. This explains the numerous references made to paintings and sculptures that can be found in passion play fictions. Looking at such artistic depictions of Christ in the visual arts the emphasis is on the iconography of the Passion. This recourse to visual media fulfills three main functions. First, visual media serve as criteria for the suitability of any potential actor for the part of Christ. Franz Seraph Zwinck, an 18th-century artist fictionalized in Alois Frietinger’s novella Der Lüftlmaler von Oberammergau (The “Lüftl” painter of Oberammergau), does not only have a “head that is evocative of the savior” (Frietinger 1910: 7). The prediction, that Franz Seraph Zwinck is well suited to first portray John and later even Christ in the Passion play (Frietinger’s protagonist plays Christ in 1780 and 1790), is preceded by a comparison with Albrecht Dürer’s christomorphic self-portrait. During a stay in Augsburg, Zwinck known as the “ ‘Christ of Ammergau’, as he was called because of his striking appearance” (ibid.: 165), is given the leading role in a play about Albrecht Dürer. Secondly, images of Christ can serve as models when staging a passion play. Accordingly, Oberammergau fictions refer to Leonardo da Vinci’s mural painting “The Last Supper” as well as to Peter Paul Rubens’s painting “The Descent from the Cross” located in the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp. Visual media of that sort that serve as models or paragons may be unique examples

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of high culture (such as Michelangelo’s Christ in the Sistine Chapel, the high altar of the Schottenstift (Scottish Abbey) in Vienna, the Gothic choir stalls in St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna or Raphael’s Sistine Madonna), which are accessible through reproductions. Manifestations such as icons, pietàs, crucifixes in churches, in monastic cells and in domestic shrines (Herrgottswinkel) as well as in little shrines outdoors, Stations of the Cross and frescoes in small-town churches qualify as sacral art. As points of reference for pilgrimages, they may possess nationwide relevance, as does the wooden figure of the Scourged Savior in the Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche). The paintings and sculptures, that are referenced, all date back to the Middle Ages and early modern times. Passion play fictions of the 20th and 21st centuries make no reference to representations of Christ in contemporary art. Besides director Robert Wilson’s installation “14 Stations” which was shown in the year 2000, “a Christ after the manner of Gabriel Max” (Hillern 1893: 248),2 the crucifixion group sculpted by Johann von Halbig and given to Oberammergau as an endowment by King Ludwig II in 1875 as well as copperplate engravings of Gustave Doré’s Passion paintings, which the artist had sent to Oberammergau, are the most contemporary portrayals that are referenced. This observation has implications. Since around 1850, painting as a medium of art has been the subject of numerous, often scandalous controversies over the appropriate portrayal of Christ. These controversies have since been articulated in the opposites of divine vs. human, universal vs. national, male and gentle vs. male aggressive, European vs. Oriental, traditional vs. realistic, non-Jewish vs. Jewish. The cry for a portrayal of Christ that represents a national (Russian, German, etc.) character of art and that meets national needs has also unfolded amidst these controversies. However, none of these controversies have found their way into passion play fictions. Rehberg’s Oberammergau novel constitutes an exception, in that it makes mention of a Christ figure on the cross with an erection (Rehberg 2017 [2012]: 122) – possibly inspired by a cartoon with the same motif that caused a sensation in a US student newspaper in 2006.3 Referring to visual media fulfills a third function, one that is a distinctive feature of passion play fictions. In a number of texts, the narrating characters create and/or sculpt depictions of Christ themselves. These artists are village painters and sculptors, in particular those who portray Christ also as actors or at least give a crucial impulse for a passion play production, or, occasionally, as visitors to Oberammergau. In Richard Voß’s novel, the character Augustin who portrays Christ in a Passion play production (and who later gets murdered during a performance) gives a crucifix that he carved himself as an endowment to the church of the village (Voß n. d. II: 174–5, 181). Channing Pollock lets his novel’s character, Joseph Dremer, who also portrays Christ in a Passion play production, create a wooden piece of altar that he wants to give to the local parish as a gift (Pollock 1901). Frietinger mentions paintings and carvings of Christ as part of his protagonist’s oeuvre; his main character, Franz Zwinck, also portrays Christ in a Passion play production (Frietinger 1910). Vitus Schisler, the protagonist of Adolf Ott’s novel who later would become

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the first actor to portray Christ in the Oberammergau Passion play, was taught how to carve by his foster father (Ott 1910). Time and again, he has visions that lead him to suggest performing a passion play in Oberammergau. In Paul Burg’s Oberammergau novel, woodcarver (Herrgottsschnitzer) Josef Pech creates a life-size statue of Christ, which hence is publicly displayed, but then disappears and is finally found again. After taking a pledge to perform a passion play every ten years, Pech is chosen as the first actor to portray Christ (Burg 1930). The central character of Luis Trenker’s Oberammergau novel is Kaspar Schüssler. The novel’s rather unreliable narrator, Zwink, hypothesizes that Schüssler in his capacity as a woodcarver created a monumental statue of Christ (Trenker 1960). It is the abbot of Ettal who commissions Schüssler to sculpt a larger-than-life statue of Christ. With the exceptional and quite restless personality of an artist, not measurable by normal standards, Schüssler initially refuses but later finds a tree that he deems suitable for his vision of a sculpture of Christ. He begins sculpting and manages to complete his work despite being ravaged by the plague. It is through the locking of eyes with the statue he sculpted that Schüssler is evangelized in the face of death. That statue of the savior is buried by Schüssler and later survives when Schüssler’s estate burns down. When rediscovered afterward, it is interpreted as a miracle while also causing resistance among members of the community. The sculpted body of Christ is attached to a cross and on Easter Sunday the crucifix is publicly set up. Ultimately, a motif that is quite popular in literary works of the past 200 years and that is addressed in a number of passion play fictions is the interaction with sculptures and (occasionally) paintings of Christ. In Wilhelmine von Hillern’s novel, the dying Christ in a modern painting seems to be looking at the owner of that painting, who is experiencing a life crisis (Hillern 1893: 248–9, 255–6). The former actor Freyer, the male main character of the novel who once played the part of Christ, meets the gaze of the wooden sculpture of Christ in the Bavarian Church of Wies (Wieskirche) and finds solace in that encounter. In Fritz Müller(-Partenkirchen)’s novella, Christ on the cross repeatedly speaks to Sepp from a crucifix in the open air, eventually leans from the cross and falls off it, whereupon Sepp is crucified by the community, an act that ends the plague (Müller 1922). In Felix Nabor’s Oberammergau novel, it is in a chapel of Ettal that Christ on the cross “seemed to look reproachfully at young Everl Buchwieser because she was not as devout as the consecrated place demanded” (Nabor 1925: 113). Paul Burg lets the encounter between the Oberammergau painter Zwink and a young noble woman who is in love with him take place below “Christ on the cross of nearly white wood hanging on the wall” (Burg 1930: 95). In Leo Weismantel’s novel, the character of Kasper Schissler dreams of his son Vitus carving a colossal crucifix; Christ on the cross is alive and wails (Weismantel 1934: 99). Later, the motif of a wailing crucifix is taken up again and taken to mean that a passion play is to be established. Kazantzakis creates an encounter between Maniolos, the actor to play Christ, and Christ on the iconostasis of

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a chapel (Kazantzakis 1962: 164). In Luis Trenker’s novel, the fatally ill artist looks at the statue of Christ he just completed, up to Christ on the cross, who – right before his eyes – suddenly came to life. He engaged in a dialogue with the Savior on the cross. Indeed, it was the moment of the conversion of Kaspar Schüssler, when the apostate, the prodigal son, found his way back to Christ. (Trenker 1960: 280–1) Occasionally, the respective religio-aesthetic effect of different media employed to portray Christ is evaluated. Nora, the heroine of Jemima Montgomery’s novel Quits, is optimally au fait with historical depictions of Christ when she visits Oberammergau with an English group of travelers in 1850. When the actor who plays Christ comes on the stage, Nora instantly understands, that what was then before her, would take the place of all the pictures and statues she had ever seen, and remain indelibly impressed on her mind for ever. It was, therefore, this one deeply interesting figure, with the pale face, finely chiselled features, and parted waving hair which has become typical, that she followed with breathless interest and anxiety throughout, and never did the eminence of the character of Christ strike her so forcibly, or the worthlessness of mankind, and the ignoble motives that are the springs of their actions become so glaringly apparent as on this occasion. (Tautphoeus 1857: 35) The experience of the Christ actor performing in the passion play cannot be outdone. When Nora is offered to meet the actor in person, she turns the proposal down despite being assured that his appearance and behavior outside the play would correspond to the expectations of the Saviour figure: “No, thank you,” said Nora, quickly, “not for any consideration would I see him in another dress. I intend to forget that he exists otherwise than as he appeared to me this day. Not even ten years hence would I desire to witness this great drama again; he will then most probably have lost in appearance some of his present eminent advantages, and I  wish to preserve the impression made on me to-day as pure as may be, and as long as possible”. (ibid.: 38) The fact that the portrayal of Christ in the Oberammergau Passion play can be transformed into other media and thus be commercialized is the theme of the poem “Oberammergau in America”. For an American public, Christ becomes tangible when the Oberammergau actor Anton Lang visits the United States. Through selling and acquiring photographs and wooden sculptures, his

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everlasting presence can be reinforced (given its poetic character, I give but a rough translation): Little did Mister, Miss  and Mistress know about Christ, until one day, blond-haired and unctuous, he revealed himself to them. He is from Bavaria’s wilderness, from its primeval forest, and for 20 cents, he sells his effigy on which you can also find a palm tree, a crucifix and an olive tree. (But carved in wood, the sales price is higher.) (Bauz 1924: 363)4

4. Constructions of Christ and the ideal of masculinity The dominant aspect connected with constructions of Christ in the realm of passion play fictions is the relation between the figure of Christ, the actor portraying Christ and the ideal of masculinity (cf. to the following Leutzsch 2014; Leutzsch 2019). In Maximilian Schmidt’s Oberammergau novel, the actor during his performance is described as “serious”, “full of gentleness and humility” and “calm”, his sufferance as “kind”, his facial expression and affect as “noble” (Schmidt n. d.: 117–20). This description captures the central characteristics of the bourgeois ideal of masculinity of the period from 1750 until approximately 1870. It is this bourgeois ideal where masculinity is seen as “noble and gallant naivety and quiet greatness” (Winckelmann)5  that is attributed to Christ by authors since Herder, Goethe and Novalis as well as by artists such as Thorvaldsen and the Nazarenes. The ideal of a non-aggressive (peaceable), unpretentious, calm, self-controlled masculinity and the corresponding construction of Christ come under criticism in the last third of the 19th century. Proponents of a more aggressive ideal of masculinity belittle it as anemic, other-worldly, mawkish and feminine. The paleness of his face (cf. Hillern 1893; Schaching 1901) no longer qualifies as melancholic – a feature often attributed to Christ – but as unhealthy and decadent. Since the 1880s, the collective imaginary of the bourgeoisie faces and follows the ideal of a charismatic personality, someone who alone through their presence, their act of looking and their voice are able to impress and move individuals as well as the masses. This new ideal of masculinity inspires new constructions of Christ: while offering an alternative to constructions of Christ from previous generations that now seem outdated and unmanly, these new constructions also present alternatives to pathologizing constructions of Christ as proposed by critics of Christianity such as Nietzsche who posit a new version of the phantasm of the “great man”. It is this charismatic figure of Christ that is portrayed in Wilhelmine von Hillern’s novel On the cross.6 The humility and gentleness of the actor portraying Christ repeatedly irritate the female protagonist’s expectations on masculinity. The expected heroism is reinterpreted in that “the martyrdom of Christ became heroism” (Hillern 1893: 76). The

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actor portraying Christ delivers his performance “in the happiness of that passive heroism of Christianity, which goes with a smile to meet death for others” (ibid.: 432). This apologetic construction of Christian heroism does not exclude the charismatic hero to purposefully show signs of aggression. Along with new constructions of the bourgeois ideal of masculinity as represented by the charismatic personality, Oberammergau fictions negotiate competing realms of masculinity in the rural setting. In his novella The Crucifix Carver of Ammergau (Der Herrgottschnitzer von Ammergau) (1879/1883), Ludwig Ganghofer lets his protagonist, the shy and modest woodcarver named Pauli, compete with a sturdy and aggressive rival for the all too proud girl by the name of Loni. Loni, at one point, calls Pauli a wimp and slaps him in the face without Pauli defending himself – this is but one analogy between Christ and the protagonist Ganghofer draws in his novella (cf. Ganghofer 1883; John 18:22–23). Not before demonstrating that his performance of masculinity includes acting out anger, Pauli can prevail over his rival and consequently win Loni over. The structure or constellation of one girl and two rivalling young men who show contrasting versions of masculinity is a fairly common one amongst Oberammergau fictions; the winner of that rivalry is the modest and timid contestant who is willing to resort to violence at the crucial moment (cf., e.g., Nabor 1925). The growing need for aggressive masculinity is closely connected with an increasingly militarized nationalism. The appropriate place for aggressive masculinity to show itself is the staging of Christ’s cleansing of the temple (Mark 11:15–19). In Gustav Schollwöck’s epic poem Vevi, the cleansing of the temple is paralleled with the military resistance of the locals against the Swedish attackers during the Thirty Years’ War (Schollwöck 1890). Otto von Schaching characterizes the woodcarver Peck as pale in his portrayal of Christ, but right after the performance, Peck shoots at the approaching Swedes and as a consequence limits their attack on Oberammergau (Schaching 1901). Felix Nabor lets his protagonist Ruetz, a devout actor who portrays Christ, kill a Swede in order to save a girl; the protagonist then repents of the act of violence and asks God for forgiveness (Nabor 1925). In light of imminent danger caused by the Swedish attackers, the narrator posits: “if heaven is to help when the world is in distress, it is man who has to make use of his hands and do what is necessary” (Nabor 1925: 203). And, here, being a man means chasing away the Swedish attackers. In Paul Burg’s Oberammergau novel (1930), it is the priest who during rehearsals insists “that every performer in the Passion play, whether they portray Christ, John or anyone else, learns to use the spear and sword against the Swedes” (Burg 1930: 39). It is the actor who in the future will portray Christ who slays a Swedish cornet. When Swedes approach again, all fetch “their sword, their spear, regardless of whether Christ, Judas or Nathaniel” (ibid.: 64). Also, in Burg’s novel, Germany’s later political fate is interpreted in terms of categories of the passion. Referring to the years 1846–1848, the narrator declares a new Passion narrative of the faithful but abandoned virgin Germania. Furthermore, he interprets Ludwig I of Bavaria and his mistress Lola Montez

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in terms of characters from the Passion (e.g., Lola Montez as a female Pilate). He also speaks of a Calvary and the hope of resurrection. Additional and more recent nationalizations of the Passion can be found in the last part of the novel, which takes the reader as far as the present day. In Karl Schönherr’s drama Die Fahne weht (first published in 1937), the suffering of Christ is equated with the suffering of the Tyroleans of 1809 (Schönherr 1967). Nationalizations of the Passion and Resurrection of that sort are ideologemes of modern nationalism; and ever since World War I, in Germany and Austria they are in wide use. Outside the realm of Oberammergau fictions, such nationalizations of the Passion can be found most notably in Kazantzakis’ novel Ο Χριστός ξανασταυρώνεται “Christ Recrucified” (Kazantzakis 1948), which does not only take account of the precarious situation of the Greek minority in a 1920s Anatolia, but also of the Greek civil war starting in 1946. In the novel, the suffering of the Greeks is caused less by repressive acts on the part of the Turks, but more by the fact that the rural Greek establishment turned away the Greek refugees. In light of this internal Greek conflict, the gentle and peaceable Christ that the performers of the Passion initially support proves insufficient and, thus, must be complemented with a model of Christ ready for combat.

5. Jesus redivivus What if Christ returned? Ever since the end of the 2nd century and throughout the history of Christianity, this very question regularly occurs. It is used in contexts of a critique of clergy, church, and society. The ancient assumption that Christ will again be crucified in the wake of his Second Coming is broadened to include alternatives such as getting collared, being laughed at and being put under psychiatric treatment ever since the end of the 18th century. In books of fiction, this thought experiment can be unfurled extensively – something that is done to this day particularly in the aftermath of Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor” episode in The Brothers Karamazov (1880). In 1890, in his book The Story that Transformed the World, the English journalist William Thomas Stead wrote about the Oberammergau Passion play (Stead 1890). This work was reprinted in 1900 and 1902, each time under a different title. His Jesus-redivivus novel If Christ came to Chicago! (Stead 1894) triggered a wave of similar novels in which Jesus comes to Boston, to a fictitious city somewhere on the east coast of the United States and to other places. Passion play fictions have picked up on the Jesus-redivivus motif since 1923. Siegfried von Vegesack published his poem “Christ in Munich” (1923) one year after the 1922 Oberammergau Passion play. Upon arrival in present-day Munich, Christ gets collared at night, is then interrogated at the police station due to insufficient identification papers and finally is carted off in a cattle truck for dubious utterances (“I am Jew and I am Christian!”; Vegesack 1923: 354) – it is also possible that he ends up incarcerated in Niederschönenfeld (where in fact important representatives of the Bavarian Soviet Republic were imprisoned).

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In Humbert Wolfe’s lengthy poem “X at Oberammergau” (1935), it is during rehearsals for the Passion play that a stranger arrives in the village. Shortly after his arrival, he is hired by the Nazi director of the play to replace the leading actor, who fell sick, for the part of Christ. The first encounter with the stranger is described as an epiphany. While impressing the rest of the cast, he is considered extremely suitable for the role. He refuses to speak ill of the Jews and admits on being a Jew himself. The performers contemplate whether the stranger is a charlatan with a talent for acting or “a Jew confessed by person and behaviour,/who does not merely act but is the Saviour” (Wolfe 1935, as cited in Bagguley 1997: 37). Their plan to murder the stranger is finally carried out during a performance of the Passion. In 1908 Humbert Wolfe converted to Christianity, but in the face of growing anti-Semitism he retained and continued to publicly express an affinity with Jewish roots (cf. Bagguley 1997: 282–3). Through his appearance and fate, Wolfe’s Jesus redivivus fiercely criticizes anti-Semitism and National Socialism as well as German-Christian and völkisch-Germanophile ideologies. The Jesus-redivivus motif also appears in two later Oberammergau fictions. In Erich Follath’s novel Wer erschoss Jesus Christus? (Who Shot Jesus Christ?), the male protagonist ponders on whether Jesus would cleanse the temple once more in light of cult and commerce dominating present-time Oberammergau (Follath 2000). In Marcus Patrick Rehberg’s novel Die Sehnsucht der Schatten nach dem Licht (The Shadows’ Longing for the Light) (Rehberg 2017 [2012]), it is during rehearsal that the leading actor parries the artistic director’s reproaches: Do you really believe, that the Jesus of the past would act exactly the way you want him to act here and now? No. He would refuse to act the way you want him to act; what he once did in the temple, he would do to your play. Where you want tables to be knocked over, he would leave them untouched and he would knock over what you want to stay intact. He would show Oberammergau his visions, as he once did in Jerusalem. He would thrill the audience, more forceful than ever before, because he learned from his mistakes. (Rehberg 2017 [2012]: 367) The Jesus-redivivus motif can also be found in passion play fictions that are not set in Oberammergau. The most prominent example is Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel Ο Χριστός ξανασταυρώνεται (1948) – it is the very title of the book (“Christ will be crucified again”) that already interprets the entire plot that follows by way of the Jesus-redivivus motif. In the novel, the protagonist says to the priest of the village, who endorses the establishment and who has just cursed him: “You priests, you once crucified Christ, and if he had his Second Coming, you would crucify him again!” (Kazantzakis 1962: 305)

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Clive Sansom’s novel Passion Play (1951) is set in three fictitious Upper Bavarian villages. Here, the question of what would happen if Christ returned these days, is discussed by two clergymen. One hypothesizes that each and every one of us could take the role of the traitor: “If Christ returned,” said Schultz, “some obscure little tax-collector might be raised from his insignificance to denounce him. Or it might be the keeper of the Blue Wolf – or you, or me.” “I hadn’t considered it like that.” “Exactly. It satisfies our egoism to see the Judases of the world in one group and ourselves in another. To God the two encampments may look oddly alike. Perhaps, after all, what we pride ourselves on is merely the absence of any magnifying event.” (Sansom 1951: 27) The motif is widely used in E. M. Nathanson’s novel The Latecomers (first published in 1970), one of more than three dozen Jewish Jesus novels, set in a fictitious US “Passion Park” where religion meets commerce. The protagonist of the passion play, who will die a violent death on the cross, poses the question of what would happen if Christ returned. In a dispute between two clergymen, the author of the passion play, Nicholas Concert, and the profit-oriented operator of the Passion Park, Fludur Rudolf, the latter asks: “How, I ask you, can a man of God, a man destined to do great and important things, do so without establishing himself as a man of status, a man of prestige?” “A needless and wasteful façade.” “But, without it, where would he get?” argued Rudolf. “Nobody would pay attention to him.” “How about Jesus Christ?” asked Concert softly. “Not in this society!” Rudolf declared with scorn. “That was a far different time and place. Another world.” His voice softened almost to reverence. “And even then, how pitiful small was his band of followers. It was time, hundreds of years, many disciples, apostles, teachers, leaders, saints, guided by the everlasting, everloving hand of God that proved His truth, His worth.” “If we do things properly,” said Concert, a beatific look on his face, “it need not take as long this time.” (Nathanson 1972: 218) In the artist novel Meister Bertram (1981) by art historian and writer Ingrid Möller, the painter and protagonist of the story takes part in a Good Friday procession in 1390’s Hamburg. The procession later joins a passion

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play from which the painter draws inspiration for paintings. During the procession a strange sight met Master Bertram’s eyes. The cross, the high triumphal cross, intersects with the outline of the gallows hill. As if they belonged together. A  gruesome thought crosses his mind: .  .  . If Christ returned today, could one stake one’s life on it that he not be crucified again? Have people become wiser throughout the past one and half thousand years? Have they become less cruel? Less intolerant? More human? (Möller 1981: 34)

6. Jesus the Jew The use of the Jesus-redivivus motif by Jewish artists, writers and scientists can be traced back to the 1850s. It is not unusual for these authors to focus on Jesus’s Jewishness and his solidarity with the Jewish people. This also applies to Andre Schwarz-Bart’s novel Le Dernier des Justes (1959), where the motif is found independent of the Passion play scene. In Wolfe’s “X at Ammergau”, Jesus’s Jewishness is prominently linked to the Jesus-redivivus motif: right after his Second Coming, Jesus stresses the chosenness of the Jewish people and is then murdered by the Nazis for being Jewish. In the völkisch-religious context after 1900, Christ’s ancestry is increasingly postulated to be Aryan. In Wolfe’s poem, it is the actor of Judas who acts as a proponent of that ideologue. In völkisch-religious contexts, the assertion that Jesus is a Jew is perceived as a provocation. Jesus’s Jewishness is not central to all passion play fictions by Jewish writers. However, it plays a vital role in the works of Nathanson, Ury, Tabori and Salk. In Nathanson’s novel, the narrative characters are divided over the question of the Jewishness of the actor portraying Christ and over his potential Jewishness being the cause of his dismissal for the organizer of the play (Nathanson 1972). In Peter Ury’s drama The Kiss of Judas, which sets the scene for the apostle’s rehabilitation, the view that Judas is the archetype of Judaism is countered by the view that Jesus and Peter were also Jews; later in the play, Rabbi Yeshu ben Joseph is mentioned. In the last third of George Tabori’s drama Goldberg Variations (premiere in 1991 at the Burgtheater Vienna), a passion play takes place, during which Jay, the director of the passion play, compares his assistant director Goldberg with Jesus and crucifies him. At the end of the drama, Jay spits in Goldberg’s face, whereupon Goldberg kisses Jay. Tabori, thus, draws on Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor motif, where, after his Second Coming, Jesus kisses the Grand Inquisitor on the lips. Since the last turn of the millennium, Jesus’s Jewishness has gained prominence in passion play fictions. In Erich Follath’s Oberammergau novel, historically correct, the endeavor to portray Jesus as a Jew in the Passion play production of the year 2000 is accentuated. In the course of the novel, the actor

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is shot on the cross during the performance. Afterward it becomes clear that he was the son of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother. For the neo-Nazis, who lay claim to the assassination, the ancestry of the actor portraying Christ is of importance: “We took a half-Jew down from the cross and scored off Judaism of the world accordingly” (Follath 2000: 358), so the crude argumentation. In the second part of her Passion Play, which is set in Oberammergau in 1934, Sarah Ruhl has Eric, the actor who portrays Christ, speak (chorally with the village idiot Violet) during the scene of the Last Supper: And finally I want everyone at this table, eating my blood and my body, to remember that I am a Jew. (Ruhl 2010: 82) In many ways, Marcus Patrick Rehberg makes Jesus’s being Jewish a subject of discussion in his Oberammergau novel. Aaron Goldblum, the non-practicing Jewish author of the latest Passion play, notices that in the preface of the textbook of the previous Passion play it was emphasized that Jesus was a Jew (Rehberg 2017 [2012]: 92). Aaron looks at this with a critical eye: On the one hand, it is argued that a purely inner-Jewish conflict is outlined; what noble intentions, which in the first scenes that I read are well implemented – albeit in a somewhat bumpy way. But in the end, the Jew Jesus transforms into the Son of God. With this, the whole view onto the play is reversed. Like in those films, where you learn at the end that the hero was dead since the very beginning and only walked the earth as a kind of ghost without knowing it himself. (ibid.: 94) Aaron sees Jesus as the subject matter not only as a dramatic but also as an existential challenge. He begins to reflect on his own Jewishness and compares himself to Jesus. In a talk show following the first performance of the new Passion play, in which the crucified Jesus does not die on the cross but is taken down and saved from death, a rabbi emphasizes Jesus’s Jewishness and denies that Jesus posed a threat to the continuity of Jewish faith. The actor of Christ, a prominent and professional film actor from Oberammergau, moves back to his home village and into a mansion in which the only Jew from Oberammergau (who in the novel is called Simon Eckstein7) lived during the Nazi era. Aaron constantly draws comparisons between Eckstein and Jesus. In the course of the novel, it comes to light that the actor of Christ, himself the illegitimate child of an archbishop, is in fact Eckstein’s grandson, which means that he has Jewish ancestry.

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The topos of Jesus the Jew is typical and important for those Jews of the modern age that understand Jesus as part of their own history and culture, partly also of their own religion, and thus dispute Christianity’s appropriation of Jesus. In modern Christianity, Jesus’s Jewishness was emphasized by Christian critics and opponents of racial anti-Semitism in order to question anti-Semitic attitudes and practices. In Christian self-criticism after the Shoah, the Jew Jesus becomes a symbol of Christianity’s enduring dependence on Judaism. One factor contributing to portraying Jesus as a Jew in passion play fictions is the strong criticism of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism in the Oberammergau Passion play by Jewish authors as early as 1901 and increasingly since the 1960s. Another contributing factor is the debate on anti-Judaism in the New Testament, which was initiated by Jewish scholars after the Shoah and soon included the history of reception of the Gospels. In both Jewish and Christian passion play fictions, Jesus’s Jewishness is ­presented in an affirmative manner and is connected with an affirmation of Judaism. This is not bound to occur. In völkisch-neopagan and racist discourses of the 19th and 20th centuries, which viewed Judaism negatively, the classification of Jesus as a Jew meant his disqualification for their own concepts of religion. In Paul Burg’s Oberammergau fiction, the topos is addressed by Oberammergau’s ­military opponents, a Swedish cornet battered to death by the sculptor of a monumental crucifix, and – during the Napoleonic Wars – a French c­ommander. In this context, the label “Jew” is used as a form of stigmatization.8

7. Literary passion play politics: tradition and innovation Since the enlightenment, Jesus is construed as a (sometimes contested) protagonist of any prevailing cultural value (cf., e.g., Ziolkowski 1972). Many of these values are not addressed in constructions of Christ in passion play ­fictions. The question of Jesus’s spiritual and mental normality is of very little importance. Only marginally, Jesus’s political agenda is examined (see Kazantzakis). No notice is taken of Christ’s affiliation with a religious group (Essenes, Pharisees, Zealots) or him assuming the role of philosopher. An esoteric Jesus is also not taken account of. The question of whether Jesus ever existed surfaced after 1900 and appears in only one passion play fiction, but is not seriously considered (Türpitz 1959: 99). Comparisons of Jesus with other cultural heroes (Socrates, Spinoza) or mythological figures (Prometheus, Dionysus) are omitted with few exceptions (Hillern 1893: 83; Powys 1996: 815, 930). Racist appropriation of Jesus as an Aryan is addressed only marginally. The idea of a female Christ is not taken into account at all, neither is the Black Christ of the African-American community. Controversies about Jesus’s fitness in terms of vitalism and its dominant variants of a laughing or dancing Jesus are not elaborated on. Almost without exception, the figure of Jesus as portrayed in passion play fictions is neither heterosexually nor homosexually active. The fact that these themes, which are important for modern constructions of the figure of Christ, do not or only marginally appear in passion play fictions,

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has to do with the coupling of Christ figures and actors of the passion plays with pre-modern visual media, which modern Christian discourses since the 18th century did not yet take into account. Most notably, passion play fictions that are set in the past – in Oberammergau of the 1630s or of the 18th century, the Tyrol of 1809 – are only marginally involved with modern discourses on Jesus. An openness towards such discourses is more evident in contemporary passion play fictions that are set in the present or the near future (Rehberg 2017 [2012] is set in 2019/20). The “Work on Myth” (Hans Blumenberg) focuses on Jesus’s masculinity and thus refers to the question of the compatibility of Christianity and masculinity that has kept studies of the European history of religion and gender busy ever since the 16th century. The Jewishness of Jesus touches on a sensitive topic of the Jewish-Christian relationship. This sensitive topic has been associated with Oberammergau ever since criticism of anti-Judaism in passion plays after 1901 has been uttered by the Jewish community. And after the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ it remains linked to Oberammergau. The motif of Jesus redivivus acts out different possibilities, obstacles and effects of following Jesus Christ in modern times and is therefore central to Christian existence of today. Passion play fictions make it clear that following Jesus is in any case a performance, in the realm of play and outside of it. (translated by Markus Kubesch/Martin Leutzsch)

Notes 1 With thanks to Evelyn Annuß, Toni Bernhart, Veronika Bühler-Voney, Peter Freese, Uta Grabmüller, Gabriele Jancke, Marion Keuchen, Andreas Mertin, Jan Mohr, Sophia Niepert-Rumel, Robert D. Priest and Julia Stenzel. 2 The painting described by von Hillern refers to Gabriel Max’ “Christ’s head on the sudarium of St. Veronica” (1874). 3 Cf. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jesus_with_erection (accessed 26 May 2022). 4 “Es wußten Mister, Miß und Missis / bisher von Christus nichts gewisses, / bis salbungsvoll und blondbehaart / er sich leibhaftig offenbart. / Er kommt aus Bayerns Urwaldwildnis, / verkauft für zwanzig Cents sein Bildnis / mit Palme, Kreuz und Oelbaumreis. / (In Holz geschnitzt ein höherer Preis.)”. 5 As late as in the 1920s, the well-known dictum by Winckelmann is related to Christ (Nabor 1925: 343). 6 On models of masculinity in Hillern’s novel see Stenzel: What Kind of Man, in this volume. 7 Like the figure of the converted music teacher Stefan Hirsch in Hilary Salk’s novel Eavesdropping at Oberammergau (2016), Simon Eckstein stands for Max Peter Meyer (1892– 1950). Meyer, a music teacher, had converted to Catholicism and had moved from Munich to Oberammergau, where he was attacked during the Pogrom Night and then deported to the Dachau concentration camp. In 1939 he managed to emigrate to Great Britain; after 1945 Meyer returned to Oberammergau. 8 In Burg’s novel (1930), hostility against Jesus and the Jews is attributed to negatively evaluated characters. Yet, it would be premature to deduce from this any sympathy of the author for Judaism: in 1933/34, Burg published the Nazi affirmative trilogy Volk bei der Arbeit [at work]. Novel of the German People from Bismarck to Hitler.

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Works cited Bagguley, Ph. 1997. Harlequin in Whitehall: A Life of Humbert Wolfe, Poet & Civil Servant, 1885–1940. London: Nyala Publishing. Bauz [= Klabund = A. Hentschke]. 1924. Oberammergau in Amerika. In: Lachen links. Das republikanische Witzblatt 1/29 (25 July 1924): 363. Burg, P. 1930. Oberammergau 1630–1930. Roman vom ewiglebenden Glaubenswunder eines Dorfes. Leipzig: Max Koch. Follath, E. 2000. Wer erschoss Jesus Christus? Munich: Blessing. Frietinger, A. 1910. Der Lüftlmaler von Oberammergau. Erzählung. Diessen: Huber. Ganghofer, L. 1883. Der Herrgottschnitzer von Ammergau. In: id.: Bergluft. HochlandsGeschichten. Stuttgart: Adolf Bonz & Comp, 1–128. Hillern, W. v. 1893. On the Cross. A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau. New York: Geo. Gottsberger Peck. Kazantzakis, N. 1962 [1948]. Christ Recrucified: A  Novel. English Translation by Jonathan Griffin. London. Faber & Faber. Kazantzakis, N. 1990. Griechische Passion: Roman. Frankfurt/M., Berlin: Ullstein. Leutzsch, M. 2014. “Jesus der Mann” im Prozess der Differenzierung und Transformation der Männlichkeitsideale 1863–1945. In: Genderaspekte in der Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit, eds. A. H. Leugers-Scherzberg and L. Scherzberg. Saarbrücken: universaar – Saarland University Press, 33–54. Leutzsch, M. 2019. Männlichkeiten im entstehenden Christentum: Probleme ihrer Erforschung. In: Menschenbilder und Gottesbilder. Geschlecht in theologischer Reflexion, eds. L.-Ch. Krannich, H. Reichel, and D. Evers. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 111–36. Möller, I. 1981. Meister Bertram. Ein Künstlerroman. Leipzig: Prisma-Verlag. Müller, F. 1922. Passion. Leipzig: L. Staackmann Verlag. Nabor, F. 1925. Das Wunder von Ammergau. Roman. Munich: Hecht. Nathanson, E. M. 1972. The Latecomers. London: W. H. Allen. Ott, A. 1910. Vitus Schisler der erste Christus von Ober-Ammergau. Hochgebirgs-Roman aus dem Anfang des Passionsspieles. Leipzig: Otto Nemnich. Pace, Ch. N. 1918. The Passion of Herman: A Story of Oberammergau. New York, Cincinnati: The Abingdon Press. Pollock, Ch. 1901. Behold the Man: Being a Novel Dealing with the Dual Personalities of the Peasants Who Appear in the Sacred Performance at Ober-Ammergau. Washington: The Neale Publishing Company. Powys, J. C. 1996 [1932]. A Glastonbury Romance. Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press. Rank, J. 1857. Achtspännig. Volksroman. Erster Theil. Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn. Rehberg, M. P. 2017 [2012]. Die Sehnsucht der Schatten nach dem Licht. Roman. 2nd ed. S.l.: Selbstverlag. Ruhl, S. 2010. Passion Play. New York, Hollywood, London, Toronto: Samuel French. Salk, H. 2016. Eavesdropping at Oberammergau: An Understory. Narragansett: RI Writer Press. Sansom, C. 1951. Passion Play: A Novel. London: Methuen. Schaching, O. von [V. M. Otto Denk]. 1901. Der Judas von Oberammergau. Geschichte aus der Zeit des Schwedenkriegs. In: O. Denk: Volkserzählungen, vol. I, 2nd ed. Regensburg: Habbel, 91–147. Schmidt, M. n. d. Der Schutzgeist von Oberammergau. Reizende Erzählung mit Einflechtung der vollständigen Passion. Leipzig: H. Haessel Verlag. Schollwöck, G. 1890. Vevi. Eine Erzählung aus den Tagen des Ersten Passionsspiels in Oberammergau. Leipzig: Friedrich.

The Christ Figure in Literary Passion Play Scenarios  207 Schönherr, K. 1927. Der Judas von Tirol. Volksschauspiel in drei Akten. Leipzig: Staackmann. Schönherr, K. 1967. Die Fahne weht. In: id.: Gesamtausgabe. Bd. 1: Bühnenwerke. Vienna: Kremayr & Scheriau, 833–69. Stead, W. Th. 1890. The Story That Transformed the World: Or the Passion Play at Ober Ammergau in 1890. London, New York, Sydney, Melbourne: The Review of Reviews. Stead, W. Th. 1894. If Christ Came to Chicago! A Plea for the Union of All Who Love in the Service of All Who Suffer. London: The Review of Reviews. Tabori, G. 1991. Goldberg Variationen. Vienna. Tabori, G. 1994. Theaterstücke I. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer Taschenbuch. Tautphoeus [  J. Montgomery]. 1857. Quits; a Novel. Vol. II. London: Richard Bentley. Trenker, L. 1960. Das Wunder von Oberammergau. Hamburg: Rütten & Loening. Türpitz, E. 1959. Der erste Christus von Oberammergau. Novelle. Frankfurt/M.: Main-Verlag. Ury, P. 1976. The Kiss of Judas: Miracle Play with Music Rehabilitating the 12th Apostle. Hicksville: Exposition Press. Vegesack, S. v. 1923. Christus in München. Die Weltbühne 19/I: 354. Voß, R. [1883] n. d. Rolla. Die Lebenstragödie einer Schauspielerin. 2 vols. Leipzig: Wilhelm Friedrich 2nd ed. Weismantel, L. 1934. Gnade über Oberammergau. Ein Roman. Freiburg/Br.: Caritasverlag. Ziolkowski, Th. 1972. Fictional Transfigurations of Jesus. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

12 “What Kind of Man Must This Christ Be?” A Male Body and Its Remains, Oberammergau, 1890 Julia Stenzel I’m a bitch/I’m a lover/I’m a child/I’m a mother/I’m a sinner/I’m a saint/And I do not feel ashamed/I’m your hell/I’m your dream/I’m nothing in between/You know you wouldn’t want it any other way (Meredith Brooks)

1. Jesus, the man The suffering God, whose sacrificial death has been reenacted on stage for centuries, has made Oberammergau a tourist draw of its own kind since the mid-19th century. The hope and expectation of experiencing a completely different, authentic form of theatre beyond the performances of the established metropolitan theatre houses drove increasingly heterogeneous groups of visitors to the village. As early as in the 1860s, Oberammergau as a place, space and topos was caught between spiritual longing and exotic fascination, pilgrimage and tourism (Stausberg 2010: 146; Edelmann 2017; Mohr 2018). Thus, in experiencing the village, multiple more or less persistent identities and “ad hoc communities” (Bauman 2007: 111; cf. Warstat 2014) emerge, triggered by the scenography of the passion, the extended topology and extended scenography (cf. Zerhoch 2023) of the village, or the impersonators of the holy figures. Accordingly, the persons, spaces, things and discourses involved in the journey to Oberammergau become subject to imaginary recasting in the individual experience, which is no longer characterized exclusively by closeness to liturgical or paraliturgical acts and the experience of the Passion play (cf. Ehrstine 2017). The following considerations primarily focus on the making of the figure of Jesus in the Passion play and how it performs the intersections of masculinity and divinity: In the 19th century, triggered by historicizing notions of the Bible as well as emerging gender negotiations, Jesus the man – the human and the male – enters the scene and qualifies as a model for “different” masculinity. Simultaneously, Christ continues to be a God, and even his impersonator on stage bears bits and pieces of His charisma, as do the stage props involved in the crucifixion scene. Complementary, female figures of the gospels like Mary and Magdalene lose their self-evidence and, as models for femininity, fall into DOI: 10.4324/9781003106319-16

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crisis. As argued in the following, the critical-ness of Jesus, the man, and Mary (Magdalene), the woman, are involved in the diversification of the Passion play, especially when it comes to its popularization and distribution. Thus, the body of Jesus can only be understood in correlation to the multiple bodies of the women surrounding him. Not surprisingly, the reinvention and reenactment of Oberammergau and its Passion play since the mid-19th century, driven by romantic medievalism as well as bible historiography, also took place in literary genres of diverse kinds.1 I will elaborate further on this by examining the novel On the cross (Am Kreuz. Ein Passionsroman aus Oberammergau) by Wilhelmine von Hillern, published in two parts in 1890 (Hillern 1890 I, II) and controversially discussed as soon as it appeared.2 The novel is set in Oberammergau and narrates the forbidden and eventually fatal liaison of the impersonator of Christ with a young aristocrat, bringing popular Christology, bits and pieces of philosophy of science and common gender troubles of that time to interference. Thus, it is far from surprising that a reviewer recommended Hillern that, as a woman, she should set her bars lower, refrain from theology and philosophy, and excel in a field she can control, that is, conventional belletristic; at the same time, another reviewer considers the aestheticization of uneducatedness and poverty delicately. However, the indecisive tenor of the reviews responding to the novel would be worth a study of its own. Thus, the chapter sets two interrelated foci of interest: Firstly, it deals with touch, contact and contagion situations: How does the novel make Jesus plausible? Especially in situations of significant absence and unexpected presence, the materiality of the impersonator’s body and the remains of his performance of Christ contribute to troubling the gender framework and the traditional relation between the actor and the acted. Secondly, it asks for gender and family models the novel performatively explores and relates to the masculinity of God. Thus, it can be shown that, despite being intended for a broad (and female) readership, the novel contributes to deconstructing the theatres of holiness it apparently adapts to a modern society struggling with de:secularization, although it narratively reconciliates the relations it interferes. The argument is structured as follows: At first, the specificity of the Passion performances of the late 19th century is outlined as establishing two different but interrelated enactments of religious truth (2.). Secondly, the diversified masculinity emerging in the multifaceted Jesus the novel presents is explored and contextualized (3.). In a third section, the masculine body of the actor is explored: Beyond the opposition of sign and reference, in its erratic materiality, it gains characteristics of a Christian relic of touch (4.). Accordingly, when the countess persuades her secret lover to leave town, they perform a joint sacrilegious act: Taking away the body of Jesus can be described as stealing the central relic that makes Oberammergau into a holy place and pilgrim destination, the Passion play a temenos, a sacred place separated from the rest of the world (5.). The last section refers to the model of the Holy Family that has been shaping conceptions of what family is or how it should be like until today. The novel

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can be read as symptomatic for the inherent instability of this model and its potential to dynamize established gender relations, even if it is supposed to their restoration (6.).

2. Elevatio Crucis – theatres of religion In most negotiations of Oberammergau, for the late 19th century, three complexly interrelated models of religious theatricality can be detected, which are plausibly described as alethurgic theatricalities (for the Foucauldian concept of alethurgia cf. Kirsch 2020: 287–95): They are conceived as making the agency of superempirical realities visible and palpable. One of them relies on the utopia of well-functioning, interference-free mediality, which relies on the transparency of the performers’ bodies towards the biblical figures they embody. The other is based on assuming the Real Presence of the sacred in opaque corporeality referring to itself. Nevertheless, both models challenge a third one, which is based on the logics of representation and illusion more or less tacitly underlying the 17th–19th century’s theatricalities (Müller-Schöll 2008; Deuber-Mankowsky 2007; Kern 2006; Haß 2005): In this third view, Oberammergau is a hoax, an institutionalized deception spun by a cultural industry deeply rooted in practices of the invention of tradition and capitalization of religion. A “Glance at the Passion Play” applying this last model is exemplified in the travelogue by the globetrotting ethnologist and essayist Richard Burton (Burton 1881; cf. Stenzel 2019). Thus, the first and second models are far from being oppositional: They meet in the assumption that the bodies of the Passion allow for physically experiencing the charisma of the salvation:historical figures and figurations they realize – at least for the time of the Passion (cf. Stenzel 2019; Mohr and Stenzel 2020). Moreover, the charisma they transport from biblical to modern times and from Palestine to Ammergau is conceived as transferrable to objects, places, and people via physical touch. This interweaving culminates in the body lent to the figure of Jesus simultaneously perceived as male and divine on the Passion stage. The masculinity of God the Son was traditionally seen as a specific one, uncoupled from the logics of mundane gender relations – Jesus gets agency through his sufferance, through the Passio: “Jesus is not the victim/ sacrifice [Opfer] but the master of the Passion”3 (Henning 2004: 176; cf. Müller 1997; Eming 2005; Eming 2009). However, in the reformulations at the end of the 19th century, it is precisely in its deviation from hegemonic constructs of manliness that Jesus’ masculinity is comparable to them and at least describable. While in the last third of the 18th century, Jesus came to stand for the ideal male citizen sincere, rational, in control of his speech and actions in public, caring for his family and fulfilling the roles of societal interaction (cf. Leutzsch 2014: 34–6), by the middle of the 19th century, starting with the pivotal publication on the life of Jesus by Ernest Renan (Renan 1863), the concept of Jesus, the man, diversified. Jesus got involved in gender trouble: The ideal of the soft, calm, earnest man, the heroics of Winckelmanian “noble simplicity

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and quiet greatness” did not consonate with the ideal of a “muscular”, physical and militaristic masculinity starting to prevail the discourse (cf. Leutzsch 2014: 36–46). The embodiment of Christ on the Passion stage becomes an occasion to imagine alternatives, precisely by borrowing body images from the established Christ iconography, as early as in the mid-19th century:4 German theatre director and theatre historian Eduard Devrient describes Jesus sitting on his silver-grey donkey like a woman (Figure 12.1), “wie die Frauen pflegen” (Devrient 1851: 16).5 Hillern’s novel continues to engage in the models of contiguity, touch, and contagion established around the bodies of Oberammergau. The narrative is probably autobiographically afflicted (cf. Zerhoch 2023; Wyl 1890: 56–64), for the author’s name is related to a mysterious little castle in the outskirts of Oberammergau, the Hillernschlößl, and the story of her life is subject to several hearsays. It centers on the village, play and players of the Passion and oscillates between the accounts of pilgrimage and veritable conversion and a cleverly threaded, religiously masked, in the end, fatal liaison, thus engaging the three views on the Passion play sketched out earlier. The chapter aims to discuss where the novel positions itself in the coeval discourse around the represented Christ and around the Passion play as an exposed form of another, alethurgic theatre: The precarious masculinity of the Oberammergau Christ, which oscillates between the attributions of a closeness to nature, childlike purity and superempirical charisma (cf. Weber 1978 [1922]:

Figure 12.1  Christ side saddle riding on the donkey. Scene from the Passion play in 1900.

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241; Sohm 1892), brings up the question of relations of possession and hierarchy in a heterosexual relationship that at first glance conforms to historical conventions, as a question of diversified concepts of gender. However, negotiating individual struggles with naturalized gender roles and identities alone does not have to deconstruct a bourgeois family and marriage model, as would have been conceivable in coeval literature (Helduser 2005; Hausen 1988; for the conception of marriage as a crisis in the 19th century cf. Arni 2004). On the contrary, von Hillern’s suggestive novel continues to reproduce gender stereotypes and present them in complex recombination. It thus triggers and perpetuates the process of their decompensation, opting, in the end, for their restitution. Hillern’s novel shows the established assemblage of gender and sexual reproduction in crisis, but it reduces its crisis to singular biographies. At first gaze, their failure and disruption validates and reinforces the status quo. However, the crisis that seems to be overcome remains as a crack and a moment of interference. A crucial aspect here is the narrative production of a fragile femme fatale, a sensitive rationalist, in the central figure of Maria Magdalena, countess of Wildenau, tellingly called by the French forename Madeleine. The figure of Magdalena-Madeleine embodies an explosive cocktail of common Mary Magdalene figures (Hillern 1902: 139–47) implementing traits of Mary, the Mother of God (ibid.: 422). Literary constructions of femaleness and womanhood based on Mary (Magdalene) are not uncommon around 1900 (cf. Glang-Tossing 2013). They tend to amalgamate aspects of the biblical Mary of Magdala, Mary of Bethany, Saint Mary Aegyptiaca and the nameless sinner who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and dries them with her hair (for literary reconstructions of Mary cf. ibid.: 31–7). Against this backdrop, it is far from original that Hillern’s countess comes across as a heterogeneous figure: To the gentlemen of society, Madeleine remains the intellectual cosmopolitan who skillfully plays with the schemata of a femme fragile and femme fatale. In Oberammergau, she shows off as fragile and seducible but, paradoxically, sensitive and spiritually oriented. In the confrontation with the multifaceted figure of Maria-Magdalena-­Madeleine, the figure of Christ performs the negotiation of masculinity. Thus, it acts out the increasingly precarious notions of the man as Pater Familias and brings them into interference with the paradoxical power of the Christus Patiens (cf. Glang-Tossing 2013: 243–5). To briefly sum up, the narrative goes as follows: the Countess of Wildenau, barely thirty years old, married young, became a widow shortly after and was the heartthrob of Munich’s urban society, travels to Oberammergau for the Passion play. The Munich Haute volée travels with her, but where others look for distraction, the countess seeks an individualistic form of spirituality aside from Protestant rationality and agnostic or atheistic philosophy. The novel starts when she finds it in her love for the impersonator of Christ, Joseph Freyer. Freyer seems to be modelled after the allegedly highly attractive Joseph Mayr, who actually impersonated Christ in three seasons (1870–1890).6 So the modern Mary Magdalene finally seduces the Man of Sorrows, marries him secretly,

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gives birth to a son on her honeymoon – in Palestine – and then takes Freyer with the child as custodian to a lonely hunting lodge she inherited and never saw before. The child’s father raises the “Christkindl” (infant Jesus) with the help of his cousin Josepha, who had been disapproved as the impersonator of Mary Magdalen in the Passion play because of an illicit liaison. The countess returns to Munich’s society. Her visits to her husband and son become more and more scarce until the latter perishes, as the narrative suggests, from longing for the mother. The foster mother, Josepha, dies shortly after. Soon after the death of their son, the countess declares her marriage to Freyer invalid. Repentantly, the fallen God returns to Ammergau, and the community accepts him as the biblical prodigal son found again; the countess, now also contrite, searches for him and finds him. Until the next Passion season, the couple enjoys modest but childless marital bliss. Finally, Freyer performs the part of Christ in his last Passion season and dies in his last performance: on the cross. Structurally, the novel invests a vulgar typology. The first volume covers the couple’s acquaintance until they depart from Oberammergau. The second volume begins eight years later when the countess’s love has faded, and the child is seriously ill. Both parts are correlated like the Old and New Testaments in a canonical Christian view: The second can be read as an intensification and fulfilment of the first. Most apparently, the Passion play allows countess Wildenau to legitimize her erotic desire through bridal-mystic imagery: In Freyer’s body on stage, the protagonist desires the body of Christ; accordingly, the Passion play becomes a place of transformation.7 Freyer himself, however, contrasts this transfiguration, referring to the logic of representation: “Do not confound me with Him – I am nothing more than the wood – or the marble from which an image of the Christ is carved” (Hillern 1902: 107). This is his humble reaction to the countess’ rapturous adoration, in which the concept of the Passion play as a paraliturgical performance is confronted with a concept of theatre as a precarious illusion machine. The ambiguity of Christ can also be described as theatrically permuting the gender roles offered by the model of the Holy Family. As Albrecht Koschorke pointed out, the interweaving of the Christian model of the Holy Trinity with the trivalent model of the Holy Family, which is, as it were, opened upwards through its reference to God, also results in a virtually paradoxical constellation for the figure of Mary: Mary is both the Mother of Christ and Bride of God; the Triune God begets Himself through Mary (Koschorke 2003). – Without delving too far into the theological prerequisites and social history of the Catholic and the mystical-heterodox veneration of Mary (cf. Opitz, Röckelein and Signori 1993; Signori 1995), it should be noted that the gender constellations acted out in the novel are highly dependent on this context. The dynamization of gender models, as entering and seemingly overcoming a state of crisis in Hillern’s work, follows the dynamics inscribed in the model of the Holy Family. In this dynamic, the gender logic, which I will call the Marian constellation, gains efficacy. The Passion play becomes a discursive site and a scenographic

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space where the theological question of the – gendered – r­elation of person and inhabitation becomes negotiable as a relation of person and (theatrical) protagonist.8

3. Ecce homo – passion remains The following considerations will explore the making of the body of Jesus and in how far it is challenging concepts of masculinity and, simultaneously, applying the logics of Catholic relic adoration to a human body. The theatrically transfigured body of Joseph Freyer serves as a site for engaging the precarious mediality of third-order relics (cf. Vedeler et al. 2018; Robinson and de Beer 2014) with the not less challenging embodiment of Christ in a (hu)man. As presupposed by the novel’s account of the Passion play, the performed difference between male and female can most apparently be reconstructed in the opposition of action and passion. In the gaze of the countess, who is notoriously described as “virile”-minded, the Christus Patiens of the play, in his exposed non-action, appears feminine. In the Sanhedrin, a masculine ­determination – so, again, the attribution – is set against the Man of Sorrows; his passivity and humble-ness “almost tempted her to side with the resolute foe who manfully defends his own honor with his God’s” (Hillern 1902: 76). The holy wrath of the High Council triggers not only the countess’s aesthetic interest but also an ethical one: “the individual and the actor are not two distinct personnages [sic], as among professional artists, she knew that the man before her also possessed a lofty nature” (ibid.: 76). The characteristic centrally described as masculine here – reliability, even physical violence, when it comes to the integrity of the valid system of meaning and values – collides with the appearance of Christ, the passive sufferer: The countess’ virile heart almost rebelled against this humility and would fain have cried out: “Thou art the Son of God, help Thyself!” Her sense of justice, formed according to human ideas, was opposed to this toleration, this sacrificing of the most sacred rights! (ibid.: 74) The countess’s attitude changes with the crucifixion scene exposing Freyer’s male body as a naked body on the cross. The theatrical situation narratively presented is highly sexualized. The cross is erected, and Freyer’s body, fixed to the cross, is exposed to the crowd’s gaze. The narration details the scene of materiality and physical strength, acting upon the exposed Man of Sorrows: “The cross is ponderous, the men pant, bracing their shoulders against it – their veins swell – another jerk – it sways – ‘Hold firm!’ – ‘Once more – put forth your strength!’ And in a wide sweep, it moved upward – all cowered back shuddering at the horrible spectacle!” (ibid.: 89–90) However, at that point, the scene starts returning the gaze. The audience is exposed to it in place of the whole of humankind: “Horror thrilled the spectators, their limbs trembled.

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One grasped another as if to hold themselves from falling. It was rising, the cross was rising above the world! ‘Higher – nearer! Brace against it – don’t let go!’ It stood erect and was firm” (ibid.: 90; cf. Groeneveld 2016: 160). The viewer becomes aesthetically fascinated by the image of the naked, defenceless man. Accordingly, in the countess’ gaze, the narrator focalizes, the agony is gradually transformed: Divine grace pervaded the slender body and – as eternal beauty reconciles Heaven and hell and transfigures the most terrible things – horror gradually merged into devout admiration of the perfect human beauty revealed in chast repose and majesty before their delighted gaze. (Hillern 1902: 90) The ecstasy evoked in the countess is betwixt and between religious and erotical affectedness – the question of whether the crucified body on stage is a living icon, an embodied relic of touch, and therefore an index, or the body of Christ itself becomes indifferent to her. The chastity of the scene gets afflicted: The countess has clasped her hands over her chest. The world lay beneath her, as if she were floating above with Him on the cross. She no longer knew whether he was a man or Christ Himself – she only knew that the universe contained nothing save that form! (ibid.: 90) The immersive scene and the erotic fusion it displays can be read as resulting in an almost orgasmic agony: “ ‘Eloi, Eloi lama sabachthani?’ He cried from the depths of his breaking heart, a wonderful waving motion ran through the noble form the last throes of death” (ibid.: 91). The darkness, which can be read eschatologically as the confirmation of the New Covenant, also marks the birth of a male God whose masculinity is different from that of pagan religions. This God is a man who does not appear as a golden rain, a bull or a swan, like Zeus, nor as Angellos like the Jewish God – but as a male human, weak, humble, and in need of physical protection.9 The narrator imagines an anachronistic universe, showing ancient gods and heroes turning away from the crucifixion scene with horror. Dawn is refigured as the flight of Helios and the end of the pagan, worldly Gods of Rome and Greece, an end reenacted in the Passion play every ten years. These crossings and interweavings of traditional Christian narratives and iconographies occur notoriously in the novel, especially regarding parasexual or sexual encounters between Freyer and the countess. Thus, the novel can be read against the backdrop of vagant religiosity (Nipperdey 1990: 521) and multiple secularities that begin to emerge in the European 19th century. The anachronistic and hybrid religious constellation it presents relies on colonial encounters and scientific attempts on Christianity as well as on the re-lecture of faith and religiosity as an anthropologicum.

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When it comes to the depositio crucis, the countess imagines herself in place of Mary, mother of God; when the performance is over, she stays, paralyzed, in the theatre, declining offers of accompainment and support by her Munich friends. Freyer’s cousin Gross meets her in the empty auditorium and persuades her to be led across the empty stage to the dressing rooms, thus, to enter and transit the religious space of appearance. But this significant crossing is interrupted abruptly: “Suddenly she recoiled from an unexpected horror – the cross lay before her” (Hillern 1902: 98, original emphasis). The countess performatively transmutes the stage prop to a relic, prostrating herself, mourning aloud and touching the cross reverentially. Thus, under the eyes of her silent companion, she performs a reenactment of the depositio, using the replica of Catholicism’s central relic as a tool to – temporarily – transform her body into that of Mary. By this, the scene exhibits a central representational structure of the novel: It lies in dynamizing and blurring the relation between the material bodies of the performers and the discursive and iconographic bodies of the Saints they deputize for on stage, reenacting the dogmatically established order of relics that centrally relies on the logics of contiguity and touch (cf. Vedeler et al. 2018; for the arma Christi in Oberammergau cf. Stenzel 2022). Thus, the stage props included in the Passion play are presented as accumulating the theatrically generated charisma of the holy figures, ready to be used by the believer for spiritual re:charging. Moreover, the impersonators themselves, in performing the actions ascribed to their models, transform into living relics, through which the original charisma of the biblical figures is transported to modern times. This interweaving of different modes of representation culminates as the countess addresses Freyer as “a martyr in the true sense of the word” (Hillern 1902: 106).10 The mediality of the relic is naturalized by reference to coeval science: Significantly, when the countess aims to seduce Freyer, she bases her argument on the logic of thermodynamics, especially the principle of conservation of energy, developing a popularized version of the philosophy of science of that time (ibid.: 115–6). However, like Jesus’ tomb when the Maries arrive, the dressing room is empty; instead of the shroud, the costumes hang there, “still damp with perspiration from the severe toil” (Hillern 1902: 99). The corresponding position of the resurrection of the flesh would have to be replaced by a splitting of the unity of the impersonator of the crucified God and Christ himself perceived by the countess in the elevatio. Freyer takes off his costume – but the countess still desires the man and the God in him. One prop, in particular, is ascribed the status of a relic here: the crown of thorns; it determines the relationship between the suffering Christ and the woman as an interdependence that is anything but biblical: “ ‘No, my hands shall defend thee, that no thorn shall henceforth tear thee, beloved brow!’ she thought while a strange smile irradiated her face” (Hillern 1902: 99). The gendering of the care for life in need of protection, coded as social motherhood even in the moderate feminist discourse of the turn of the century, is found here intertwined with more radical concepts of woman as the liberator of the religiously biased male body. The

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countess appears as an amalgam of Mary Mother of God and the figure – itself already hybrid – of Mary Magdalene, who seeks redemption in Christ-service and compassion and is subjected to radical recoding in literature around 1900 (Figure 12.2). In the context of life-reformist designs, Magdalena becomes the world-turned-saviour of man in his corporeality (Glang-Tossing 2013: 31–2).

Figure 12.2  Magdalen, played by Bertha Wolf, at the Oberammergau Passion play, 1900.

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This change in discourse does not leave von Hillern’s Magdalena-Madeleine unscathed.

4. Noli me tangere – the human body as a relic The countess’s encounters with Freyer later that evening and the next day further survey the semantic field of hierarchies that become the subject of negotiation between an educated noblewoman and the uneducated impersonator of Christ in the liminal space of passion village and play. An entry of Christ-Freyer into the countess’s room simultaneously with the Annunciation invokes Magdalene’s encounter with the Risen Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane, albeit in syncretic entanglement with ancient iconography. Thus, pagan-erotic mythologems are also incorporated into a hopelessly overcoding process of analogy: “She sat with clasped hands, trembling in humble expectation, as Danae waited the moment when the shower of gold shall fall” (Hillern 1902: 101). The woman who had just imagined herself as the Mother of God once again becomes God’s bride. As Freyer grasps her hands, she is close to fainting when he involuntarily flinches. He has sustained a significant injury: “Joseph of Arimathea in drawing out the nail took a piece of the flesh with it so that I clenched my teeth with the pain. . . . Now I am really stigmatised” (ibid.: 105). In the accidental realization of the act of stigmatization, which previously could be relativized as merely representational, a resacralization of the stigmatization is set against the backdrop of resurrection and proclamation. When the theatre blood turns out to be real blood, the coveted body of Jesus is once again transformed into the body of Christ. As in the experience of elevatio, the boundary between role and person disappears, thus making the distinction between representatio and inhabitatio impossible. Countess MadeleineMagdalena violates the commandment of noli me tangere: “ere Freyer could prevent it pressed a kiss on the bloody stigma” (ibid.: 105). With this touch, the relationship of giver and receiver is reversed to one of protector and protected, as the countess persists the real presence of Christ through her touch: Now it is Freyer who is frightened, blushing, close to fainting. When the countess identifies Freyer, the man, with Christ, she becomes a god-maker; and when Freyer succumbs to her erotic attraction, he steals the kiss from his God. He escapes this dilemma not by renunciation but by surrendering his psychophysical reaction to the countess’s purifying interpretation. While he initially allowed his spiritual love for God to become eroticizable in the actor’s body as the “most perfect image” of God (ibid.: 124), it is now Madeleine who resacralizes it – who speaks the words of institution. God’s mouthpiece is no longer the actor of Christ but the learned philosopher, and here the novel invokes the topos of Eve, who ate from the tree of knowledge and handed the fruit to her companion (cf. ibid.: 103). However, the educated, articulate countess breaks the patrilineal logic of Christian salvation history in yet another way: The initially clearly defined roles

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of the annunciation scene begin to oscillate through her idiosyncratic argumentation. It is no longer the countess who receives the Holy Spirit as Mary. In her speech, instead, Freyer gains Mary-like traits since it is he who repeatedly gives birth to Christ in pain in the Passion play. Against this background, the nickname Freyer chooses for his bride acquires an ambivalent connotation: Madeleine is his “Täuble”, his dove, his Holy Spirit. Significantly, elsewhere the dove becomes the helmet crest of Christ, the gentle warrior (ibid.: 126).

5. Sacrilegium – trading the God for the man The following considerations aim to explore the dramaturgy of conflating Freyer and Christ occurring in the countess’s imagination. This conflation can be approached from the Arma Christi; namely, the cross the impersonator of Jesus is fixed upon: Freyer calls it sweet and beautiful to die like Christ on the cross. The countess feels a keen emotion of jealousy . . . of the cross, to which he would fain devote his life! She met his dark eyes with a look, a sweet yearning – fatal look – a poisoned arrow whose effect she well knew. She grudged him the torture cross, the dead, wooden instrument of martyrdom which did not feel, did not love, did not long for him as she did! (ibid.: 106) Nevertheless, even this blasphemous desire is captured by its bridal mystic transfiguration, for it is Christ with whom the countess also wants to unite sexually in Freyer: He would receive too [sic] souls for one, for surely, in His [sic] image, she loved Him. He has sent her the hand marked with blood stains to show her the path to Him. He could not desire to withdraw it, ere the road was traversed. (ibid.) The femme fatale religiously subliming her desire is complemented by that of the psychologist who appears as a theologian since it is Christ she wants to examine and heal. The second conversation between the lovers is a bravura piece of manipulative psychology disguised as theology: the countess finishes Freyer’s unfinished sentences, exposes the reasons for his coming as pretexts and interprets them in her sense – as the expression of an erotic attraction legitimized by the reference to Christ. Madeleine stops the guest from leaving and talks. Freyer “fixes his eyes on the floor” (ibid.: 113), Freyer “clasped his hands on his knees and silently bends his head” (ibid.: 114), Freyer cries, Freyer “raised his dark eyes and fixed them full upon her, but made no reply”, “Freyer covered his eyes with his hand, as if he was afraid more might be read in them” (ibid.). When the countess asks whether she has judged correctly, a

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whispered “Yes!” follows (ibid.: 115). Freyer kisses the countess’s hand and is startled. He flung back his raven curls back as if they had deluded his senses, and pushes his chair farther away so as not to be again led into temptation. She did not interfere – she knew now that he was in her power – struggle as he might, the dart was fixed. (ibid.) The countess immediately begins to plan the next steps; the authenticity of the feeling is only one item on the agenda to be checked off: “Her love for him was genuine, she was not toying with his heart; she wished, like Mary Magdalene, to sanctify herself in love. But she was the Magdalene in the first stage” (ibid.; original emphasis). In a more than daring, pseudo-scientific argumentation, the countess legitimizes her love of God, theologically short-cutting one of the basic principles of thermodynamics, the principle of the preservation of power: “Science has proved that nothing in the universe can be lost, that even a force which is apparently uselessly squandered is merely transformed into another. Thus, in God nothing can be lost, even though it has not a direct relation to Him – for he is the spiritual universe” (ibid.: 115–6; original emphasis). Thus, she further argues, every – even physically performed – act of love is (at least indirectly) directed towards God. Freyer understands nothing but takes the countess’s erudite construct for truth and continues to beg forgivenness for his uneducatedness. Finally, in a blasphemous twist, the countess presents the advised sexual union as Freyer’s service to the faithful, to faith and thus to the Saviour himself. The veneration of the male impersonator of Christ becomes the highest level of legitimate iconoduly: “it is a solace to the believing soul to bestow a tender embrace upon the lifeless image and to touch the artificial wounds with ardent lips. What must it be when the image lives, feels, and suffers!” (ibid.: 118). The countess relates her speech to the embodiment of Christ experienced in the Passion play, but then takes the head of the will-less Freyer and “lightly pressed a fervent kiss upon the brow gently inclined to her” – a kiss she legitimizes as a kiss on Christ’s forehead, towards which Freyer is transparent to her: “when you raise your eyes to Him, you will find it [the countess’s kiss, JS] imprinted on His brow” (ibid.: 119; original emphasis). In a synopsis, the seduction scenes perform the emergence of vagant, heterogeneous religion, interweaving with science as well as heterodoxical and pantheistic reversions of Catholicism, as it is typical in the late 19th century (cf. Weir 2014), while the rest of the novel narrates them as misleading and doomed to failure. Despite her rapturous evocation of a modern unio mystica, the countess knows that she must choose between her spiritual love for Christ and her physical love for Freyer – and she chooses the human. Perfidiously, she thus steals not humanity’s Saviour but the Passion play’s Christ. Joseph Freyer exchanges his theatrical representation of Christ for the promise of earthly

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marriage, in which, of course, he is to become God’s worldly representative again: the Joseph of an unholy family.

6. The death of the Holy Family For the second volume of the novel, a constellation arises that can be described as the collapse of the model provided by the Holy Family: In the lonely hunting lodge, Josepha, Joseph Freyer and the latter’s child live in a community of convenience. The countess is only seen every few months. She gave birth to the child (who looks exactly like the Sistine Jesus) in the Holy Land, but under Josepha’s name; the father was allegedly unknown. The child knows nothing of the role reversal and finally dies from the absence of his biological mother. Freyer’s exaltation of the modern Magdalene has given way to a profoundly ambivalent feeling of the self-appointed bride of Christ towards her husband. Like the biblical Holy Family, the desacralized family of the Jagdschlösschen is characterized by an opening of the familial triangle. Nevertheless, its rationale functions in a strangely displaced way compared to the model, dispensing with any transcendence: The transfiguration occurs in the absent mother, whom a female Joseph – Josepha – replaces. The biblical Joseph guarantees a genealogy (the kinship of the family with King David), legitimizes his foster son out of the Old Testament as the Jewish Messiah, and simultaneously, by interrupting this genealogy, marks the dawn of a new time – the time of salvation. Josepha, on the other hand, the substitute of the countess, eliminates precisely every genealogy – the father of the “baby Jesus” is stated as unknown, the model of the Holy Family is negated. In a reversal of the biblical paradox of interruption of genealogy and genealogical legitimation, this serves precisely to maintain the status quo: a scandal is prevented, the decadent Munich society previously marked as in need of salvation and healing remains intact. In this perspective, Joseph Freyer once again assumes the system position of the Mother of God; the countess moves accordingly to the position of God the Father. Nevertheless, Joseph’s position in the family system is doubly occupied: already in the first volume, the countess’s marriage to Freyer and her flight from Oberammergau is portrayed as a decision for man and against God incarnate in him. Consequently, Freyer moves from the position of Christ to that of Joseph in his relationship with the countess. Joseph represents the father position left empty by God in immanence; he renounces the sexual possession of his wife for his God in favor of the mystery of Mary’s virgin conception and motherhood. Likewise, Freyer’s masculinity becomes indifferent to the extent that he can no longer provide the imaginary background of the Oberammergau Christ. The bridal mystical transfiguration of the relationship has given way to a sober perspective on the now shamefully weak man: Joseph, the symbolically emasculated old man (cf. Koschorke 2003). A popular novel cannot conclude with this destruction of the model of the Holy Family and with an uncovering of the ambivalent figure of Joseph. Thus, in the end, there is the return (so it is said pseudo-platonically) of the image to

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the archetype; the repentant couple leads a married life in chastity for Christ in Oberammergau – reenacting and imitating Mary and Joseph after the death of Jesus. Thus, the novel positions itself on the restorative opposite side to the gender and relationship models it had brought into play in confronting the multiple bodies of Jesus with a Mary that refuses to subordinate.

Notes 1 Cf. Leutzsch and Mohr: Work on Myth, in this volume. 2 The novel has been translated to English and French in the subsequent years. Quotes in the following are given with reference to the English translation by Mary J. Safford (Hillern 1902). 3 “Jesus ist nicht das Opfer, sondern der Herr der Passion”. 4 An impression of the iconography of Oberammergau in the second half of the 19th century up to 1900 is given by the volume by Hermine Diemer, published in several editions and translated into English (Diemer 1900). 5 The different masculinity of the suffering Christ is also discussed by non-fictional texts on the Passion play around 1900 (Grimm 1903: 247; Scheurer 1977). 6 The figure of Joseph Mayr is repeatedly considered an early paradigm of globalized stardom, “particularly with English women” (Waddy 2010: 21). The star cult around Mayr was already a topos in the late 19th century, for instance in the writings of the publicist Wilhelm Wyl (1890) who also extensively discussed Hillern’s work (1890: 56–64). 7 For neomystical Christology around 1900 cf. Glang-Tossing 2013: 230–45. 8 The interrelated concepts of person and inhabitation are here related to Christ’s real presence in the believer. Cf. for the conceptual history in theology since Thomas Aquinas Lehmkühler 2004, esp. 172–88. 9 Strikingly, Wilhelm Wyl emphasizes the tenderness and different masculinity of Joseph Freyer as a person, his receptiveness and affectiveness, often resulting in scenes of (public) weeping and emotional overwhelmedness (Wyl 1890: 38–9). 10 The attempt on the impersonator of Jesus in the Passion play acted out here is notorious. It is colported by coeval caricatures and travel descriptions that especially young women were chasing after a lock from the scalp of “Jesus”. Cf. my chapter on hair and hairstyles in Oberammergau in this volume and Stenzel 2022.

Works cited Arni, C. 2004. Entzweiungen. Die Krise der Ehe um 1900. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau. Bauman, Z. 2007. Consuming Life. Cambridge: Polity Press. Burton, R. 1881. A Glance at the “Passion Play”. London: W. H. Harrisson. Deuber-Mankowsky, A. 2007. Praktiken der Illusion. Kant, Nietzsche, Cohen, Benjamin bis Donna J. Haraway. Berlin: Vorwerk 8. Devrient, E. 1851. Das Passionsspiel in Oberammergau und seine Bedeutung für die neue Zeit. Leipzig: Weber. Diemer, H. 1900. Oberammergau and Its Passion Play. A Retrospect of the History of Oberammergau and Its Passion Play from the Commencement up to the Present Day. English ed. by Walter S. Manning. Munich, Oberammergau: Carl Aug. Seyfried & Comp. Edelmann, J. 2017. Spiritual Voyeurism and Cultural Nostalgia. Anglophone Visitors to the Oberammergau Passion Play, 1870–1925 and 2010. In: The Oberammergau Passion Play. Essays on the 2010 Performance and the Centuries-Long Tradition, ed. K. J. Wetmore. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 66–87.

“What Kind of Man Must This Christ Be?”  223 Ehrstine, G. 2017. The Role of Their Lives, or Jesus on a Bike: Oberammergau on Stage and Off. In: The Oberammergau Passion Play. Essays on the 2010 Performance and the CenturiesLong Tradition, ed. K. J. Wetmore. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 16–31. Eming, J. 2005. Gewalt im Geistlichen Spiel. Das Donaueschinger und das Frankfurter ­Passionsspiel. The German Quarterly 78/1: 1–22. Eming, J. 2009. Marienklagen im Passionsspiel als Grenzfall religiöser Kommunikation. In Literarische und religiöse Kommunikation in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit. DFG-Symposium 2006, ed. P. Strohschneider. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 794–816. Glang-Tossing, A. V. 2013. Maria Magdalena in der Literatur um 1900. Weiblichkeitskonstruktion und literarische Lebensreform. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Grimm, E. 1903. Die Ethik Jesu. Hamburg: Salzwasser. Groeneveld, L. 2016. ‘He Showed Himself in Response to Your Longing.’ Women Spectators at the Oberammergau Passion Play. In: Women Rewriting Boundaries. Victorian Women Travel Writers, ed. P. St. McKenzie. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 133–64. Haß, U. 2005. Das Drama des Sehens: Augen, Blick und Bühnenform. München: Fink. Hausen, K. 1988. ‘ . . . eine Ulme für das schwanke Efeu.’ Ehepaare im deutschen Bildungsbürgertum. In: Bürgerinnen und Bürger. Geschlechterverhältnisse im 19. Jahrhundert, ed. U. Frevert. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, 85–117. Helduser, U. 2005. Geschlechterprogramme. Konzepte der literarischen Moderne um 1900. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau. Henning, U. 2004. Jesus am Kreuz in der Hessischen Passionsspieltradition. Text und Dramaturgie. In: Ritual und Inszenierung. Geistliches und Weltliches Drama des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. H.-J. Ziegeler. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 167–76. Hillern, W. v. 1890. Am Kreuz. Ein Passionsroman aus Oberammergau. Stuttgart: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft. Hillern, W. v. 1902. On the Cross. A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau. Trans. Mary J. Safford. New York: Gottsberger Peck. Kern, A. 2006. Quellen des Wissens. Zum Begriff vernünftiger Erkenntnisfähigkeit. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Kirsch, S. 2020. Chor-Denken. Sorge, Wahrheit, Technik. Munich: Fink. Koschorke, A. 2003. The Holy Family and Its Legacy. Religious Imagination from the Gospels to Star Wars. New York: Columbia University Press. Lehmkühler, K. 2004. Inhabitatio. Die Einwohnung Gottes im Menschen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht. Leutzsch, M. 2014. “Jesus der Mann” im Prozess der Differenzierung und Transformation der Männlichkeitsideale 1863–1945. In: Genderaspekte in der Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit, eds. A. H. Leugers-Scherzberg and L. Scherzberg. Saarbrücken: universaar – Saarland University Press, 33–54. Mohr, J. 2018. Wege nach innen. Die Reise zum Oberammergauer Passionsspiel seit dem 19. Jahrhundert. In: (Off) The Beaten Track? Normierungen und Kanonisierungen des Reisens, eds. U. Schaffers, St. Neuhaus, and H. Diekmannshenke. Würzburg: Königshausen  & Neumann, 97–116. Mohr, J. and J. Stenzel. 2020. Monument und Sediment. Dingpolitik und Bildregimes im Oberammergauer Passionsspiel. Newsletter des Zentrums für Historische Mediologie, Universität Zürich 20: 10–24. Müller, J.-D. 1997. Das Gedächtnis des gemarterten Körpers im spätmittelalterlichen Passionsspiel. In: Körper, Gedächtnis, Schrift. Der Körper als Medium kultureller Erinnerung, eds. C. Öhlschläger and B. Wiens. Berlin: Schmidt, 75–92.

224  Julia Stenzel Müller-Schöll, N. 2008. (Un-)Glauben. Das Spiel mit der Illusion. In: Forum Modernes Theater 22/2: 141–51. Nipperdey, T. 1990. Deutsche Geschichte 1866–1918. Vol. 1: Arbeitswelt und Bürgergeist. München: Beck. Opitz, C., H. Röckelein, and G. Signori (eds.). 1993. Maria in der Welt. Marienverehrung im Kontext der Sozialgeschichte 10.–18. Jahrhundert. Zürich: Chronos. Renan, E. 1863. Vie de Jésus. Paris: Lévy. Robinson, J. and L. de Beer. 2014. Matter of Faith: An Interdisciplinary Study of Relics and Relic Veneration in the Medieval Period. Ed. with A. Harnden. London: The British Museum. Scheurer, H. 1977. Zur Christus-Figur in der Literatur um 1900. In: Fin de Siècle. Zur Li­teratur und Kunst der Jahrhundertwende, eds. R. Bauer et  al. Frankfurt/M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 378–402. Signori, G. 1995. Maria zwischen Kathedrale, Kloster und Welt. Hagiographische und historio­ graphische Annäherungen an eine hochmittelalterliche Wunderpredigt. Sigmaringen: Thorbecke. Sohm, R. 1892. Kirchenrecht. Vol. 1. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. Stausberg, M. 2010. Religion und moderner Tourismus. Berlin: Verlag der Weltreligionen. Stenzel, J. 2019. A Rabbi’s Passion, a Hajj’s Play. Oberammergau and Its Passion Play between Performed History and Histrionic Place. In: Reenacting Religion – Reacting to Religion. Vom Wiedererzählen und Wiederaufführen‚ religiöser‘Praxen, ed. id. Forum Modernes Theater, special issue 29/1: 162–77. Stenzel, J. 2022. Arma Christi. Passion als Glaubenszeugnis und die Lage der Dinge. In: Bezeugen. Mediale, forensische und kulturelle Praktiken der Zeugenschaft, eds. Z. Tuna, M. Wischhoff, and I. Zinsmaier. Stuttgart: Metzler, 105–25. Vedeler, M. 2018. The Charismatic Power of Objects. In: Charismatic Objects: From Roman Times to the Middle Ages, eds. id. et  al. https://press.nordicopenaccess.no/index.php/ noasp/catalog/book/51, 9–30. Vedeler, M. et al. (eds.). 2018. Charismatic Objects: From Roman Times to the Middle Ages. https://press.nordicopenaccess.no/index.php/noasp/catalog/book/51. Waddy, H. 2010. Oberammergau in the Nazi Era. The Fate of a Catholic Village in the Hitler’s Germany. New York: Oxford University Press. Warstat, M. 2014. Wunder der Gemeinschaft. Irritationen der Ko-Präsenz im Theater. In: Das Unverfügbare. Wunder, Wissen, Bildung, eds. K.-J. Pazzini, A. Sabisch, and D. Tyradellis. Zürich, Berlin: Diaphanes, 79–91. Weber, M. 1978 [1922]. Economy and Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Weir, T. H. 2014. Secularism and Religion in 19th Century Germany: The Rise of the Forth Confession. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wetmore, K. J. 2017. Introduction: Forty-First in the Twenty-First. In: Oberammergau Passion Play. Essays on the 2010 Performance and the Centuries-Long Tradition, ed. id. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1–14. Wyl, W. 1890. Der Christus-Mayr. Neue Studien aus Oberammergau. Berlin: Fontane. Zerhoch, D. 2023. Staging Oberammergau. Eine szenographische Perspektive auf die Räume des Passionsspiels seit dem 19. Jahrhundert. Unpublished diss. University of Mainz.

13 Playing With Traditions A Summary and a Glance at the Passion Play 2022 Jan Mohr and Julia Stenzel

1. Resume: brands and singularities Assuming that in the 21st century, industrially realised standardisation of brands, designs, fashions, and quality measures decreased in relevance for the modelling and evolution of identity, German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz proposed the concept of singularity: Instead of supposing uniform criteria guaranteed everywhere and performing adaptation, the late modern personality craves the specific and tries to discriminate itself. It defines itself in the deviation from what is available ‘everywhere’, in the particular, if possible, the unique – the singular. Accordingly, late modernity as a concept can be defined as a logic of singularities in which unique selling points ensure a substantial gain in prestige, thus also an economic issue (Reckwitz 2017). In a globalised struggle for relevance, Oberammergau and its Passion play were engaged in various practices and strategies of self-discrimination (generally: Barbato). From the 19th century on, people started associating a unique appearance with the village, especially during the Passion play seasons. Every ten years, the townscape, including the church, the Passion theatre, and the Kofel mountain, seemed to reemerge as a highly evocative scenography. This Scene of Oberammergau was both completed and complemented by the villagers, whose physiognomics were constantly depicted as fair but natural, archaic but biblical at once. Since the tradition of the so-called hair and beard decree was established in the early 19th century, the long hair of both male and female performers has been a core part of an Oberammergau iconography prominent in the collective imaginary of pilgrimage and fandom until today (Stenzel: Let it Grow). Other theatrical events in the area, such as the well-established Heimatsound Festival that even takes place in the Passion theatre, are associated with the Passion play so that they highlight and singularise each other (Molter). Complementary, organised tours to the Passion play site and travel packages including Oberammergau were broadly advertised already in the early 20th century, deliberately addressing diverse groups of visitors (Zerhoch); travellers are also involved in proving the Bavarian village as an exceptional, even unique destination by self-fashioning in their travelogues (Mohr: Pilgrims and Tourists). DOI: 10.4324/9781003106319-17

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Thus, Oberammergau, as a collective singularity or a singular collective, is not the only agent channelling and formatting the expectation in the village of the Passion play. The discourses and practices emerge in a multiplicity of interrelated decisions involving villagers and strangers, secular governments, and clergy authorities. This multiplication can be observed at least since the 19th century, as Robert D. Priest has shown. The local community’s struggle with the Bavarian authorities leads to a justification pressure (Begründungsdruck), reinforcing the singularity of Oberammergau. The constant flow of self-addressing and redefinition involves aesthetic and theatrical categories as well as tourist industries and economics (Zerhoch; Mohr: Pilgrims and Tourists). In the past decennials, Oberammergau’s wellestablished P.R. strategies saw further professionalisation, especially in dealing with the decennials of latency between the Passion play seasons in opening the stage of the Passion theatre for other events, on the one hand, using social media as a virtual window publicly open toward the rich pictorial record of the local archives and museums, on the other. Thus, the public interest is constantly kept alive. When the Passion theatre becomes the stage for musical festivals or seasonal theatre performances as the Sommertheater that got institutionalised in 2013, significantly, the relation to the Passion play is always vital, often explicitly. However, it is first and foremost the stage construction, which is rarely hidden, often deliberately accepted as a visible background for the respective performances. Therefore, the village as an institution constantly triggers the remembrance of past Passion seasons, the tradition of the Passion play in general, and specifically, it evokes the next and all the productions to come every ten years. In Christian Stückl’s production of Wilhelm Tell in the context of the Sommertheater ( July/August 2018), the strategy of palimpsestic re-inscription came to a climax, at least temporarily. Stückl, known as the director of the Passion play since 1990, did not let pass the opportunity to re-frame the performances as an audition for the Passion play to come. He did not conceal his aim to scout new talents and reevaluate the established actors; instead, he invited the auditory to join the debate. The media coverage (all the major German newspapers reported on Tell) readily complied and eagerly speculated (Molter). After the premiere of the Passion 2022, we not only know that many were correct in their assumptions (the players of the central characters in Schiller’s play can be found among the main actors of the Passion). Moreover, the iconography and aesthetics of the Tell production have also found their way into the Passion. Pilate in an ahistorical long black coat, pointing to an anachronistic reconstruction of the character on stage, exactly repeats the villain Gessler in Stückl’s Tell. The press office of the Passion play keeps spreading information on the ongoing preparations via social media and more traditional means such as newspapers and broadcasting. Not surprisingly, the activities increased after the play had to be postponed due to the pandemic in March 2020. The official website was rapidly transformed into a digital archive of the Passion play, displaying mainly historical photographs from the communal archive. Its ‘history’-section

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is abundantly illustrated with recently digitised, rare photographs that are now at your fingertips after a quick browse. We argue that the broad first-hand supply of images is mainly part of hegemonic strategies that aim to control the Oberammergau Passion play’s public image(s). The strategies implemented in this are bifurcate: While the production of visual representations of the play is subjected to strict limitations, the distribution of the existing material is handled very liberally. The lavishly presented material on the play’s homepage and the trailers and excerpts available online are, after all, only one side of the coin. On the other side, image rights are watched over, and own recordings are strictly – as strictly as possible – prevented. This, in turn, refers to a well-established tradition that also used to affect the text. English-speaking travellers report unanimously (though not entirely accurately): “Neither the text nor the music has ever been published” (Molloy 1872: 15). “The music of the Passion Play . . . is greatly prized by the people, who will not allow it to be printed or sold” (Buckland 1872: 6). British traveller Isabel Burton, who visited the play in 1880, noted laconically in her travelogue: “Taking notes is not allowed” (Burton 1900: 96). The greatest desires have probably always been for photographs of the main actors and actresses. Licences were sold for the right to record and reproduce the characters and scenes of the Passion. Likewise, for the 1900 play, the then widely known U.S. photojournalist and travel writer Elias Burton Holmes noted (though with approving understanding): “The hopes of many enthusiastic amateurs were dashed to earth by words upon a signboard near the theatre: ‘Photographing in the Passion Theater is forbidden. Offenders will be ejected.’ ” (Burton Holmes 1901: 157) Even in the later 20th century, the strict monopolisation of image rights is noted: “The portraits of the performers are guarded more discreetly (diskreter) than in Bayreuth” (Krüger 1986: 150). The rich supply of digitised images on the homepage has ‘ever since’ been accompanied by a strict limitation, a withdrawal of images whose distribution is controlled. With its competent self-promotion, Oberammergau, in various respects, evolved into a platform for discourses and practices that was particularly fascinating during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It inspired a number of literary works, from dramas to novels and stories to poetry (Leutzsch; Mohr: Work on Myth; Stenzel: What Kind of Man). The village presented itself – and was presented – as a destination for a journey that could appeal to a wide variety of interests and needs; it promised rest and recreation, a rural idyll far from the noise and hurry of the big cities (and with a certain standard of comfort), it was described as a pilgrimage destination. Last but not least, the Passion play enacted a type of theatre that seemed diametrically opposed to the still new but already dominant form of bourgeois city theatre in Europe’s big cities. It seemed an alternative in which the original power of an archaic community theatre merged with a utopian ‘theatre of the people’. After the theatre director Eduard Devrient attended the Passion play as a spectator in 1850, he wrote a lengthy essay whose influence on the reception of the Passion play in German-speaking countries was decisive (Devrient 1851).

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In it, he sketched out the utopia of a new folk play that was to be founded, which would reenact the significant events of national history in mass scenes on large open-air stages and in the light of day – a collective theatre by many for many, carried cooperatively and integrating the audience into a community (Mohr 2022). Oberammergau is the inspiration for this. In other respects, too, the Oberammergau play is mentioned as the prototype of folk theatre, although it is not at all clear according to which criteria one wants to define folk theatre; the reference to Oberammergau seems to guarantee evidence that does not even allow further questions to arise (Bernhart). In German-language discourse, the notion of folk play is associated with attributes such as tradition, ancient-ness, medievalism, and contrast to literary drama. The literary and scholarly interest in such ‘pre-historic’ forms of theatre increased in the 19th century, when the invention of tradition highly impacted individual, local, and national identities. Thus, it is not surprising that, at that time, theatre reformers perceived a potential for innovation in the medieval tradition of miracle plays, as they supposed them to be alive in Oberammergau. Max Reinhardt’s experiments with a theatre of the masses in the first two decades of the 20th century, were notoriously compared to the Oberammergau Passion play, the theatre reformist writer Georg Fuchs even evaluated it as one of the greatest inspirations for a theatre of the future (Theater der Zukunft) in general (Fuchs 1901, 1905, 1911). Moreover, Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s and Max Reinhard’s idea of establishing theatre festivals in Salzburg referred to Oberammergau, to which they aimed to provide a complementary model (Bernhart 2019: 226–32). As Claire Sponsler has shown, a number of Passion plays in the USA are fashioned after the Oberammergau play tradition (Sponsler 2004). The Passion play also played a role in the first attempts at feature films. Studies on early film have shown that Oberammergau not only contributed to the iconography of the early Hagiopic but also provided a narrative and dramaturgical model for these first films (Musser 1993; Grace 2009; Gaudreault 2016). Moreover, in its connection with the international discourse around theories of heredity (Lamarck, Darwin) in the later 19th century, Oberammergau could even be cited as a model for a ‘eugenic theatre’ that improved and refined the performers over time, not only morally but also physiologically (Groeneveld 2021: 80–3). Conclusively, National Socialism appropriated Oberammergau, not only during the ‘Führerspiele’ in 1934 but also in adopting basic aesthetics of the Passion play for their efforts for cultural and political Gleichschaltung (Annuß). For the longest time, the notion of Oberammergau as the village of Christ and His Passion evoked mainly binarisms and thus fuelled the uniformisation of block-like monoliths. Yet, this perspective calls for a reconsideration, since the play’s perceived potential to serve as a model for another concept of theatre obviously fuelled discussions in contexts that are extremely diverse in scope, focus, and approach. However, most of them presume a form of theatre beyond representation and illusion; a theatre which impacts its social surroundings instead of maintaining a merely reflective relation to society.

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The religious drama, its connection to catholic liturgy and the practices of legitimisation it involves has always been a point of reference for the Passion play; even more in times of religious pluralisation and global entanglements of religions. For the case of Oberammergau as an ex-voto play, the complement of spiritual and physical healing by committing oneself to the performance of the Passion has been crucial. The reenactment of injury and destruction of bodily integrity to guarantee salvation in a very broad sense, involving the members of a group, implies a dynamic model of collectivity. The ‘we’ of Oberammergau conveys the respective audiences, the village community, but also manifold ad-hoc communities (Bauman 2001), meeting in contingent interests and fascinations, topical needs, and longings. All of these communities continue to confirm and reinforce an inclusive meaningfulness and authenticity of an alleged ‘Oberammergau experience’. Yet, visitors can engage in the Passion play, allow themselves to be deeply affected and integrate the experience into their personal and individual history without necessarily believing in Christian salvation history. Oberammergau can be experienced as a kind of ‘elevated’ event or situation even without any background in traditional religious institutions (cf. Mohr and Stenzel 2022). Yet, although the individual (or even collective) experiences will vary in intensity and significance and do not necessarily reinforce each other, in their polyphony they still strengthen the institutionality of ‘Oberammergau’. The pending and actual postponement of the Passion play in March 2020, once more, brought the historical aims and implications of the ex voto principle to the fore. The anachronistic short cut between the plague and Corona became notorious, among journalists as well as theatre makers referring to Oberammergau and the play. The German theatre director Nicolas Stemann (Schauspielhaus Zürich) even proclaimed the need of a new Passion play and initiated a long-term project called Die Corona-Passion, newspaper articles and commentaries ruminated on the seemingly oxymoronic constellation of the anti-plague-theatre being suspended in the sight of a pandemic. The discussion paradigmatically culminates in a handful of documentaries, broadcasted shortly after the postponement of the Play by the Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation/BBC; cf. Zerhoch 2023: chapter 3.3.4). One of them, Oberammergau steht Kopf by Brigitte Kornberger, shall be briefly discussed (Kornberger 2020)1: As the postponement became inevitable, likely everybody in the village was acutely concerned by the situation. As we initially mentioned in our introduction chapter, director Christian Stückl was struggling with tears when announcing the postponement, and the camera focused effectively on the main actors’ deeply affected faces. Yet, the individual actors differed considerably in their coping strategies. While the narrator’s voice from off-screen struggles to maintain a consistent and homogeneous crisis narrative (“Krisennarrativ”, Zerhoch 2023: chapter 3.3.4), nobody less than Stückl was relatively relaxed and even had humorous remarks to make about the virus. As Dominic Zerhoch pointed out, it was the very principle of trusting in God Stückl called into question, challenging the transcendental legitimacy of the Passion play.

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2. A glance at the Passion play (14 May 2022) It would have been a joke in bad taste to say in the spring of 2020: just let them play; the Passion play will stop the pandemic. However, two years later, voices were heard claiming that when the Passion play season begins, COVID-19 will be over. Such a prediction was not as bold as it would have been when the pandemic broke out, given two years of vaccination campaigns worldwide (and much more so in the wealthy West than elsewhere). However, the logic is still one that rationalist standards could not justify. A magical faith seems to mingle with the prediction, whether it is meant seriously or playfully. After having to ask how to heal the play during the two years of unforeseen latency, the line of questioning now turns back in the traditional direction: can the play heal the wounds? The postponement of the 2020 season appears to be an opportunity to renew the legitimacy and relevance of the play. Established ex-voto in the 17th century, beginning with the growing interest in the play, it gradually evolved from a local tradition into a global event that continued to assemble people from diverse backgrounds in the theatrical performance as the perceived nucleus of Oberammergau. As the Christian confession got debatable in delivering the grand narrative uniting diverse international audiences under the umbrella of pilgrimage and devotion, the pandemic fuelled notions of spiritual unity beyond religion. The director and production collective of the play is well aware of the chance arising with the precarious situation of delay and latency. For it can function as a means of establishing a community united by the experience of closed theatres, physical distancing, and the immediate and scary threat posed by a firstly almost untreatable virus. Not accidentally, the first interviews and features after the postponement of the season alluded to a new post-COVID sense of unity and community: After the pandemic, all of us will have changed, it was repeatedly said. The ‘we’ conjured up by director Christian Stückl and one of the impersonators of Jesus, Frederik Mayet, does not only refer to the communal identity of Oberammergau but also to a renewed, even re-invented virtual community of those engaged in the performance of the Passion, be it as spectators, as actors, or behind the stage. The logic of partaking and participation inherent in the practice of religious drama since late medieval times is, in a way, inverted. The hybrid and virtual ‘we’ unites in the shared experience of an actual pandemic: we all have been struggling in one way or the other. Thus, this ‘we’ heals the play by establishing a new and material legitimation. However, yet, it is the recontextualised and re-legitimated play that provides a space for consolation and relief. In this reciprocal dynamics of accreditation and identification, concepts of ‘community’ beyond established (and widely criticised) Christian/ national(istic) models come to the fore. Under the auspices of a pandemic, the ‘glocal’ play bears persuasiveness and justification as an experience of copresence going beyond mere theatre. After the premiere, we can say that it is also the consistent work on their tradition and its presentation in which the playmaker team has tried to secure and stabilise the legacy of the Passion play.

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As rumours had already announced, the chorus performed in 19th-century dress. In the beginning, a single figure from the chorus stepped to the edge of the stage. It delivered in prose a summary of the information that in popular lore forms the background to the vow to perform the Passion play every ten years. In front of the lower centre stage, two men stood for this purpose, holding a wooden crucifix of about the height of a man. When the memory of the 30 Years’ War allegedly “still lives on among the people under the name of the Swedish War” (in the textbook: Gemeinde Oberammergau 2022: 11), this “still” does not refer to the 21st-century actor but the 19thcentury character. Accordingly, the play would have already begun with the prologue-like preface and understood in this way; the historically uncritical sentences about the alleged redemption of the village from the plague would also make sense. For here, too, in the ‘prelude’ (prologue), the legend was repeated, according to which the plague could be ended by the vow of the council of the community and by the pact with God. This story is the cleaned-up version of history that began to prevail in the popular discourse of the later 19th century. The choir’s clothing evokes the 19th century. A handful of soldiers on both sides of the stage allowed associations with the mid-17th century (the time of the ‘Swedish War’). It also alludes to the visualisation of the Middle Ages, known from 15th-century painting. The induced fusion of times and realities was reinforced when, during the singing, the people of Jerusalem streamed through the stage gates onto the stage, dressed, as in recent seasons, in long robes referring to the first century of our era. The ancient people of the Holy City mingled with the 19th-century choir as they slowly departed. After the Oberammergauers had played their historical selves in the choir members, the action of the last days of Christ began with the people. The effect was ambivalent. On the one hand, one could get the impression that the biblical story absorbed the performed Oberammergauers of the 19th century; in this view, two historical time layers, the biblical events and their reception (which the audience in May 2022 received) would only be differentiated by degree. Conversely, the mixture of the chorus and the people of Jerusalem emphasised the production of a play situation on stage directed by a mediating instance and thus rather the separation of play-action and c­ horal singing (which ultimately means: fictionality). If we had argued in the ­Introduction that Oberammergau could be described with an institutional-­ theoretical approach, then the first scenes of the premiere confirmed our hypothesis. The proper time (Eigenzeit) of Oberammergau, with its specific ­linear and cyclical components, overwrites the everyday life of the actors involved with its specific logic and validities. It is complemented with a new element in the opening parts of the Passion play of 2022. By playing themselves in the chorus, the Oberammergauers confront their tradition and demonstrate a reflexive relationship to their proper place in the history of the play. Furthermore, hardly anything else could demonstrate the play’s meaning for them, the players and the entire village.

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Note 1 The video is no longer available in the ‘Mediathek’ of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.

Works cited Baumann, Z. 2001. Community. Seeking Safety in an Insecure World. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bernhart, T. 2019. Volksschauspiele. Genese einer kulturgeschichtlichen Formation. Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter. Buckland, A. W. 1872. Oberammergau and Its People, in Connection with the Passion Play and Miracle Plays in General. A Paper Read before the Bath Literary and Philosophical Association, Jan. 12th, 1872. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co. Burton, I. 1900. The Passion-Play at Ober-Ammergau. Ed. with a preface by W. H. Wilkins. London: Hutchinson and Co. Devrient, E. 1851. Das Passionsspiel in Oberammergau und seine Bedeutung für die neue Zeit. Leipzig: [n. n.]. Fuchs, G. 1901. Zur künstlerischen Neugestaltung der Schau-Bühne. Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 7 (October 1900 – March 1901): 200–14. Fuchs, G. 1905. Die Schaubühne der Zukunft. Berlin, Leipzig: Schuster & Loeffler. Fuchs, G. 1911. Die Sezession in der dramatischen Kunst und das Volksfestspiel. Mit einem Rückblick auf die Passion von Oberammergau. Munich: Müller. Gaudreault, A. 2016. The Passion of Christ. A Form, a Genre, a Discourse. In: The Silents of Jesus in the Cinema (1897–1927), ed. D. Shepherd. Cambridge: Routledge, 15–23. Gemeinde Oberammergau. 2022. Passionsspiele Oberammergau 2022. Textbuch. München: Kriechbaumer Druck. Grace, P.  2009. The Religious Film: Christianity and the Hagiopic. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Groeneveld, L. 2021. Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Representations of the Oberammergau Passion Play: Heredity, Eugenic Theatre, and “Epic Selection”. Theatre Survey 62: 67–88 (doi:10.1017/S0040557420000484). Holmes, E. B. 1901. Through Europe with a Camera. Battle Creek: The Little-Preston Company. Kornberger, B. 2020. Echtes Leben: Oberammergau steht Kopf. www.br.de/mediathek/video/ oberammergau-steht-kopf-das-aus-fuer-die-passion-2020-av:5e8f239e8b331b0013 89e180 (accessed 20 April 2020). Krüger, H. 1986. Oberammergau. Passion für einen Fremden. In: id.: Tiefer deutscher Traum. Reisen in die Vergangenheit. Munich: dtv, 148–72. Mohr, J. 2022. Hinter den Bergen, im Mittelalter. Oberammergau und sein Passionsspiel im 19. Jahrhundert. In: Mikrokosmen. Ästhetische Formen und diskursive Figurationen einer Repräsentativität des Partikularen, eds. F. v. Ammon and M. Waltenberger. Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang, 167–99. Mohr, J. and J. Stenzel. 2022. The Ways of Things. Mobilizing Charismatic Objects in  Oberammergau and Its Passion Play. Religions 13/1: 71 (doi:10.3390/rel130 10071). Molloy, G. 1872. The Passion Play at Ober-Ammergau in the Summer of 1871. 2nd ed. London: Burns, Oates, & Co. Musser, Ch. 1993. Passions and the Passion Play. Theatre, Film, and Religion in America, 1880–1900. Film History 5/4: 419–56.

Playing With Traditions  233 Reckwitz, A. 2017. Die Gesellschaft der Singularitäten. Zum Strukturwandel der Moderne. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Sponsler, C. 2018 [2004]. America’s Passion Plays. In: id.: Ritual Imports. Performing Medieval Drama in America. Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter, 123–55. Zerhoch, D. 2023. Staging Oberammergau. Eine szenographische Perspektive auf die Räume des Passionsspiels seit dem 19. Jahrhundert. Diss. masch. University of Mainz.

Index

References to figures are in italics; references to notes are indicated by n; references to tables are in bold. ad hoc communities 62, 229 advertising 226; 1934 season 70, 72, 88, 89n10, 89n11, 95, 127 alethurgic theater 210, 211 American Jewish Committee 93 Annuß, E. 85 Anti-Defamation League 93 anti-Judaism 29 – 30, 31, 88, 93, 94 – 5 antiquity 64 anti-Semitism 70, 95, 205n7 Anzengruber, L. 110 arma Christi 147, 151 – 2, 216 – 17 authenticity/authentication 12, 56, 147 – 9, 181 Barthel, G. 100 – 1 Barthes, R. 169 – 70, 175, 178; Mythologies 169 – 70, 175, 178 Bausinger, H. 108 Bauz see Klabund Bayreuth 111, 115 – 16n10 Benedikt XVI see popes Beyer, P. 104n12; Düsseldorfer Passion (drama) 104n12 Blumenberg, H. 168 – 70, 175, 181, 205; Work on Myth 12 – 13, 168 – 70, 175, 181, 205 Boisserée, S. 39 Breitsamter, M. 85 Breitsamter, R. 129 broadcasting: ban on 28 Bröckling, U. 94 Brumann, Chr. 37 Burg, P. 204, 205n8; Oberammergau 1630 – 1930 (novel) 195, 198 – 9, 204, 205n8; Volk bei der Arbeit (novel) 205n8

Burger, J. 129 Burton, I. 29 Burton, R. F. 3, 29, 58, 82, 151 Business Management Catholic Tours 78 – 81 casting 12; see also role assignment Certeau, M. de 74 charisma 8, 12, 145, 147, 149 – 51, 197, 210 – 12, 216; charismatic authority 150 Chaucer, G. 179 – 80; Canterbury Tales 179 – 80 Christ iconography 126 – 7, 144, 190 – 4, 197, 211, 218, 222n5 Christmas Plays 112 community 230 – 1; see also ad hoc communities Conway, M. D. 63 – 4, 65, 67 Cook, Th. 3, 26, 29, 42, 74, 76, 81 – 2; Cook’s Handbook for Oberammergau 81 Corona see COVID-19 COVID-19 1, 6, 154, 181, 229 – 30 Culler, J. 55 – 6 Daisenberger, J. A. 37, 38 – 42, 43 – 5, 105n25, 167 Deutinger, M. v. 39 Deutsche Weihnachtsspiele aus Ungern see Christmas Plays Devrient, E. 39, 85 – 6, 94, 211, 227 – 8 Diemer, H. 43, 65 – 6, 67 Diemer, J. 78 Diemer, M. 40 Diemer, Z. 78 Döpfner, J. 30, 31 Dorée, G. 194

Index  235 Dostoevsky, F. M.: The Brothers Karamazov (novel) 199, 202 Drachenstichspiel 113 Dreisbach, E. 175; Cornelia erlebt Oberammergau (novel) 175 – 9 Dürer, A. 193 Easter liturgy 97; see also liturgical drama Eggers, K. 97; Das Spiel von Job dem Deutschen (drama) 97 Egk, W. 97 Eisenschmidt, J. 100 – 1, 105n28, 105n30 Eschenlohe 170, 171, 173 Ettal monastery 40, 76, 174, 195 Ettmayr, C. 37, 42 – 6 Euringer, R. 97 – 8, 104n21, 104n22; Deutsche Passion 1933 (drama) 97 – 9 ex voto-play 229, 230 Faulhaber, M. 30, 78 femininity see gendering femme fatale, femme fragile see gendering fiction see Oberammergau fiction film 228; ban on filming 3 Fischer, H. 130 – 1 folk culture 37 – 8, 39, 60, 108, 134 folk play 92, 108 – 15, 228; see also folk theatre folk poetry 108 folk theatre 11 – 12, 60, 92, 108, 228 Follath, E. 180 – 1; Wer erschoss Jesus Christus? (novel) 180 – 1, 200, 202 – 3 Foucault, M. 94, 98 Frankl family 40 Frietinger, A.: Der Lüftlmaler von Oberammergau (novel) 193, 194 Fuchs, G. 228 Furth im Wald see Drachenstichspiel Ganghofer, L.: Der Herrgottschnitzer von Ammergau (novel) 198 Gaze, H. 42 gendering: female gendering 13, 170 – 4, 175 – 9, 198, 208 – 9, 212 – 16, 217, 218 – 21; male gendering 13, 197 – 9, 208 – 16, 218 – 21 geocodes see space German Empire 38 Gibson, M. 88; The Passion of Christ (film) 88, 205 Girard, R. 88 Goebbels, J. 70, 85, 92 – 3, 102, 103n1, 105n31, 127

Goethe, J. W. 197; Faust 193 good shepherd 92 – 102 Görres, G. 39 governmentality see good shepherd Grillparzer, F. 110 Grimm brothers 115n2 Grimshaw, M. 56 Güntner, M. 134 Gürör, C. 134 – 6, 139 Haar- und Barterlass see hair and beard decree Hageneier, St. 132 hair 144, 146 – 9, 152 – 61, 190 hair and beard decree 6, 12, 139, 146 – 7, 148 – 9, 225 Halbig, J. v. 194 Händel, G. F. 97 Hänschen, H. 97, 104n14 Hardenberg, F. v. 197 Haser, A. 130 Heimatsound Festival 141n33, 225 Herder, J. G. 108, 109, 111, 115n2, 197 Hillern, W. v. 126, 211; On the Cross (novel) 13, 126, 190 – 1, 192, 194, 195, 197 – 8, 204, 209 history of salvation 7, 62 – 3, 93, 148, 151, 154, 210, 218 – 19, 229 Hitler, A. 30, 72, 84 – 8, 90n13, 92, 93, 99, 128 Hofmannsthal, H. v. 110 – 11, 228; Deutsche Festspiele zu Salzburg 110 – 11, 115n9; Die Salzburger Festspiele 111, 115 – 16n10 Holy Family 212 – 14, 221 – 2 Holy Year 24, 31 Holzbrod, A. 125 – 6, 127, 136 Huber, O. 93, 140n26 iconography see Christ iconography; Oberammergau iconography institution/institutionality 4 – 7, 20, 154, 168 – 9, 229, 231; institution theory 4 – 7 itineraries 74, 76, 79 John Paul II see popes Jugend (journal) 67n2 Kaltenegger, R. 31, 85 Karaca, A. 21, 139, 140n25 Karl Graf v. Seinsheim 40 Kazantzakis, N.: Christ Recrucified (novel) 195 – 6, 199, 200, 204 Kiemel, H. 70 – 2

236 Index Klabund: Oberammergau in Amerika (poem) 196 – 7, 205n4 Kornberger, B.: Oberammergau steht Kopf 229 Koschorke, A. 213 Kraus, K. 113 – 14, 116n17, 116n18 Lang, Al. 127 – 8, 129, 130 Lang, An. 3, 89n8, 125 – 7, 196 – 7 Lang, G. J. 99, 127, 130 Lang, J. 40, 43, 44 Lang, R. 78, 84, 88, 89n8, 127, 130 – 1 Lautenschläger, K. 42 Lefebvre, H. 74 – 5, 89n3 Leonardo da Vinci 193 Lipp, W. 149 – 50 liturgical drama 95 Ludwig I of Bavaria 38 – 9, 40, 81 – 2, 198 – 9 Ludwig II of Bavaria 180, 194 Luhmann, N. 28 – 9, 98 Macpherson, J. 109, 111; chants of Ossian 109, 111, 115n2 Maderspacher, S. 136 Maria Magdalena 42, 208 – 9, 212 – 3, 217 – 20 masculinity see gendering Max, Gabriel 194, 205n2 Maximilian II of Bavaria 64 Mayet, F. 126 – 7, 13 – 15, 139, 148, 154, 230 Mayr, J. 125 – 6, 212, 222n6 Meyer, M. P. 205n7 Michelangelo Buonarotti 194 Middle Ages 60, 64 missio canonica 30, 31 Mittenwald Passion play 39 modernity 8 – 9, 19 – 20, 22 – 4, 33, 55 – 6, 225; multiple modernities 8 – 9, 19 Möller, E. W. 104n23; Das Frankenburger Würfelspiel (drama) 104n23 Möller, I.: Meister Bertram (novel) 201 – 2 Montez, L. 198 – 9 Montgelas, M. v. 26, 38 – 9 Montgomery, J.: Quits (novel) 196 Montini, G. B. see popes Moser, H. 113 Müller(-Partenkirchen), F.: Passion (novel) 195 Munich: Munich Hoftheater 42; seat of the Bavarian government 39 – 41, 43 – 4; in the Third Reich 84 myth 12 – 13, 168 – 70, 178, 181

Nabor, F.: Das Wunder von Ammergau (novel) 191, 195, 198, 205n5 Nadler, J. 110, 115n7 Nathanson, E. M.: The Latecomers (novel) 201, 202 nationalization of the Passion play 198 – 9 Nazarenes 197 Nazi Germany 84 – 5 Nazi ideology 110, 127; propaganda 10 – 11, 82, 85, 92, 94 – 5, 98 Nazi Ministry of Propaganda 82, 97, 99 Nazi regime 27, 30, 84 – 5, 88, 95, 105n27 Nazi theatre 102; see also Thingspiele Nestroy, J. 110 Neuschwanstein Castle 76, 81 – 2 Newman, B. Ch. 171 – 4; Death in the valley (novel) 171 – 4 Niedecken-Gebhard, H. 95 – 7, 100 Nies, F. 114 – 15 Nietzsche, F. 197 Northern German Lloyd 74 Novalis see Hardenberg, F. v. Nunn, A. 136 Oberammergauer Blätter (journal) 58 – 9, 67, 77 Oberammergau fiction 8, 12, 147, 167, 169 – 81, 183, 184 – 9, 190 – 204, 227 Oberammergau iconography 62, 66, 176, 178, 193 – 4, 222n4 Oberammergau Museum 146, 155; [IM] MATERIAL exhibition 146, 154 – 61 Oberau 57, 66, 74; see also travel/travelers to Oberammergau Oberuferer Weihnachtsspiele see Christmas Plays Oken, L. v. 39 Ott, A.: Vitus Schisler der erste Christus von Ober-Ammergau (novel) 194 – 5 Pace, Ch. N.: The Passion of Herman (novel) 190 Pacelli, E. see popes pandemic see COVID-19 Parks-Richards, L. 61 – 2, 66 – 7 Passion play fiction see Oberammergau fiction Passion play history 2 – 3, 8, 9 – 10, 14, 21, 24, 26, 27 – 8, 30 – 1, 36, 58, 167, 225, 231 Passion play seasons: 1770 season 25; 1780 season 25; 1810/11 season 26; 1870/71 season 42; 1890 season 58; 1900 season 125 – 6; 1920/22 season 6, 78, 126, 181;

Index  237 1930 season 92, 127; 1934 season 11, 70 – 89, 127, 128; 2010 season 132, 156; 2020/22 season 1 – 2, 6 – 7, 12, 14, 123, 131 – 9, 145, 149, 153, 154, 161, 226 – 7, 229, 230 – 1 Passion play text history 2, 9, 37 – 8, 40 – 5, 93, 131, 174 Passion theatre 12, 123, 226 Paul VI see popes Pfeufer, S. v. 44 photography: ban on 227 Pilartz, Th. C. 97 pilgrimage/pilgrims 9, 11, 24, 26, 29, 36, 38, 55 – 6, 60 – 1, 63 – 6, 72, 77, 79, 88, 167, 179 – 80, 208 – 9, 211, 227, 230 Pius XI see popes Pius XII see popes plague 6, 99, 167, 170 – 2, 229 pluralization 21 – 2; of the Oberammergau discourse 58 – 9; of the Passion play 145, 151 Pollock, Ch.: Behold the Man (novel) 194 popes 21, 79; Benedikt XVI [Ratzinger, J.] 28; John Paul II 31; papacy 10, 19 – 22, 23 – 8, 30 – 4; Paul VI [Montini, G. B.] 31; Pius XI [Ratti, A.] 31; Pius XII [Pacelli, E.] 31 postponement see Passion play seasons, 1920/22 and 2020/22 postwar period 177 – 9 Powys, J. C.: A Glastonbury Romance (novel) 204 Preisinger, A. 129 – 30, 135 Prosch, M. M. 174 – 5; Die sonnige Not (novel) 174 – 5 Raber, V. 110 radio 97 railway: history 76; to Oberammergau 57, 63, 66, 74, 76 Raimund, F. 110 Rampf, M. v. 42, 43 Rank, J.: Achtspännig (novel) 192 – 3 Raphael 194 Ratti, Achille see popes Ratzinger, J. 31; see also popes Rauchenegger, B. 113 Reckwitz, A. 19 – 20, 24 – 5, 33, 225 Rehberg, M. P.: Die Sehnsucht der Schatten nach dem Licht (novel) 192, 194, 200, 203, 205 Reinhardt, M. 95, 110, 228; Jedermann (drama) 95; Mirakel (drama) 95 Reiser, E. 134

relic 145, 147, 151 – 4, 158, 209, 214, 216 – 7 religion 7 – 10, 55 – 7, 59 – 60 religiosity 8, 44, 56, 177 – 8; vagant religiosity 215, 220, 230 religious drama 1 – 2, 7, 37, 53, 228, 229, 230; see also liturgical drama Renan, E. 210 Rendl, P. 125 – 6 Richter, A. 133, 134 role assignment (Spielerwahl) 123 – 5, 130 – 1, 136 – 9 romanticism 60, 63 – 4, 67, 88, 94, 98 Rosner, F. 44, 131 Rubens, P. P. 193 Rückl, R. 133, 136, 139 Ruhl, S.: Passion Play (drama) 192, 203 Sachs, H. 112 Sailer, S. 112; Melodrama Adam und Eva im Paradeiß (drama) 112; Die Schwäbische Schöpfung (drama) 112 Salk, H.: Eavesdropping at Oberammergau (novel) 202, 205n7 Salzburg Festival 95, 110, 111, 115n10, 228 Sansom, C.: Passion Play (novel) 201 scenography 11, 208, 225 Schaching, O. v. 171; Der Judas von Oberammergau (novel) 171, 181n2, 197, 198 Schiller, F. 132, 134 Schivelbusch, W. 76 Schliersee Company 113 Schmid, H. v. 113 Schmidt, M.: Der Schutzgeist von Oberammergau (novel) 197 Schollwöck, G.: Vevi (epic poem) 198 Schönherr, K.: Die Fahne weht (drama) 199; Der Judas von Tirol (drama) 191 – 2 Schramm, W. v. 92; Neubau des deutschen Theaters 92 Schröer, K. J. 112; see also Spiel vom Sündenfall Schumpeter, J. 27 Schuster, S. 134 Schwaighofer, H. 131 Schwarz-Bart, A.: Le Dernier des Justes (novel) 202 secularity/secularization 7 – 10, 19 – 21, 25 – 6, 29, 72; desecularization 20; multiple secularities 9, 145, 215 Seinsheim see Karl Graf v. Seinsheim Sepp, J. N. 39 Sermon on the Mount 53, 78

238 Index Shakespeare, W. 109, 115n2, 135 Shapiro, J. 29, 31, 70, 135 Simplicissimus (journal) 53 – 5, 54, 62 – 3, 67n2, 78, 89n4, 153 singularity 4, 10, 19 – 34, 147, 154, 225 – 6; mass appeal of 22 – 5; see also Reckwitz, A. social differentiation 28 – 9 Soja, E. 74, 89n3 space: production of 74 – 6, 88 Spanish flu 6 Spielgemeinde (journal) 97, 101 Spiel vom Sündenfall (drama) 112 spolia see relic stage 2 – 3 Stausberg, M. 56, 59 – 60 Stead, W. Th.: If Christ came to Chicago! (novel) 199; The Story that Transformed the World 199 Steiner, M. 112 – 13 Steiner, R. 112 Stemann, N. 229; Corona-Passion (theatre project) 229 Steub, L. 39 stigma 145, 149 – 53; stigmatization 12, 145, 149 – 52, 204, 218 – 19 Stückl, Chr. 1, 2, 31, 123, 126, 131 – 9, 141n27, 141n31, 226, 229, 230; Wilhelm Tell production 12, 123 – 5, 131 – 9, 226; see also Passion play seasons, 1990 to 2020/22 Stumpfl, R. 113 systems theory 28 – 9 Tabori, G.: Goldberg Variationen (drama) 202 Tautphoeus see Montgomery, J. theatrical public sphere 8, 9, 10 Thingspiele 11, 85, 92, 95 – 103; see also Nazi theatre Thingstätte 100, 103; see also Thingspiele Third Reich see Nazi regime Thorvaldsen, B. 197 tourism/tourists 9 – 10, 29, 36, 37 – 8, 53, 55 – 7, 59 – 60, 64, 72, 113, 208, 226; infrastructure 61, 74; mass tourism 55, 61, 64, 77; Oberammergau tourism 57 – 8, 63, 67, 77 – 8; tourist guides 58, 61, 64 – 5; tourist market 46; see also travel/travelers to Oberammergau trademark 3 – 4, 10, 14, 190, 225 tradition 3 – 4 train 72; see also railway travel/travelers to Oberammergau 10, 41, 53 – 6, 60 – 1, 70, 75, 225; travel agencies 76; travel brochures 11, 72, 74, 76, 78;

travel routes 57, 62, 63 – 4, 65 – 6, 74, 76, 79, 81, 225 travelogues/travel reports 8, 11, 55, 57, 65, 67 Trenker, L.: Das Wunder von Oberammergau (novel) 167 – 8, 174, 195, 196 truth of salvation 53, 62, 64, 158 Türpitz, E.: Der erste Christus von Oberammergau (novel) 204 Uffing 40 Ury, P.: The Kiss of Judas (drama) 202 Vegesack, S. v. 199; Christus in München (poem) 199 Vienna 111, 115n10 Voegelin, E. 95 Volk, V. 179 – 80; Passion Play (novel) 179 – 80 Volkslied see folk culture Volksschauspiel see folk play Voß, R.: Rolla (novel) 190, 194 vow 7, 32, 167 vow play 9, 229; see also ex voto-play Waddy (Lepovitz), H. 70, 77 – 8, 127 Wagner, Ri. 81, 111 Wagner, Ro. 100, 105n26 Weber, M. 24, 150 Wehner, M. 98 – 9, 104 – 5n24 Weimar Republic 174 – 5 Weis, O. 40, 43, 44, 145, 174 Weismantel, L. 123; Gnade über Oberammergau (novel) 195; Pestspiel (drama) 123 Werlen, B. 75 Werner, C. 157 – 8 Wiertz, J. 71 Wilson, R.: 14 Stations 194 Winckelmann, J. J. 197, 205n5, 210 – 11 Wöhler, K. 75 Wolf, B. 217 Wolfe, H. 200; X at Oberammergau (poem) 200, 202 World War I 93 – 4, 97, 174 – 5 World War II 177 – 9 Wyl, W. 222n6, 222n9 Yücel, D. 141n31 Zunterer, H. 31 Zwinck, F. S. 193, 194, 195 Zwink, H. 128 – 9 Zwink, M. 132