Eichmann · NSDAP Parteinummer 889 895 · SS-Nummer 45 326 Szenische Lesung mit Florian Lenz · Konzept I Idee | Textfassung: raum13 Kolacek & Leßle

Scenic reading with Florian Lenz - Concept I Idea | Text version: raum13 Kolacek & Leßle

Meeting point: Deutzer Zentralwerk der Schönen Künste, Deutz-Mülheimer Str.147-149
Cost contribution: 16 € / 8 € reduced
Limited number of participants, pre-registration recommended: info@raum13.com

"I sat at my desk, did my things." Adolf Eichmann

The project is based on three text sources. Eichmann's statements made during interrogations in Israeli custody are juxtaposed with the interviews he gave to former SS man Willem Sassen in Argentina. His memoirs, written before his execution, form a third layer of text.
Today, Eichmann is mostly seen as a 'cog in the machine', as a recipient of orders, at most as a 'desk murderer'. Another image of Eichmann that was rampant in the public eye for decades was that of the psychopathic Nazi beast. More recent Holocaust research refutes this image. Eichmann was a fanatical National Socialist, but he was not a mass murderer from the outset. The development of his personality was closely linked to the historical and social circumstances of the Third Reich. He slowly grew into his role as 'manager of death', pursuing his own career with great ambition. The image of the desk jockey, juggling with figures and statistics and wanting to do his job as well as possible, is also reflected in our understanding of work and performance today.

Eichmann was a sales representative who joined the SS at a young age out of conviction and ambitiously worked his way up from small clerk to deportation expert. No one is born with the disposition to become a mass murderer. The project focuses on the many small framework shifts that lead to such a result. The example of Adolf Eichmann will be used to illustrate this development.

Based on the available biographical material, the viewer is shown the successive shifts in society's framework and the ability of people to adapt to these conditions through the figure of the perpetrator. This is intended to sensitize each individual to social developments on the one hand and to personal responsibility for these developments on the other. The Holocaust was a historically unique event in its bureaucratic extermination of millions of people and its anti-Semitism. However, genocides are still taking place. In dealing with mass murder trials, there is a social tendency to label the perpetrators as beasts and psychopaths. Closer investigation, however, shows that these murders are mainly committed by completely normal people.

Premiere: May 19, 2007 // NS Documentation Center Cologne
Concept I Idea: raum13 Kolacek & Leßle Production: Anja Kolacek, Stage | Light: Marc Leßle, Costume: Teresa Tober, Photo installation: Karin Richert, with: Heinrich Baumgartner
NOMINATED FOR THE KURT-HACKENBERG PRIZE FOR POLITICAL THEATER