| Der Stellvertreter The Representative (UK) The Deputy (US) | |
|---|---|
 Oberon books edition of The Representative | |
| Written by | Rolf Hochhuth |
| Original language | German |
The Deputy, a Christian tragedy (German: Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel), also published in English as The Representative, is a controversial 1963 play by Rolf Hochhuth which portrayed Pope Pius XII as having failed to take action or speak out against the Holocaust. It has been translated into more than twenty languages.[1] The play's implicit censure of a venerable if controversial pope has led to numerous counterattacks, of which one of the latest is the 2007 allegation that Hochhuth was the dupe of a KGB disinformation campaign, later confirmed by both the Venona Project and Mitrokhin Files in declassification of the Soviet disinformation campaign Operation Seat 12. The Encyclopædia Britannica assesses the play as "a drama that presented a critical, unhistorical picture of Pius XII"[2] and Hochhuth's depiction of the pope having been indifferent to the Nazi genocide as "lacking credible substantiation."[3] However, it has since been discovered that Pope Pius XII seems to have known about concentration camps.[4]
The first English translation by Robert David MacDonald was published as The Representative, by Methuen in Britain in 1963. In America a second translation by Richard Winston and Clara Winston was published as The Deputy by Grove in New York, 1964. A letter from Albert Schweitzer to Hochhuth's German publisher serves as the foreword to the US edition. A film version titled Amen. was made by the Greek-born French filmmaker Costa-Gavras in 2002.
- ^ Kenneth D. Whitehead: The Pope Pius XII Controversy. A Review-Article. From The Political Science Reviewer, Volume XXXI, 2002. Online at: www.catholicleague.org, [1] Archived 2008-04-19 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica : Pius XII - Bibliography
- ^ "Encyclopędia Britannica's Reflections on the Holocaust". www.britannica.com. Archived from the original on 2007-04-28.
- ^ "Letter shows Pope Pius XII probably knew about Holocaust early on". Reuters. Retrieved 2024-02-19.