 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
| The Condemned of Altona | |
|---|---|
 Cover of the English edition, depicting the black window of Franz's crabs. | |
| Written by | Jean-Paul Sartre |
| Characters | Major, the von Gerlachs: Father Franz Johanna Leni Werner Minor, in flashbacks: Klages Heinrich a Woman an SS Officer |
| Date premiered | 1959 |
| Place premiered | Théâtre de la Renaissance, Paris |
| Original language | French, Translated from the French by Sylvia and George Leeson |
| Setting | Home of the von Gerlachs, in the Altona borough of Hamburg, Germany. |
The Condemned of Altona (French: Les Séquestrés d'Altona) is a play written by Jean-Paul Sartre, known in Great Britain as Loser Wins. It was first produced in 1959 at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris. It was one of the last plays Sartre wrote, followed only by his adaptation of Euripides' The Trojan Women. The English-language title recalls his formulation "Man is condemned to be free." It is the only one of Sartre's fictional works which deals directly with Nazism, and also serves as a critique of the then-ongoing Algerian War.[1] The action takes place in Altona, a borough of the German city-state of Hamburg.
- ^ http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/sartrebio.html "Although concerned explicitly with that conflict and its aftermath, the play was intended to refer also to the Algerian War, then in progress. The play impugns Nazi Germany and the type of men it produced--not just SS soldiers but also members of the upper bourgeoisie who found Nazism useful because it served their economic interests."