HIRSCHFELD - THE UNKNOWN KNOWN

Kurt Hirschfeld's biography is the exemplary story of a committed 20th-century figure. Born into a religious family of German Jews, he became interested in literature at an early age. In the early 1930s, he made a name for himself in Germany as a dramaturge. As a communist and a Jew, he was forced to flee from the Nazis, but was rejected by Switzerland.
He went to Moscow, where he was able to work with the theatre legend Meyerhold and wrote theatre reviews for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. When Stalin began persecuting and murdering Hirschfeld's comrades, he fled the Soviet Union. With a great deal of luck, he returned to Zurich, where, with the support of his courageous Zurich friends, he became a dramaturge at the Schauspielhaus.
He brought many German talents to the theatre, such as the author Bertolt Brecht and the actress Therese Giehse. He allied himself with conservative Swiss cultural figures who were opposed to the Nazis. Thus, the Schauspielhaus became the centre of cultural resistance against fascism in Europe. Building on this reputation after the war, Hirschfeld developed the Schauspielhaus into one of the leading German-language theatres. And with the first plays by Frisch and Dürrenmatt and young American authors, he established the canon of modern theatre in Europe. But after his death in 1964, his name was forgotten. There is neither a film nor a book about him. Did his Jewish origins play a role in this reception? What is certain is that the role of Switzerland during the Nazi era has not yet been fully told.