ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book outlines the role German theatre was supposed to play during the conflict in 1943, four years into the Second World War. It refers to tours and performances, for example to Norway and Serbia, which preceded military action and established a seemingly inseparable link between the arts and war. The book focuses on a number of high profile German language theatres in Poland, the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Latvia and Ukraine. Apart from these metropolitan theatres, the book discusses activity at regional playhouses. The book also focuses on subsidies and institutional structures, theatre repertoires and the theatres' representative function. It highlights substantial research in different European archives but chiefly in the German Federal Archives in Berlin. Theatre will not be solely understood as the "the place for drama" but will be discussed within its wider socio-economic and political contexts.