PHOTO: © Theater Fanal

They Thought They Were Free

Name: They Thought They Were Free
Start: 2025-12-11T19:00+0100
End: 2025-12-11T20:30+0100
Location: Hamburger Sprechwerk

Shows & Performances

In the organizer's words:

a project by Theater Fanal

after Milton Mayer

Director: Merlin Gebhard

Assistant director: Anna Weichberger

Project management: Kris Chekelova

Project management assistant: Henrietta Fleischmann

Music: Hans Könnecke

Stage design: Sanghwa Park

Costume: Marina Franken

The actors are: Aaron Meyer, Jasper Koch, Nick Plummer, Jocasta Godlieb, Simon Deggim, Dave Duke, Jonathan Guevara, Julia McCallion, Luca Abels

"When was the world lost? That's easy to say, much easier than you might think. The world was lost one day in 1935, here in Germany. It was I who lost it and I will tell you how."

Fascism is back.

We cannot fight what we do not understand.

In 1950, the American journalist Milton Mayer traveled to Germany with the same idea. He interviews ordinary people - ex-Nazis. Mayer himself is of German descent, as he tells his interviewees, whom he soon calls friends. He conceals the fact that he is Jewish. Mayer's interviewees testify - some repentant, some still convinced - about joining the party, the promises of fascism, their relationship with their Jewish neighbors and the possibility of resistance. They sound as shockingly banal as they are devastatingly topical. What turns people into fascists? What makes them remain fascists? How can we prevent this?

Let's think and talk together!

After the performance, the team invites you to a dialog.

A project by Theater Fanal in cooperation with the Kalliope University Theatre. This production is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Milton Mayer, published by The University of Chicago Press and is produced with the permission of the publisher.

Supported by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, District Office Hamburg-Mitte and the Senate Chancellery in the context of the city partnership between Hamburg and Chicago, .
Further supported by the Karin and Uwe Hollweg Foundation, Karl Petri, Wolfgang Gebhard, Christian Plath, Ernst Petri, Margit Meier-Böse, Adriane Schmitt, Emilia Wendelin, Boryana Borisova.
Rehearsal rooms with the kind support of the University Players, Probebühne im Gängeviertel, Wiese e.G.

Ticket prices (pay what you can/self-assessment):

VVK: € 6.00, € 14.00, € 23.00

Thu 11.12.25 at 7 pm

Fri 12.12.25 at 7 pm

This content has been machine translated.

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