First staged in 1963, The Deputy stirred up more controversy and caused greater repercussions than any other postwar work when it was first published. Its treatment of Pius XII - the "deputy" of Christ on earth - and the Church during the Nazi persecution of the Jews rendered it the object of impassioned praise and violent denunciation. It is a powerful, shocking play.

Author Biography

Rolf Hochhuth was born in Germany in 1931. After working as an editor for a German publisher, he went to Rome in 1959 to begin his first draft of 'The Deputy'. A shortened stage version of the play was first produced by Erwin Piscator in Berlin on February 23, 1963, and the complete text of the book was published on the same day. The play won the Young Generation Playwright Award of the 1963 Berliner Kunstpreis, and it shared the Gerhard Hauptmann Prize of 1962. Hochhuth is currently a freelance writer living in Basel, Switzerland.