Ibsen and Hitler: The Playwright, the Plagiarist, and the Plot for the Third Reich

Once in a while, a book comes along that makes you completely rethink everything you thought about a certain subject. 'Ibsen and Hitler' is such a book. Adolf Hitler is arguably the most written about individual of the 20th century. Historians have painstakingly scrutinized his deeds and words for over half a century, and in the process have given us some outstanding biographies. But the one question that still eludes us to this day is, why? Why did Hitler believe what he believed and do what he did? What really made him tick? The answer has remained elusive, but Steven Sage has opened up a fascinating new theory. That being that Hitler's Third Reich was essentially a theatrical re-enactment of a handful of plays by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. I know, it sounds preposterous, but Sage argues his case convincingly and the parallels between Ibsen's plays and Hitler's actions are astounding. Henrik Ibsen was an enormously controversial and popular playwright in the mid to late 19th century. He developed a cult following in Europe and especially Germany. Some saw him as a sort of pagan prophet. One of his plays, 'Emperor and Galilean' was about the fourth century Roman Emperor, Julian the Apostate. Julian becomes disillusioned with the Christianity that was adopted by his uncle Constantine and decides to restore the paganism of old. He proclaims the coming of a "Third Reich", one without the curse of Christianity. Sage argues that Hitler became obsessed with this play-along with bits of two other Ibsen plays-and essentially cast himself in the role of Julian. His entire career was a scripted theatrical performance. Except Hitler set out to destroy the Jews, not Christianity right? Sage argues that Hitler's hatred of the Jews stemmed from the fact that they were the roots of Christianity. It was Christianity-in it's current form-which he truly hated, and he blamed the Jews for producing this cursed religion. His ultimate goal, argues Sage, was to eradicate Judeo-Christianity in it's entirety. Hitler had his own twisted version of Christianity. He believed that Christ was Aryan and that he came to oppose the Jews. He blamed Jews like St. Paul for distorting Christ's mission and bringing about the Christian religion as it is currently practiced. Thus, Christianity was an invention of the Jews-along with bolshevism-to undermine and subvert the Gentiles. Sage also shows that Hitler felt a special enmity towards "disguised" Jews, that meaning Jews who converted or denounced their Jewish faith, i.e. St. Paul and Karl Marx, because he saw this as a sinister motive done in order to further the ambitions of the Jewish race. The author does an excellent job at backing up these assertions with facts. If it were just one or two parallels between Hitler and Ibsen's plays, Sage's argument would be worthless. But the parallels are one after another and the similarities are downright eerie. I myself was sceptical about this book when I started reading it,

It is refreshing to read history that is totally new. Much has been written about Hitler, but this is unique. Steven Sage has made a very credible case for his thesis that Hitler, a person obsessed with theatre, figured out how to reach his humber one priority, the extermination of the Jews, by reading and internalizing aspects of three of Ibsen's plays. Although taking place in the context of a psychological mind-set to revive paganism and hence to do away with both Judaism and Christianity, exterminating the Jews was step number one. Sage has, indeed, connected the dots that prove how, and the extent to which, Hitler 'borrowed' his methodology from Ibsen's plays. Myself a historian of European Intellectual History, I am familiar with how ideas can and do affect events on the ground. After reading Sage's book, there seems little doubt, in my mind, that Hitler's goal was reached (to the extent that it was) with the help of ideas "Plagiarized" from Ibsen's plays, along with other sources laid out in the book. I highly recomment this work.

This is an amazing story that connects the dots between some of Hitler's major decisions and even some personal one's and the characters and script of three of Ibsen's plays. It is a complicated subject made into a relatively easy read. You don't have to be an Ibsen or a Hitler expert to enjoy this book. It is a good read for those interested in the interface of psychology, politics and history. It is not written like a mystery but more with a scholar's approach to the subject with all the facts well referenced. You can have confidence in what the author has written. The book shows an entirely new aspect of the 20th century's greatest villain. The facts supporting a mimetic syndrome are clearly laid out. The examples are discussed in depth so that the reader is left with a solid understanding of what must have happened and more importantly why.

IBSEN AND HITLER: THE PLAYWRIGHT, THE PLAGIARIST, AND THE PLOT FOR THE THIRD REICH by Steven F. Sage "Burning with curiosity, Alice found herself falling down a very deep well, filled with cupboards and bookshelves, maps and pictures. Wondering how she was ever to get out again, she discovered a tiny golden key. She tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!" Steven Sage has discovered a golden key to understanding the greatest mystery of the twentieth century. The mystery is how Adolf Hitler thought and why Adolf Hitler acted as he did. The golden key consists of three plays by Henrik Ibsen: Emperor and Galilean, The Masterbuilder, and An Enemy of the People. Sage includes, where appropriate, other revealing works by Ibsen and a few German writers as well. But the extraordinary thing about Ibsen and Hitler is that, without forcing it, Sage explores and analyzes literary and historical material to make sense of the senseless, to reveal the hidden, to explain the inexplicable. And he does a brilliant job. I have spent nearly 40 years searching after clues to explain the same Hitler mystery. After all, a man who is directly and indirectly responsible for the murders of perhaps 50 million human beings, among them 6 million of my own people, is a puzzle worth solving. My answer is not Sage's answer. I found a distorted Christian ideology at the base of Hitler's behavior. But professional historians seek to refine their analyses in part by absorbing the works of others. And so I read Sage's book with enormous interest and my effort to understand and ultimately to absorb his ideas has been well worth the endeavor. Hitler's ideology, as George Mosse has described it, was a "scavenger ideology," drawn from many sources. Steven Sage has discovered what may be this ideology's most crucial aspect. Sage does not claim that Hitler consciously followed any literary script. For better, or worse, he absorbed Ibsen and others so that his mind became an amalgam of his own insanity and his distortions of Ibsen and other theatrical works. Sage has compiled convincing evidence that Hitler used, and distorted, ideas of radically reforming an unjust society by exterminating parasites into the "Final Solution of the Jewish Problem" from Ibsen's An Enemy of the People in his meandering, mean-spirited, and marauding Mein Kampf. Hitler attended theatrical works not as you or I, but over and over again as someone seeking rapture. He found it. In Emperor and Galilean Hitler found his gods, the Roman emperor Julian "the Apostate" and the further concept of "Third Reich." As Sage writes, in the play, Julian "dies near the front, the fulfillment of his task postponed to some future incarnation. . . . 'The third Reich will come!'" Dietrich Eckart, inventor of "Deutschland Erwache," the Nazi slogan emblazoned on thousands of posters and placards and banners in the Third Reich, became the most transformative figure in Hitler's life, helping

Ibsen and Hitler: The Playwright, the Plagiarist, and the Plot for the Third Reich by Steven F. Sage / Carroll & Graf, New York, 2006 / $27.95 IBSEN AND HITLER was thoroughly engrossing. It grabbed hold of me like a snapping turtle and wouldn't let go for a week - I carried it with me to work and read it in traffic, at lunch - I read late into the night so that I was worthless until noon one day - I got the willies during the very intense analysis of Fritz Todt's murder - I'm thoroughly sold on the detective work. Awesome. Steven F. Sage's astonishing discovery of a master script for Adolf Hitler's brutal Third Reich will be discussed widely in academia in coming years and will be written about in who-knows-how-many journals. For now, having just read it, I feel like I'm way out ahead of every other history student in the country. Ibsen and Hitler: The Playwright, the Plagiarist, and the Plot for the Third Reich reveals for the first time specific dramas that not only inspired and motivated Hitler but served as his script - played to a bloody climax with all of Europe as a backdrop. Many people close to Hitler became unknowing thespians: entering and exiting - and dying - on cue. Using Hitler's own words and the voluminous public record of his actions Sage shows how the Fuhrer stuck to his scripts even to the detriment of the Nazi war effort. At last, we discover the real reason Hitler turned away from his chance to seize Moscow in the early summer of 1941. The author pinpoints three plays by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen that show eerie parallels to things Hitler said and did: An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, and The Master Builder all appear to have been thoroughly digested and then acted out by Hitler. Sage also reveals Hitler's plagiarism of Ibsen's work in Mien Kampf, the Fuhrer's rambling memoir. Sage examines similarities with Ibsen plays in Hitler's writing, speeches and candid conversations as well as his actions at crucial stages of his rise and rule. Sage's discovery of Hitler's master script - his "Ur-script" - began with an investigation into Fritz Todt, who plays multiple roles in this book as he did in life and whose murder provides bone-chilling reading. With a close study of Hitler's conversations at home, Sage shows how he adopted multiple Ibsen roles including Julian the Apostate, the last pagan Roman Emperor, and saw himself as a reborn Julian returned to Earth to rule the Third Reich. Does it matter that Hitler was following a script when he burned and ransacked synagogues, burned the Reichstag, and began exterminating six million Jews? Is this a niche discovery of interest only to hardcore students of World War II? Ibsen and Hitler reveals stunning new information about history's worst dictator, answering "why" rather than simply describing what and when. If you have an actor's script, you know the sequence of events and the final act as well as his deepest motivations. The world is going