A Charge of Murder

In The Deputy, German Playwright Rolf Hochhuth earned instant international notoriety by indicting Pope Pius XII for his failure to speak out against Nazi persecution of the Jews. Hochhuth's second play, Soldiers, which had its world premiere in Berlin last week, casts an accusing glance at Sir Winston Churchill. In essence, Soldiers contends that Churchill was responsible for the mysterious death, in July 1943, of General Wladyslavv Sikorski, leader of Poland's exile government.

Hochhuth portrayed Pius XII as a Machiavellian "inverted mystic" who hoped to use Hitler to save Europe from Communism. The Churchill of Soldiers seems to be an equally callous caricature. According to the play, Britain's wartime Prime Minister (played by Otto Hasse) was a tragic figure who authorized immoral acts in hopes of saving his nation. Among them was the murder of Sikorski, a stiff-necked patriot who infuriated Stalin first by demanding the postwar return of Polish territories annexed by Russia, then by calling for an investigation of the Katyn massacre of 4,253 Polish military prisoners. Fearful that Stalin was ready to break off relations with Britain, Churchill, alleges Hochhuth, authorized intelligence agents to arrange a fatal accident for a plane in which Sikorski was to fly from Cairo to London.

Although a number of World War II historians have been suspicious of Sikorski's death,* Hochhuth could only claim that the bulk of the "evidence" is on file in a Swiss bank vault and cannot be revealed for 50 years. But what disappointed the opening-night audience in Berlin was a lack not of historical evidence but of dramatic talent. Soldiers came across as a static bore, filled with ponderous moralisms and unwitty aphorisms ("Marriage," says Churchill, "is love without longing") and totally lacking in tension.

Hochhuth's latest libel seems likely to get as much circulation as his first. Kenneth Tynan and Sir Laurence Olivier, who were prevented by England's Lord Chamberlain from giving the world premiere at their National Theater in London, plan to offer the play at a censorship-free private theater club. Productions are also scheduled for five other European capitals.

*Among them Britain's David Irving, whose factual account of Sikorski's death, Accident, was published in London last week. Irving leaves open the possibility of sabotage, but he is not convinced by any other explanations of the crash. Other historians have pointed out that Polish extremists had more to gain than the British from Sikorski's death.

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