Letter from theatre director Egon Schmid to Dr. Stang, chairman of the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur (Militant League for German Culture), Munich, 24 May 1932
Letter from theatre director Egon Schmid to Dr. Stang, chairman of the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur (Militant League for German Culture), Munich, 24 May 1932
The press campaign against the organisers of the women's peace rally in Munich and the successful libel lawsuit brought by Constanze Hallgarten and Erika Mann were to have still more grave consequences for Erika Mann. The Bergwald theatre in Weissenburg, established in 1929, had engaged her for its summer festival of 1932. However, theatre director Egon Schmid saw himself forced to cancel the contract in consideration of “nationally minded circles”. The mastermind and mouthpiece of these “circles” was the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur (Militant League for German Culture), founded in 1928 by Alfred Rosenberg. The financially weak theatre in Weissenburg was openly threatened with the withdrawal of all journalistic and financial support if the “notorious daughter of a notorious father” was actually permitted to play the heroines of the German classics. The director and mayor caved in under pressure and Erika Mann’s engagement was cancelled. Once again, she filed a lawsuit, which in turn led the Kampfbund to develop a “battle plan” so that “the unwelcome manifestations of Thomas Mann in Germany gradually become impossible”.
Gallery
![Caricature published in the satirical National Socialist magazine Die Brennessel [The Stinging Nettle] on 3 February 1932](/KIE/Content/EN/SpecialExhibitions/ErikaMann-en/Images/Objects/erika-mann-kapitel-03-03.jpg?__blob=thumbnail&v=1 "Caricature published in the satirical National Socialist magazine Die Brennessel [The Stinging Nettle] on 3 February 1932")