The Merchant of Venice as Nazi Propaganda

Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is remembered by most for its Jewish, moneylending villain, Shylock. Yet, the play follows some anti-semitic tunes as Shylock is marked for his stereotypical “Jewishness” who seems out to get the more likable (and Christian) character, Antonio.

For its anti-semitic theme, The Merchant of Venice was used by Hitler as a propaganda tool in furthering his agenda during the early 20th century. In indoctrinating the Nazi regime, Hitler banned all enemy dramatists except for Shakespeare. Although the German literati had long established Shakespeare as a central literary figure, the Nazis began presenting Shakespeare as a German, and not English, writer. While many of Shakespeare’s plays were performed, a few were still banned; all of Shakespeare’s historical plays were forbidden, Othello was too racist, and Antony and Cleopatra was too effeminate and racy.

While modern interpretations of The Merchant of Venice are unsure of the extent of anti-semitism intended, during Hitler’s time, he made sure that the meaning was made clear one way or another. The Merchant of Venice proved to be the most useful in forwarding this anti-semitic sentiment amongst the Germans through the use of an almost grotesque, inhuman portrayal of Shylock. Werner Krauss, the Nazi’s leading actor of the time, performance as Shylock was described as causing the audience to shudder: “With a crash and a weird train of shadows, something revoltingly alien and startlingly repulsive crawled across the stage.” One particular production of The Merchant of Venice had extras planted in the audience with the sole purpose of cursing and booing Shylock, urging the rest of the audience to join in on the heckling. Newspaper reviews often explicitly stated the messages and undertones of the play to the readership (in case the blatant Jewish villain was missed in the first place).

Hitler’s scarring legacy and the Holocaust challenges modern readers to think outside of the traditional anti-semitic box. Due to the more tolerant and politically correct times we live in now, readers of The Merchant of Venice try to see Shylock in a more sympathetic light; quite frankly, without Shylock’s money loaning, nothing would have gotten done in the play. He is a central and sophisticated character who is more than just the token Jew of the play. We as readers should challenge ourselves to see beyond just a black and white, good and evil binary. The Merchant of Venice is often called a comedy, yet it has quite a bit of tragedy in it as well, all in all making for a rather gray play. The protagonists have some unsavory moments, and the antagonist has some noble ones too. Shakespeare is compelling not just for the entertaining theater, but for the gray territory in which most of his characters and storylines occur. Additionally, it is equally important to consider the context in which The Merchant of Venice was written in. While society back then was also quite anti-semitic, it is impossible to know what Shakespeare’s true intentions were in making Shylock Jewish (after all, there did exist Christian money lenders as well). It’s important to look at the play holistically, instead of seeing everything at only its face value.

 

Sources:

Bonnell, Andrew G. “Shylock and Othello Under the Nazis.” German Life and Letters. Volume 63, Issue 2, March 5, 2010.

Gross, John. “Shylock and Nazi Propaganda.” The New York Times. Theater Section. April 4, 1993

Heschel, Susannah. “The Nazi Appropriation of Shakespeare: Cultural Politics in the Third Reich (review).” Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Volume 38, Number 2, Autumn 2007.