Die Ermittlung

Peter Weiss’ monumental 1965 stage play, among the greatest artworks on the Holocaust, condenses the testimonies of witnesses and the accused during the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of 1963-1965. This ultra-faithful film adaptation builds, across four hours, in its intensity and graphically described detail.

Peter Weiss’ monumental 1965 stage play Die Ermittlung arranges and condenses the testimonies of witnesses, and the responses of the accused, during the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of 1963–1965. Among the greatest artworks on to the Holocaust, it is structured like the play in eleven cantos, that build in their intensity and graphically described detail across four hours. Weiss deliberately abstracted the real proceedings: the words ‘German’ and ‘Jew’ are never spoken, and while the accused are identified, the witnesses are not. Similarly, the final court sentences are elided – it is the enormous moral, ethical issues of guilt and responsibility that take precedence.

Though this is far from the conventional courtroom drama. Weiss’ text streamlines the cut and thrust of legal proceedings into an implacable flow of spoken statements, as each witness calmly approaches the microphone and exits when finished. In this ultra-faithful adaptation devised by filmmaker RP Kahl and his producer and co-writer, Alexander van Dülmen, actors (many familiar faces) take on multiple witness roles, while the accused remain stonily singular. The testimonies are tersely de-dramatised, emotions tremble under the surface. A staging format that may at first seem simple and repetitive gradually reveals small but powerful variations.

– Adrian Martin       

Trailer

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