The Condemned of Altona

The Condemned of Altona
Cover of the English edition, depicting the black window of Franz's crabs.
Written by	Jean-Paul Sartre
Characters	Major, the von Gerlachs: Father Franz Johanna Leni Werner Minor, in flashbacks: Klages Heinrich a Woman an SS Officer
Date premiered	1959
Place premiered	Théâtre de la Renaissance, Paris
Original language	French, Translated from the French by Sylvia and George Leeson
Setting	Home of the von Gerlachs, in the Altona borough of Hamburg, Germany.

The Condemned of Altona (French: Les Séquestrés d'Altona) is a play written by Jean-Paul Sartre, known in Great Britain as Loser Wins. It was first produced in 1959 at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris. It was one of the last plays Sartre wrote, followed only by his adaptation of Euripides' The Trojan Women. The title recalls his formulation "Man is condemned to be free." It is the only one of Sartre's fictional works which deals directly with Nazism, and also serves as a critique of the then-ongoing Algerian War. The action takes place in Altona, a borough of the German city-state of Hamburg.

Sartre summarizes the plot in the program notes of the play: "A family of big German industrialists, the von Gerlachs, live near Hamburg in an ugly old mansion in the middle of a park. When the curtain rises, the father, who has only six months to live, calls together his daughter Leni, his younger son Werner, and Werner's wife Johanna, in order to inform them of his last wishes. Johanna guesses that, after the father's death, her husband will be sacrificed, as always, to Franz, the elder son. The latter, who has been officially reported dead, has locked himself up, since his return from the front, and refuses to see anyone except his younger sister Leni. In order to save Werner, Johanna determines to investigate the mystery of Franz's seclusion. In doing so, she unwittingly serves her father-in-law's ends. Old von Gerlach makes use of her in order to obtain the interview with Franz which the latter has refused him for thirteen years..."

The play opens in a large sitting-room with Leni, Werner, and Johanna awaiting Father von Gerlach, who has summoned a family meeting. Father arrives and requests that the three take an oath: to remain confined to the house while Werner takes over the family business. Leni swears to obey her father's last wishes, but admits that she does not hold to her oaths. Johanna refuses to be bound to her father-in-law's wishes, and confronts the family's secret: that Franz, the elder son, still lives, and that he has been hidden within the house. She claims that Father merely wants to sacrifice her life and Werner's to Franz's protection as she claims Father has done. When she suggests that the family is perhaps his jailer and well as his prisoner, Leni angrily gives Johanna the key to Franz's room. Johanna goes to the room and knocks, but receives no answer. The use of the key reveals that the door is bolted from the inside. Leni asks whether he is being kept prisoner, and Johanna responds: "There are many ways of holding a man prisoner. The best is to get him to imprison himself... by lying to him."