The Deputy

The Deputy, a Christian tragedy (German: Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel), also known as The Representative (although a more accurate translation would be The Vicar), is a controversial 1963 play by Rolf Hochhuth which portrayed Pope Pius XII as having failed to take action or speak out against the Holocaust. It has been translated into more than twenty languages. The play's implicit censure of a venerable if controversial pope has led to numerous counterattacks, of which one of the latest is the 2007 allegation that Hochhuth was the dupe of a KGB disinformation campaign. The Encyclopædia Britannica assesses the play as "a drama that presented a critical, unhistorical picture of Pius XII" and Hochhuth's depiction of the pope having been indifferent to the Nazi genocide as "lacking credible substantiation"."

An English translation by Richard and Clara Winston of the complete text was published as The Deputy: A Play, by Grove Press in 1964. A letter from Albert Schweitzer to Hochhuth's German publisher serves as the foreword to the Grove edition. A film version titled Amen. was made by the Greek-born French filmmaker Costa-Gavras in 2002.

The play was first performed at West Berlin's “Freie Volksbühne” (Free People's Theater) on February 20, 1963 under the direction of Erwin Piscator. Within the same year, the play was produced at additional theatres in West Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Great Britain, Denmark, Finland and France.

The play received its first English production in London by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre in September 1963. It was directed by Clifford Williams with Alan Webb/Eric Porter as Pius XII, Alec McCowen as Father Fontana, and Ian Richardson.

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