Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui

aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui, Der, a play (Parabelstück) with 15 scenes, prologue (two versions), and epilogue by B. Brecht, written in 1941, for the most part in blank verse. It was published posthumously in Stücke, vol. 9. It was not finally revised by Brecht, and further publications have taken account of amendments found among his papers at a later stage. The action takes place in Chicago and Cicero, and portrays the methods by which the chief gangster Arturo Ui and his accomplices Ernesto Roma, Emanuela Giri, and Givola rise to power in an economic crisis. The point of the transparent parable of Hitler's rise to power is made more explicit in the added Zeittafel covering the years 1929-38, from the 1929 world crisis up to the annexation of Austria. The episodes include Hitler's dealings with Hindenburg, Dogsborough of the play, his rise to power, for which he prepares by taking lessons in speech and gesture from an actor, the burning of the wholesalers' warehouse, an allusion to the Reichstag, and the trial of the supposed fire-raiser, Fish. The play also takes in the murder of one of the gangsters, Ernesto Roma, and his companions, a reference to the assassination of E. Röhm on 30 June 1934. The parody of the garden scene of Faust I in scene 12 depicts Hitler's negotiations with the Austrian Chancellor E. Dollfuß, Ignatius Dullfeet in the play. Dullfeet represents Frau Marthe, his wife Betty is Gretchen, Givola (Goebbels) in his flower garden corresponds to Mephisto, and Ui (Hitler) to Faust himself. The sudden death and state funeral of Dullfeet precede the final scene, which demonstrates Ui's ‘free’ election. He thus returns in triumph from Chicago to Cicero, which he had left as a poor man, and now re-enters with his army. German readers will have gathered well before the last couple of lines that the name of Ui is derived from ‘Pfui!’, an untranslatable expression of disgust.