Zuckmayer, Carl

Zuckmayer, Carl (1896–1977), German dramatist, who first wrote the unsuccessful Kreuzweg (Crossroads, 1920) and Pankraz erwacht (Pankraz Wakes Up, 1925). When he turned to realism with a comedy, Der fröhliche Weinberg (The Merry Vineyard, 1926), he had more success. This was followed by Schinderhannes (1927), based on a popular folk-figure of the Napoleonic Wars; Katharina Knie (1929), set in a travelling circus; and by Der Hauptmann von Köpenick (1931). This comedy of a Berlin ex-convict shoemaker who, disguised as an officer, enforces obedience to his orders merely because he is wearing military uniform was staged in London in 1971 by the National Theatre company with Paul Scofield. Zuckmayer left Germany in 1933, when because of his outspoken opposition to National Socialism his plays were banned by the authorities, and while in Switzerland wrote Der Schelm von Bergen (1934) and Bellman (1938). The first play he wrote after settling in the USA in 1939 was Des Teufels General, about Nazi Germany and the problem of resistance, first seen in Zürich in 1946. As The Devil's General it was produced in New York and London in 1953. Among Zuckmayer's later plays, none of which achieved a comparable success, were Der Gesang im Feuerofen (The Song in the Fiery Furnace, 1950), set in occupied France, Das kalte Licht (1956), based on the case of the traitorous nuclear physicist Dr Fuchs, Die Uhr schlägt eins (1961), and Der Rattenfänger (The Pied Piper, 1974).