Shylock in Germany

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Shylock, in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", is not an unambiguously antisemitic character; the representation of his character on stage can make the play antisemitic or not. The character of Shylock as presented in Germany from 1777 to 1944 combined a number of features prevalent in anti-Jewish stereotypes. In the 19th century there was emphasis on his avarice and lust for money, and in the Nazi period on his lust for power and blood. The Weimar period saw several productions of the play, as well as remakes, like "The Merchant of Berlin" by Walter Mehring in 1929, all having antisemitic overtones. Under the Nazi dictatorship, sympathetic Jewish characters totally disappeared from the German stage. Remarkably, "The Merchant of Venice" was a difficult play for the Nazis, because of the "interracial" marriage of Lorenzo and Jessica and because of Shylock's monologue, which could arouse empathy among the spectators. There were several attempts to "Aryanize" Jessica, but overall there was a drop in the number of productions of "The Merchant of Venice". In the late 1930s-40s, Marlowe's unambiguously antisemitic "The Jew of Malta" ousted, to some extent, "The Merchant of Venice" from the German stage. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)