Schicklgruber

Venue: DT Bühne - Hardly anyone knows what to do with this vaguely Austrian-sounding name, Schicklgruber. The birth register of the Lower Austrian village of Döllersheim records the birth of Aloys Schicklgruber in 1837, who changed his name to Alois Hitler in 1876. The son of Aloys Schicklgruber/Alois Hitler was born in 1889 in Braunau am Inn in Upper Austria and achieved sad fame as Adolf Hitler.

The piece by Jan Veldman and Neville Tranter depicts Hitler's last days around his 56th birthday and shortly before his suicide in the Führerbunker in Berlin. Despite the dark theme, this puppet piece is of course a grotesquely bizarre evening in Tranter style, which, although it leads to the heart of darkness, also shows the reassuring fact that death stops at nothing and no one — not even evil.

The two puppeteers Neville Tranter and Nikolaus Habjan have been friends for many years. With The Hills are Alive, which was shown at the Deutsches Theater last season, both fulfilled a long-cherished dream and appeared on stage together for the first time. And in April 2024, we had a moving moment when Neville Tranter said goodbye to the stage after a last Hill performance. In the 1970s, the old master of clap-up puppetry was significantly involved in opening up the art form of puppetry for an adult audience. After his active time as a puppeteer, he is now handing over his perhaps most famous piece and the puppets playing in it as director to Nikolaus Habjan (and Manuela Linshalm), who thus continues the work of his mentor.