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This is a very rare Third Reich theater program for the sold-out performance of Peer Gynt on Tuesday 14 June 1938 at the Schauspielhaus, the well-known Nazi theater at the Gendarmenmarkt in Reichshauptstadt Berlin. This famous five-act play by Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen was adapted by Dietrich Eckart who as a Nazi hero is featured heavily in this Third Reich program, which has a 3-5/8 inch wide eagle and swastika on the cream colored cover.

Dietrich Eckart is probably the single most important influence on the political life of Adolf Hitler and one of the principal personalities in the founding of Third Reich Germany. A well-educated teacher from a good family, an author and lecturer, Eckart along with Gottfried Feder, Anton Drexler and Alfred Rosenberg established the Deutsche Arbeiter Partei as a significant anti-Semitic, anti-Communist, pro-German political force in Bavaria before 1920. They campaigned for order and law in a lawless, orderless Germany where politics was dominated by hardline Communists, defeatists and separatists in the wake of World War I. It was also Dietrich Eckart who brought Hitler to Berchtesgaden and who made Hitler realize that a nationalist leaning, socialist oriented German worker’s political party could rise above the street battles and take power in Europe’s largest economy.

Erich Ziegel was the director and the enormous production featured established German actors Paul Hartmann as Peer Gynt (he would go on to star in the 1962 movie The Longest Day), Elsa Wagner, Lotte Betke, Walter Franck, Herma Clement, Paul Henckels and many others.

This 6-3/4 x 9-1/2 inch, 20-page Nazi theater program starts with two articles about Dietrich Eckart, one by artist Albert Reich titled “Memories of Dietrich Eckart” and one by Alfred Rosenberg called “My Meeting with the Poet”. The next five pages are Dietrich Eckart’s explanation of “The Being of Peer Gynt” accompanied by photos of Eckart.

This 84 year old Nazi theater program also contains advertising for Mercedes-Benz, Boenicke cigars, AEG radios, Bernstein, KaDeWe, Hertie and Karstadt department stores, many well-known Berlin bars and night clubs, as well as companies selling pianos, theater clothing, fancy dresses and jewelry.

This Staats-Theater Berlin program for 14 June 1938 had a print run of just 450 copies (and is so marked in the lower right corner of the playbill). This very rare original example of one of those 450 was stored carefully and is in excellent condition! It is complete and has no odor. You may never see another one!