My Friend Hitler

Rating:
Summary: Hide the women and children
Review: Imagine the final play in this book coming after a summary of the original tale in which an ancient imperial family has surpassed Freud in arranging family relationships:

"Sutoku (1119-64)--officially the first son of Retired Emperor Toba (1103-56) but actually a son of Toba's father, Retired Emperor Shirakawa (1053-1129) because Shirakawa made Shoshi pregnant after he married her to his son--was installed as emperor when he was four, but was tricked into retirement by Toba in 1141, before ever having a chance to exercise real imperial power. His actual father, Shirakawa, had started the insei, a political arrangement in which the retired monarch wielded far greater power than the ruling one. . . ." (p. 242).

There are a few footnotes in the play `My Friend Hitler' which remind the reader that the translator is trying to capture the style of German political thought that has been staged in Japan. The footnote on page 133 actually begins with "Here, apparently with tongue in cheek, Mishima commits an improbable cross-cultural anachronism. What Hitler refers to . . ." I find it more ironic when Hitler is perplexed that his secret police are acting like secret police:

HITLER: No, you had your own problems. What can you say about the disgusting things the SA did during the last two years? No wonder the Reichswehr was put off. You made hideouts in basements and warehouses; you tortured, kidnapped, demanded ransoms--I've even heard the story that in some districts troopers took their rivals in love affairs into basements, tied them up on the wall, and cut them up.
ROEHM: That lasted only a while. It's just that the young men wanted to mimic what secret police do. I've kept them in check and there's been nothing like that since. (pp. 128-129).

How likely is it that Hitler ever complained to a government official that "your men swagger about so obnoxiously that serious-minded citizens are completely put off, and as soon as they spot one of your men in the distance, they quickly hide their daughters." ? (p. 129).

There are only four characters in the play `My Friend Hitler,' but it helps to have some knowledge of Goering and the rest of the upper echelon of the political hierarchy, including Defense Minister General von Blomberg, one that I do not recall myself, who are rivals of the main characters, half of whom will be liquidated by the final scene at midnight, June 30, 1934. Another thing I didn't know was about Hitler's "law I passed last February after you joined my cabinet, which would give storm troopers wounded during political campaigns the same pensions as soldiers wounded during the war" (p. 129). Things must have been pretty bad for the army to be begging to get into the fight to restore order, but that is what Hitler called "the Prussian National Army's tradition beginning to roar at last." (p. 130).

Surely the main point of "My Friend Hitler" is that being an old friend of young Adolf and a mouse that eats cheese left in a boot is not a perfect defense against imperfect legal proceedings, if you catch my drift.

This book contains a Preface by Hiroaki Sato, five plays by Yukio Mishima, short Backstage Essays on the first production of his play `The Rokumeikan,' including "The Psychology of a Walk-On Role on the Stage" (pp. 60-62) about playing a carpenter who keeps his back to the audience for three or four minutes, during which the play seems "like an invisible monster that moves blindly in a certain direction while sucking them into the maelstrom it has created," (p. 61). There is a transcript of a speech Mishima gave to Kabuki trainees on July 3, 1970 with many footnotes added by Hiroaki Sato on pages 219-239, the explanation of the play on pages 241-245, and finally, "A Wonder Tale: The Moonbow, The Original Tale by Kyokutei Bakin" on pages 246-307. There is no index. The emphasis is on drama rather than history.