Eve of Retirement

Every year, the Höller family celebrates with their loved ones: In black uniform and to the sounds of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, they commemorate the birthday of former Reich Minister of the Interior in Nazi Germany and main perpetrator of the Holocaust Heinrich Himmler; and the family would rather not have any witnesses at this ritual, because Rudolf Höller is an important public figure as court president and also about to take his well-deserved retirement. During the difficult time after the war, the former SS officer had to hide out at his sister Vera’s. Every year, the two of them reminisce about the good old days. Only sister Clara, who is defenseless and has been in a wheelchair since a night of bombing, tries to resist her siblings' phantasms with sharp-tonged silence. As a once vehement socialist she is subjected to fierce counter-attacks. The private culture of remembrance in the family albums must not be tarnished by Auschwitz photos or remarks about Rudolf's former duties as deputy concentration camp commander.
Thomas Bernhard (1931 ̶ 1989) uses a sarcastic tone to address the inscribed mechanisms of National Socialism and the lingering effects of authoritarian structures. His ferocious „comedy“ Eve of Retirement was inspired by the revelations about the Nazi past of Baden-Württemberg's former prime minister Hans Filbinger. Filbinger had forced Claus Peymann, Stuttgart theatre director at the time, to resign. Before Peymann's premature „Stuttgart retirement“ following his many political statements, he premiered Eve of Retirement in Stuttgart in 1979.