Frankenburger Würfelspiel

[1] In May 1625, during the Counter-Reformation, Baron von Herberstorff, Governor of Upper Austria and acting on behalf of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, tried to forcibly reintroduce Catholicism in Frankenburg.

[2] Möller's work based on the event was the only drama of the Third Reich which was written as a ministerial commission;[3] Möller, who was a theorist of the Thingspiel movement, was asked by the Olympic Committee to write a play for the inauguration of the Dietrich-Eckart-Bühne (the Berlin Thingstätte named for Dietrich Eckart) at the upcoming Berlin Olympics,[4] and from the ideas he submitted, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels chose the Frankenburg story.

[5] Möller said that "he felt [the Frankenburg event] called from beyond the grave for [judgement],"[5] and that in writing the drama about it he used as models: "in addition to Orestes, Ludus de Antichristo, and a few mystery plays, George Kaiser's expressionist play Die Bürger von Calais (The Citizens of Calais) and Stravinsky's Ödipus Rex (Oedipus Rex).

"[6] The Frankenburger Würfelspiel consists of ten scenes with a prologue and an epilogue and constitutes a trial—as in the ancient Germanic Thing—of Baron von Hebersdorf, Emperor Ferdinand II, Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, the Catholic clerics who advised them, and their subordinates for the devastation of the Thirty Years' War and the harm done to the people, including the murders at Frankenburg.

[5][7][8] It takes place on a three-level stage, with seven judges on the uppermost tier, the emperor and his advisors in the middle, and von Hebersdorf and the peasants on the lowest level.

[5][11] When von Herbersdorf orders the peasants to appear and has the selected 36 roll the dice to determine whether they live or die, they declare that they will be martyrs: "We will be flags that never rend .

"[2] Ferdinand is sentenced to eternal damnation, Maximilian cursed, the clerics expelled without possibility of pardon from the world and from God's grace, and von Herbersdorf, who betrayed the trust of the Volk, is to be buried in the knacker's yard.

[2] Möller had originally intended Hitler himself to be the highest judge at this first performance of the play, a spotlight picking him out after the peasants asked, "Is there no righteous man [who] .

[19] In his 2007 book on Nazi drama, Gerwin Strobl points out that he had in fact started to walk from the Olympic Stadium to attend the performance, but turned around halfway and got into his car; in Strobl's opinion, because of the inflammatory political implications of the play in light of the Nazi attempted coup in Austria two years before, in which Chancellor Dollfuss had been assassinated.

"[6] Ferdinand Junghans-Busch, in comments printed in the 1937 edition of the play, wrote that the action on the highest stage level, that of the judges and the Black Knight, truly exemplified "judicial strength, the voice of the people and the expression that we Germans conceive as Führer.