The Condemned of Altona (French: Les Séquestrés d'Altona) is a play written by Jean-Paul Sartre, known in Great Britain as Loser Wins.

It is the only one of Sartre's fictional works which deals directly with Nazism, and also serves as a critique of the then-ongoing Algerian War.

Sartre summarizes the plot in the program notes of the play: "A family of big German industrialists, the von Gerlachs, live near Hamburg in an ugly old mansion in the middle of a park.

The latter, who has been officially reported dead, has locked himself up, since his return from the front, and refuses to see anyone except his younger sister Leni.

In order to save Werner, Johanna determines to investigate the mystery of Franz's seclusion.

Old von Gerlach makes use of her in order to obtain the interview with Franz which the latter has refused him for thirteen years..." The play opens in a large sitting-room with Leni, Werner, and Johanna awaiting Father von Gerlach, who has summoned a family meeting.

Johanna refuses to be bound to her father-in-law's wishes, and confronts the family's secret: that Franz, the elder son, still lives, and that he has been hidden within the house.

When she suggests that the family is perhaps his jailer and well as his prisoner, Leni angrily gives Johanna the key to Franz's room.

The flashbacks reveal Franz's opposition to the Nazis and relate the encounters which forced him to enlist and later to seal himself up.

Some time later Father sends Gelber, a family servant, to obtain a forged death certificate.

Franz tells Leni about his crabs - individuals of the early thirtieth century who, he claims, will be able to see every single minute of history through a "black window".

It is revealed that Leni does in fact lie to Franz, telling him Germany has been left in ruins, and that the two of them occasionally sleep together.

In his anger, he sends Leni away and tell her he won't let her in should she bring him dinner in the evening.

Franz is slowly receding from his solitude - he again keeps track of the time, and is facing the fact of the state of Germany.

If there's any chance left .. Go in there!He hides Johanna in the bathroom once again as he admits Leni, who has brought a slice of cake for his birthday and a newspaper.

Leni notices lipstick on a champagne glass and reveals that Father has told her Franz has been seeing Johanna.

Franz admits there is a one-in-a-hundred chance that Johanna will accept him, adding: "Yesterday I would have committed murder.

Leni gives Franz the newspaper, a copy of the Frankfurter Zeitung with an article on the Gerlachs, then goes to the bathroom door and tells Johanna to come out.

Franz tells Johanna that the time has come to make true on her promise that she would believe only his words, and that their love depends completely on that.

Franz describes how the powerlessness he felt as the rabbi was beaten to death led him to take full hold of his power later on.

He claims that Germany's loss in the war led to its coming back as a world power, and that those, like Franz, who "loved their country enough to sacrifice their military honor for victory" merely "risked prolonging the massacre and hindering its reconstruction."

Father apologizes for trying to mold Franz's life according to his own, admitting that he condemned him to impotence and crime.

When the seventh minute is reached, she presses the button of the tape recorder, then ascends the stairs and enters the room as it begins to play.

)Throughout the play, Sartre characteristically colors the text of the plot with his philosophic concepts, especially the notions of responsibility and freedom and the contrast between bad faith and authenticity.

Similar examples occur in Being and Nothingness, where Sartre shows two groups to be in bad faith for different reasons.

The choice of the name Gelber here is a possible pun: Gelb is German for the color "yellow", which in English can also mean "cowardly".

Also in Act One, Sartre's ideas of freedom and "existence precedes essence" are illustrated in Johanna's outburst to Father von Gerlach: "...

Franz's words imply that the crabs cannot see a nothingness, a term Sartre uses to describe value- and structure-/role- judgments which are not inherent to an object's being, but rather given to them by consciousness.

Another conversation depicts Sartre's "Man is a useless passion": "Franz (ironic admiration): [A] Star!

This motif of universal responsibility is repeated by Franz and other characters in different forms throughout the play, notably by the dying woman in the flashback of Act Four.