Thingspiele

The Thing sites were to be built as much as possible in a natural setting, incorporating rocks, trees, bodies of water, ruins, and hills of some historical or mythic significance.

[13] Architecturally, the official Thingplätze were round and emulated Greek amphitheatres;[1] they tended to be very large, to accommodate mass audiences and multimedia performances involving "entire battalions" of SA or Hitler Youth.

It proved impossible to build so many new theatres quickly, audience enthusiasm waned for the action-poor Thingspiele, and playwrights also failed to write enough of them.

Otto Laubinger [de], who had promoted the Thingspiel movement as head of the theatre division of the Reichskulturkammer, died in 1935, and by 1937, when Joseph Goebbels officially withdrew support, it had already petered out.

Both Deutsche Passion (German passion) by Richard Euringer, a leading theoretician of the Thingspiel movement,[29][30] and Symphonie der Arbeit (work symphony) by Hans-Jürgen Nierentz [de] originated as radio plays first performed in 1933 (as Nazi counter-examples to religious Easter and left-wing May Day dramas respectively); Aufbricht Deutschland!

Of well known works associated with the movement, Neurode, Spiel von deutscher Arbeit (Neurode, play about German work) by Kurt Heynicke [de] and Das Spiel von Job dem Deutschen (the play about Job the German) by Kurt Eggers were both written in 1932, before the Nazis came to power, and Euringer also first conceived his Deutsche Passion that year.

Das Spiel von Job dem Deutschen was performed at a trade fair in November 1933 to serve as an example of the Thingspiel genre.