About the work
„Der Nazi & der Friseur“ is a grotesque satirical novel by the German-Jewish writer Edgar Hilsenrath that has since been adapted for the stage several times, including the Staatsschauspiel Dresden production referenced here. Hilsenrath wrote the novel in German, but after more than sixty German publishers turned it down, it first appeared in the United States in English translation in 1971; the German-language original edition followed only in 1977, from a small Cologne publisher.
Plot
SS man Max Schulz murders his Jewish childhood friend Itzig Finkelstein in a concentration camp and, after the war, assumes his victim's identity, complete with a camp tattoo he applies to himself. Posing as „Itzig Finkelstein“, he first builds a new existence as a black-market dealer in Berlin before emigrating to Palestine in 1947, where he marries a Jewish survivor and eventually lives as a respected hairdresser in Israel.
Cultural significance
The novel is regarded as one of the first German-language texts to tell the story of the Holocaust consistently from a perpetrator's point of view, and its publication triggered fierce debate over the legitimacy of this grotesque narrative approach. Heinrich Böll was among its early defenders; the material has since been repeatedly adapted for the stage, including at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden (directed by Monique Séjourné, premiered 6 February 2020).