Shortly after director Oskar Walleck was appointed General Director of the Bavarian State Theatres in 1934 by the “Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda,” Joseph Goebbels, he announced his cultural-political vision to the Munich public: “To work toward a theatre of the Third Reich with the goal of enforcing the National Socialist cultural will.” After the end of the Nazi dictatorship, however, the former “SS-Standartenführer” Walleck suddenly claimed before the denazification tribunal that, during his tenure, he had “actively resisted the National Socialist regime of violence.”

Mitläufer is a historical examination of the contradictory biographies of those who, thanks to close ties with the NSDAP, were able to rise to the top of the theatre world. With this research-based production, the Residenztheater – one of Germany’s oldest theatres – confronts a dark chapter of its own history.