In contrast to the more conventionally oriented Bavarian State Theater, the Munich Kammerspiele was committed to the literary avant-garde and earned itself a reputation that extended well beyond Munich as a progressive theater with a first-rate ensemble staging premieres of Strindberg, Wedekind, and Brecht. Opened as a private theater on Augustenstrasse in 1912, it relocated to the Schauspielhaus building on Maximilianstrasse in 1926, where it is still based today. It was taken over by Munich's municipal authority in 1939.
Under Otto Falckenberg, its head dramaturge and creative director from 1917 to 1944, there were several theater scandals over the years of the Weimar Republic, which reflected the political radicalization of that time. Nationalist and ethnic-chauvinist forces perceived plays by figures such as Karl Kraus or Alfred Döblin to be infused with 'un-German' spirit and called for the reintroduction of censorship.
In March 1933, as Munich's chief of police, Heinrich Himmler ordered a reorganization, which entailed the expulsion of politically undesirable and/or Jewish actors and stage managers, dramaturges, and directors. Nevertheless, despite the coercive administrative measures taken by the Nazi authorities in terms of program planning, public relations, and staffing policy, the Kammerspiele did not go on to become a Nazi theater. Propagandist plays and Nazi writers were rarely performed. Instead, in keeping with a 'strategy of escapism' (Euler, p. 170), especially after 1939, people gravitated toward folk and entertainment plays, historical dramas, and classical pieces. The theater also had a negligibly small proportion of party members. The stage house was no longer usable in 1944. The Kammerspiele reopened in October 1945 with Shakespeare's Macbeth.
