In 1935, for instance, a newspaper in Konigsberg carried an essay to coincide with a production in the local theater. The writer conceded that at first sight there was something worrying about a play in which a Jew was portrayed as hard-working and thrifty, and the Christians could easily be mistaken for irresponsible idlers. But Shylock, properly understood, was cowardly and malicious, while in the trial scene both Antonio and his friends acted with a selflessness that proved their true worth. At the climax, two opposing worlds stood revealed, and "the secret of these worlds has only now become clear to us, since we now know that they are the expression of racial opposites." Without being fully aware of what he was doing, Shakespeare had depicted the essence of the situation, "and unfurled a problem that is of the highest relevance to us today."

There was no need, after all, to resort to textual innovations or directorial tricks to raise tension inside a theater. It was enough to recall events in the world outside: the same hostile portrayal of Shylock was liable to seem far more charged after 1933 than it would have been before.

When the director Paul Rose staged the play in Berlin in 1942, he nonetheless felt it necessary to whip up additional animosity. Rose's production had a commedia dell'arte flavor; it emphasized the festive aspects of the story -- so much so that for a time the critic of the official Nazi newspaper, the Volkischer Beobachter, was afraid that the playwright's message was going to get lost in "the play of hands, feet and bodies." But everything turned out well. In the trial scene the message reasserted itself, "like an accusation against the race." Rose had scattered a number of extras in the audience, to shout and curse when Shylock appeared: "The voice of the people chimed in from the gallery, their angry cries and shrill whistles echoed from the stalls."

The most notorious "Merchant of Venice" of the Nazi years was the production that opened at the Burg theater in Vienna in May 1943. The play was put on at the express command of the gauleiter, or district leader, for Vienna, Baldur von Schirach. The director, Lothar Muthel, had been a member of the Nazi party since 1933; Shylock was played by Werner Krauss -- a great actor, probably best remembered today for his appearance in the film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari."

By 1943 there were very few Jews left in Vienna. In the course of the previous year most had been deported amid horrifying and pitiful scenes. And Baldur von Schirach was proud of the part he had played in their removal. Krauss had been a much-acclaimed Shylock in the 1920's, but even more to the point he had lent his talents to the 1940 film "Jew Suss," in which he had played all the Jewish roles -- one nastier than the next -- apart from that of Suss himself.

"Jew Suss" marked a new stage in Nazi propaganda. It had been made, on Goebbels's instructions, when the Final Solution was already taking shape; it was repeatedly shown in occupied territories on the eve of roundups and "actions" to intensify anti-Jewish feeling and dispel any possible sympathy for the victims.

Lothar Muthel claimed that he wanted to present "The Merchant of Venice" as a "fantastical comedy," and Krauss insured that it was comedy of the most sinister kind. According to one critic, his first entrance was enough to make the entire audience shudder: "With a crash and a weird train of shadows, something revoltingly alien and startlingly repulsive crawled across the stage." Another account was more specific:

"The pale pink face, surrounded by bright red hair and beard, with its unsteady, cunning little eyes; the greasy caftan with the yellow prayer shawl slung round, the splay-footed, shuffling walk; the foot stamping with rage; the clawlike gestures with the hands; the voice, now bawling, now muttering -- all add up to a pathological image of the East European Jewish type, expressing all its inner and outer uncleanliness, emphasizing danger through humor."