The Andersonville Trial Notes

As a student at City College in New York, Saul Levitt was planning on a career in engineering. Famed journalist H.L. Mencken convinced him to try a career in writing: “You will make just as little money,” Mencken promised. Levitt was twenty-three when his first article was published in Mencken’s magazine American Mercury in 1934. The following year, Levitt joined The Federal Writer’s Project, FDR’s program to employ writers during the Great Depression.
During World War II, Levitt became a radioman in the Air Force. He was an original member of the 100th Bombardment Group, nicknamed the Bloody 100th because of its enormous casualty rate. Because of injuries suffered in a vehicle accident, Levitt was spared further tours of duty with the Bloody 100th and was reassigned to Yank Magazine, the army’s weekly publication. His assignments included visiting concentration camps and interviewing officers. One of his most powerful articles described a debate between German citizens and an American commander. The commander, Colonel Sears, brought the citizens to the concentration camp Stalag III to witness the massive pile of bodies the Nazi soldiers had left there. The citizens were ashamed but told the Colonel that only one percent of the German army was responsible: “You should not blame the rest.” The Colonel responded that their inaction and their tolerance of the Nazi government made them complicit in the crime.
These kinds of experiences shaped Levitt’s entire career. He contributed to the Oscar winning war documentary The True Glory (1945) as well as the television series You Are There, narrated by Walter Cronkite (1953). His first novel, The Sun is Silent (1951) traced the lives of American soldiers from their military training to their combat missions in World War II. His first play, however, was not about World War II. It was the Civil War-era story of Captain Henry Wirz and the Andersonville Prison that peaked Levitt’s interest. The similarities between the Nuremberg Trials and the Wirz trials were astounding, and Levitt was not the only one to make that connection.
In 1955, MacKinlay Kantor published his most successful and influential novel, Andersonville. Kantor, like Levitt, had been a news correspondent in World War II. It was during the war that Kantor began to develop his idea for the book, using his horrific memories of Buchenwald as inspiration for his depiction of the Andersonville prison. Kantor later wrote that he wanted to show America that we had our own Buchenwald and that American citizens had also stood idly by as thousands perished. Kantor’s book reignited the controversy that had surrounded Captain Wirz’s trial from the beginning. While most critics raved, many Southerners were outraged at the villainous portrayal of Wirz, whom they claimed was a scapegoat for Northerners seeking revenge. The Georgia Review called the book “almost entirely incorrect.” As a response to Wirz’s “unfair” portrayal, the Georgia Historical Commission erected a memorial plaque honoring Wirz who “gave his life for the South.”
Despite the controversy, Kantor was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his work in 1956 and the book became a national best seller. Columbia Pictures began making plans for a film version adapted by Norman Corwin but soon discovered they had competition: Saul Levitt was writing an episode for Climax Mystery Theater about the trial of Henry Wirz. Levitt rushed to finish his script first. Columbia lost the race, and Kantor’s film was never made. Levitt’s episode, titled The Trial of Captain Wirz, aired on June 27th, 1957. It starred Charlton Heston as Lt. Col. Chipman and Everett Sloane as Henry Wirz. The New York Times called it an “undisciplined melodrama” that could not capture the magnitude of its subject “within the limited time allotted.” Sloane’s portrayal of Wirz was criticized as a “cardboard creation given to hysteria.”
Levitt immediately began a complete rewrite of the play, this time aiming to make it as historically accurate as possible. Using the archives at the Library of Congress, Levitt based the play on courtroom transcripts from Wirz’s actual trial. He was supported by three producers: William Darrid, Elaine Saidenberg and Daniel Hollywood. Acclaimed director and actor Jose Ferrer was chosen to direct.
George C. Scott was assigned to the role of fiery prosecutor Lt. Col. Chipman. Scott was at the very beginning of his career but was already a major star. His performances in New York Shakespeare Festival’s Richard III (1957) and As You Like It (1958) and in Circle in the Square’s Children of Darkness (1958) earned him an Obie Award for Best Actor, a Theatre World award for “most promising personality,” a Clarence Derwent Award for “most promising actor,” and a Vernon Rice award for contribution to Off-Broadway theatre. That same year, he received his first Tony award nomination for his Broadway debut in Comes a Day. In 1959, he was nominated for his first Oscar for his performance in Anatomy of a Murder.
Herbert Berghof was cast in the role of Captain Wirz. The Austrian-born Berghof had moved to New York in 1939 to escape the Nazi regime in Vienna. He made his Broadway debut that year in From Vienna, a musical revue designed especially for exiled Austrian refugees. His Broadway credits were numerous, including Arthur Miller’s The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944) and the original production of Oklahoma! (1943). He directed the first Broadway production of Waiting for Godot in 1956, then directed it again—with a very controversial all-black cast—in 1957
Albert Dekker took on the role of defense attorney Otis H. Baker. Dekker had been an established Broadway star since his debut in Eugene O’Neill’s Marco Millions in 1928. In 1938, Dekker left the stage to pursue a film career. He appeared in more than thirty films, with memorable performances such as the mad scientist in Dr. Cyclops (1940) and a double-crossing hit man in The Killers (1946).
The Andersonville Trial opened on December 29th, 1959 at Henry Miller’s Theatre. The New York Times’ Brooks Atkinson praised the performances: “there is no disposition in this column to underestimate the excellence of their acting.” Edward Sothern Hipp of Newark Sunday News called it “a passionate performance you will never forget.” New Haven Evening Register said that the show “is almost without a lag. It is the most consistently gripping straight play seen here this season.” “One must pay homage to Mr. Levitt,” wrote Peter Stern of Yale Daily News. “In this initial effort a sound dramatic technique and devastating intellect offer rich future promise.” Scott, Berghof and Dekker were all singled out by critics for their powerful performances and Scott received another Tony award nomination for Best Actor. The Andersonville Trial ran for 179 performances before closing on June 1st, 1960.
The 1960 premiere in Berlin made headlines that year, with one Berliner calling the subject “a timely and acute problem.” The show was a success with Germans, but audiences in the American South were not as welcoming. Shows were cancelled in Atlanta and Birmingham for fear of protests. The play did not have a major production in the South until Theatre Atlanta’s production in 1967.
The Andersonville Trial, originally resonant because of the Nuremberg Trials, took on new relevance in 1970 when the My Lai Massacre shocked the country. Again, soldiers defended themselves: “I was only following orders.” That year, George C. Scott directed a television adaptation of Levitt’s play starring William Shatner as Chipman, Richard Basehart as Captain Wirz and Jack Cassidy as Otis Baker. It won The Peabody Award and three primetime Emmys including Outstanding Single Program and Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama. Jack Cassidy was nominated for Best Actor in a leading role. The show’s producer, Lewis Freedman, wrote that “today, the play has unbelievable immediacy…How far is Andersonville from Vietnam? This is the next century and the trial is still happening.”
The moral dilemmas of the Vietnam War prompted Levitt to write his next play, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, about nine Catholics who burned draft files to protest the war. Levitt co-wrote the piece in 1971 with one of the nine, Reverend Daniel Berrigan. Gregory Peck produced a film adaptation of the play in 1972.
The Andersonville Trial has not been revived since the television production in 1970. Yet its subject is as relevant today as it ever was. In recent news, soldiers claimed they were only following the orders of Donald Rumsfeld when they tortured Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Ehren Watada refused to follow orders and deploy to Iraq, stating that he deems the war immoral and believes it would make him a party to war crimes. Did Watada learn his lesson from Andersonville? Nuremberg? My Lai? A historical drama is only brilliant when it is able to step out of history and speak—even shout—to us in the present. Lewis Freedman addressed the audience of The Andersonville Trial: “Don’t pretend we are talking about somebody else—it is you who are on trial—my brother!”