• funny
• deadly
• grotesque

Hardly anyone immediately knows what to make of this vaguely Austrian-sounding name, Schicklgruber. Yet this was the original name of a personality who later became very well known under a stage name: Schicklgruber was the real name of Adolf Hitler. The play by Jan Veldman and Neville Tranter depicts Hitler's last days shortly before his suicide in the Führerbunker in Berlin. Despite the gloomy subject matter, this puppet show is, of course, a grotesquely bizarre evening in true Tranter style, leading into the heart of darkness, but also showing the reassuring fact that death stops at nothing and nobody - not even evil.

The two puppeteers Neville Tranter and Nikolaus Habjan have been friends for many years, spanning generations. With The Hills are Alive, which was shown at the Deutsches Theater last season, the two fulfilled a long-cherished dream and appeared on stage together for the first time. And in April 2024, we experienced a moving moment when Neville Tranter took his leave of the stage after one last Hills performance. In the 1970s, the old master of puppetry was instrumental in opening up the art form of puppetry to an adult audience. After his active time as a puppeteer, he is now handing over what is perhaps his best-known play and the puppets in it into the hands of Nikolaus Habjan (and Manuela Linshalm) as director, who is thus continuing his mentor's work.