The Arsonists (Biedermann und die Brandstifter)

The world is burning at every turn in Max Frisch's grotesquely exaggerated parable. It tells the story of the Biedermanns, a married couple who conspire with two arsonists—despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that the arsonists make no secret of their intentions from the outset.The Zurich audience at the premiere in 1958 saw Biedermann as the innocent victim of a communist takeover. Horrified by this one-sided misinterpretation, Frisch wrote an epilogue in which he more clearly demonstrated Biedermann's duplicity, double standards, and complicity, relating it to the herd mentality of National Socialism. However, he later felt that this was too specific and, because it undermined the open-ended, exemplary character of his parable, he deleted it again. According to Frisch, the arsonists are Biedermann's own demons, ultimately only there to drive home the contradictions in Biedermann's way of life and business practices until he is destroyed by them. And with him, everything and everyone around him. Although – perhaps not quite. The question remains as to who is saved and whether things will continue differently or in the same way afterwards. Frisch's story is a parable about change, or rather about a certain way of dealing with crises. Biedermann is not naive and actually knows exactly what is home-grown about the crises. There is also no reason not to believe him when he says that he would like to be a good person if circumstances would only allow him to be. But his behavior, his insistence, for example, on moral pleas while his employee with the telling name Knechtling is increasingly being downgraded, ultimately does not lead to everything remaining as it never was – supposedly good – but to regressive change.Frisch described his drama as a "didactic play without a lesson," and indeed, Biedermann apparently learns nothing. This brings us back to the question of whether he is unable to learn, unwilling to learn, or just pretending in order to distract from his inner arsonists, whose actions he considers the only correct response to the crises—even if, or precisely because, they may be disruptive to the system. By Sibylle Baschung