Geschichte von ihrem Ende her denken

Abstract In Pamphilus Gengenbach’s famous carnival play Der Nollhart (1517), ten characters discuss their future with four prophets: Nollhart, Methodius, Birgitta, and Sibylla. The play, its protagonists, and especially its prognostic and apocalyptic motifs have been the subject of scholarly interest for decades, but the Jew who enters the stage at the end of the play has been largely absent from research. This article focuses on this gap and argues that Gengenbach not only used the Jew to reproduce anti-Jewish sentiments and stereotypes, but also introduced him as a fifth prophet in the play. If Christians failed to recognize the signs of the end of days and act accordingly, the Jewish past and present – as depicted by Gengenbach’s Jew – would become a Christian future filled with captivity, death, loss, and abandonment. Accordingly, Der Nollhart is a remarkable example of how Gengenbach established the present and future through a Jewish past.