the play was part of the KGB’s battle against the Catholic church.
See this article from “The Sunday Times” of Feb 17, 2008, it begins:
“THE KGB hatched a plot to smear the late Pope Pius XII as an antisemitic Hitler supporter and fostered a controversial play that tarnished the pontiff, according to the highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence officer to have defected to the West.”
“Former Lieutenant-General Ion Mihai Pacepa, who headed the Romanian secret service before defecting in 1978, has broken a silence of nearly half a century to reveal that he was involved in the operation code-named Seat12, a Kremlin scheme launched in 1960 to portray Pius XII “as a cold-hearted Nazi sympathiser”.”
“The result, according to Pacepa, was the 1963 play The Deputy, by Rolf Hochhuth, which argued that Pius XII had supported Hitler and encouraged him to launch the Holocaust. It ignited a furious debate over Pius XII’s attitude towards Hitler.”
full article at: http://www.fpp.co.uk/docs/Irving/Hochhuth/Times_200207.html
When I lived in a gay community by the Jersey Shore, I noticed that during book sales (and we had a lot of them), “The Deputy” was being sold consistently. One look at it told me all I knew. Undoubtedly, it started prior to that but has been taken up by the left-wing gay, communist community in which I have now escaped.
Thanks for your info!