“Watch on the Rhine” is a wartime drama, published and produced in 1941. It received the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for the best American play in 1941.
A wealthy widow Fanny Farrelly is preparing for the arrival of her daughter Sara, her German husband Kurt Müller, and their three children Joshua, Babette and Bodo. Sara has lived in Europe with Kurt for nearly 20 years, without meeting her mother and brother.
Farrelly’s houseguest, Teck de Brancovis, is suspicious of Kurt and trying to figure out what he did in Europe.
SARA: ...I just don't like polite political conversations anymore.
TECK: All of us, in Europe, had too many of them.
SARA: Yes. Too much talk. By this time all of us must know where we are and what we have to do. It's an indulgence to sit in a room and discuss your beliefs as if they were a juicy piece of gossip.
- from Act Two
Kurt confesses he is an outlaw and work with many others in an illegal organization. Teck blackmails Fanny into paying large money to save Kurt.
KURT: ……All Fascists are not of one mind, one stripe. There are those who give the orders, those who carry out the orders, those who watch the orders being carried out. Then there are those who are half in, half hoping to come in. They are made to do the dishes and clean the boots. Frequently they come in high places and wish now only to survive.......For those last, we may well some day have a pity. They are lost men, their spoils are small, their day is gone. - from Act Three
Kurt expresses his profound love for his children with the following phrase before his departure.
KURT: ……Do you remember when we read “Les Misérables”? He stole bread. The world is out of shape we said, when there are hungry men. And until it gets in shape, men will steal and lie and - kill. But for whatever reason it is done, and whoever does it - you understand me - it is all bad. I want you to remember that. Whoever does it, it is bad. But you will live to see the day when it will not have to be. All over the world, in every place and every town, there are men who are going to make sure it will not have to be. They want what I want: a childhood for every child. For my children, and I for theirs. Think of that. It will make you happy. In every town and every village and every mud hut in the world, there is always a man who loves children and who will fight to make a good world for them. - from Act Three