Berlin at the end of the Second World War. As part of the de-Nazification process, the American occupying authorities are planning the trial of the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, whom Goring appointed Prussian state councillor and Goebbels made Vice-President of the Reich’s Cultural Chamber. On the one hand the artist cultivated excellent relations with Hitler’s regime, on the other he used his position to engage Jewish musicians, thus saving them from certain death in concentration camps. American commander Steve Arnold, an insurance agent in civilian life entrusted with the Furtwängler case, tries his best to convince the conductor to help wipe out Nazism, thereby setting a good example which will stand him in good stead. As a fanatical advocate of justice, he recognises only Good and Evil. He cannot understand how his German colleagues, themselves victims of Nazism, can acknowledge Furtwängler as a great musician. He does not accept their view that politics and art have nothing in common: for him, Furtwängler’s guilt is unquestionable. This stage play by Ronald Harwood, on which the script is based, was inspired by a real case.