The Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici in Rome, personally inaugurated by Mussolini in 1932, organized a varied lecture program conducted by its director Giuseppe Gabetti, which was opened by Rudolf Borchardt in March 1933. The Nazi press office in Rome immediately protested against the appearance of the author of Jewish origin. Gerhart Hauptmann, who was also courted by Gabetti, cancelled his reading in the Villa Sciarra at short notice and – due to the lack of approval by the Nazi regime – did the same in October 1934 at the International Theatre Conference of the Fondazione Alessandro Volta, which nevertheless published his lecture ‚Das Drama im geistigen Leben der Völker‘ in the conference documents.