Theatre

Bermann, Wilhelm

Leonhard Weidinger — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 10:43:48 +0000

Bermann, Wilhelm

Leonhard Weidinger Wed, 03/31/2021 - 20:13

Wilhelm Bermann

15 November 1874 Temeschburg / Temesvár, Hungary (now Timișoara, Romania) – deported to Litzmannstadt on 15 October 1941, died before 8 May 1945

Around 1900, Wilhelm Bermann moved with his wife Sidonie, née Silbermann, from Temesvár to Vienna. They lived with their four children at Kasernengasse 4 in the 6th district. From 1930, Wilhelm Bermann was sole proprietor of Werkstätte für dekorative Kunst KG, which specialized in theatre accoutrements. After the annexation of Austria to the Nazi German Reich, the business no longer received orders because Bermann was regarded as Jewish under the Nuremberg laws. In order to raise funds, he offered model sketches for theatre costumes, known as figurines, for sale to the National Library (NB) theatre collection. In 1938 and 1939, the NB purchased 1,604 drawings and prints from Bermann. The company's assets, including 20,000 model drawings and 2,400 photos, were valued on the basis of the asset declaration submitted in July 1938 at around 31,000 Reichsmarks, as against liabilities amounting to 29,800 Reichsmarks. In September 1938, Theaterkunst GmbH from Berlin aryanized Bermann's company, with its inventory and several thousand model drawings for 21,500 Reichsmarks, but did not assume the liabilities. Werkstätte für dekorative Kunst was deleted from the commercial register in November 1938. The proceeds of sale were probably transferred directly to the frozen account of the Vermögensverkehrsstelle (Property Transaction Office) and used to pay off the outstanding debts and for discriminatory levies by the Nazi state, such as the Judenvermögensabgabe (Jewish Asset Levy). In 1941 Wilhelm and Sidonie Bermann and their daughter Johanna were forced to move to a collective apartment at Judengasse 5 in the 1st district. Their eldest son Friedrich survived in exile in Algeria, and nothing is known about son Alfred. Daughter Margarethe had already died in 1924. Just before their deportation on 15 October 1941 to Litzmannstadt ghetto, the Bermanns signed a "special authorization" for the transfer of their remaining assets (two beds and two crates) to the Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung (Central Office for Jewish Emigration). Their whereabouts are unknown.

In 1948 Friedrich Bermann had his parents and sister Johanna declared dead by the Landgericht (provincial court) in Vienna, which stated that they were not alive after 8 May 1945. That same year, he applied for restitution of the company, which ended in 1951 in a settlement before the Restitution Commission at the Landesgericht für Zivilrechtssachen (provincial court for civil law matters). Theaterkunst GmbH undertook to pay 15,000 schillings, and Friedrich Bermann waived any further claims in return. After Theaterkunst GmbH became insolvent in 1953, Wiener Theaterkunst-Werkstätte Karl Lambert Hofer took over the bankruptcy assets. In 1959 and 1961 the Theatre Collection of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (ÖNB) (Austrian National Library) purchased 16,000 figurines, costumes and costume components that had belonged to Bermann's company. These objects are now in the Österreichisches Theatermuseum (Austrian Theatre Museum), which houses the former ÖNB theatre collection. As Friedrich Bermann had waived all claims in 1951 to the assets of Theaterkunst GmbH, the subsequent acquisition of the collection was not an expropriation in the meaning of the Art Restitution Act. Following the provenance research at the Theatre Museum under the 1998 Art Restitution Act, it was decided in 2008 that 1,553 drawings purchased directly from Bermann's company in 1938/39 should be returned to his heirs. In autumn 2020, the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended the return of a further fifty-one figurines found during the preparations for restitution.

Keywords

Nazi persecutee

Nazi asset expropriation

Theatre

Elisabeth Schroll

4 February 2021

Publications about the person / institution

Beiratsbeschluss Wilhelm und Sidonie Bermann, 21.11.2008, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Bermann_Sidonie_Wilhelm_2008-11-21.pdf (28.1.2021).

Beiratsbeschluss Wilhelm Bermann, 20.9.2020, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Bermann_Wilhelm_2020-09-25.pdf (28.1.2021).

Archives

ÖNB-Archiv, Allgemeine Verwaltungs- und Korrespondenzakten, K 6, Zl. 1.156/1938.

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, K. 575, St. 469.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, FLD, K. 560, Zl. 14.131
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, Gewerbe, K. 193, Zl. 1.128
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, VA 4.666, Wilhelm Bermann.

ÖTM-Archiv, Akzessionsbücher 1938-1939.

WStLA, Handelsgericht Wien, A 43A Registerakten A 67/5a, Werkstätte für dekorative Kunst.
WStLA, Handelsgericht Wien, A 47A Registerakten 14.874, Wiener Theaterkunst-Werkstätte Karl Lambert Hofer.
WStLA, Handelsgericht Wien, A 48B Registerakten 4.416, Werkstätten für dekorative Kunst.
WStLA, Handelsgericht Wien, Firmenbuch, C20/223, A 67/5a, Werkstätte für dekorative Kunst.
WStLA, Historische Wiener Meldeunterlagen, Meldeauskunft Wilhelm Bermann.
WStLA, LG für Zivilrechtssachen, 48 T 6.796/1947, 6.794/1947, Erkenntnis über den Beweis des Todes.
WStLA, M.Abt. 119, A41, VEAV 1.620, 6. Bezirk, Wilhelm Bermann.

Ecker, Karl

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:26 +0000

Ecker, Karl Leonhard Weidinger Thu, 04/01/2021 - 18:17

Karl Ecker

17 August 1882 Stockerau – 4 May 1959 Vienna

After studying law at the University of Vienna, Karl Ecker had theatre training at the k. k. Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst (Imperial Royal Academy of Music and Performing Arts) and private lessons with Burgtheater actors Ernst Arndt and Hans Siebert. He worked originally as a dramaturge and actor, from 1913 to 1917 also as director at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg under Max Grube, 1919/1920 at the Vereinigtes Deutsches Theater in Brünn / Brno under Rudolf Beer and from 1920 to 1922 at the Wanderbühne des Österreichischen Volksbildungsamtes (Travelling Theatre of the Office for Popular Education) under Friedrich Rosenthal, until he came in 1922 to the Urania in Vienna, where he was head of the administration and also deputized for the artistic director. As his influence was restricted because of financial difficulties, he left in 1934 and in 1936 became a research assistant in the National Library's Theatre Collection. He was mainly involved at the outset in exhibitions, such as the 1936 International Theatre Exhibition, and in the library, but during the Nazi era he was a member of the National Library branch of the SA dealing with the salvaging and storage of artworks and, from 1940, managing the library's administrative air raid protection agendas. It was in this connection that he was exempted from military service in 1942. Ecker's contract with the National Library ended in March 1950.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications by the person / institution

Karl Ecker, Die Theatersammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek in den Jahren 1932–1946, in: Joseph Gregor (Hg.), Meister und Meisterbriefe um Hermann Bahr. Aus seinen Entwürfen, Tagebüchern und seinem Briefwechsel mit Richard Strauss, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Max Reinhardt, Josef Kainz, Eleonore Duse und Anna von Mildenburg (= Museion. Veröffentlichungen der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, Neue Folge, 1. Reihe, 1), Wien 1947, 5–45.

Karl Ecker, Die Sammlung Stefan Zweig, in: Josef Stummvoll (Hg.), Die Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. Festschrift. Hrsg. zum 25jährigen Dienstjubiläum des Generaldirektors Univ.-Prof. Dr. Josef Bick, Wien 1948, 321–330.

Archives

ÖTM, NL Karl Ecker, HS_Ec5 Nachlass.

ÖNB-Archiv, PA Karl Ecker.
ÖNB-Archiv, o.Zl., 13.9.1938, o.Zl., 20.4.1942, Az. P Nr. 400, 1.4.1950, Az. P Nr. 1128, 7.11.1949, Az. P Nr. 1048, 14.10.1949, Az. P Nr. 67, 18.1.1949, Zl. ad P 67, 17.1.1949.

Geyer, Emil

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:10 +0000

Geyer, Emil Leonhard Weidinger Tue, 03/09/2021 - 08:54

Emil Geyer

29 November 1872 Swoikowitz / Vojkovice, Moravia – 12 October 1942 Mauthausen concentration camp

born Emil Goldmann, artist's name Geyer

Emil Goldmann was born in Swoikowitz, Moravia, in 1872 as the oldest of nine children of the tenant farmer Jakob Goldmann and his wife Amalie. After completing his secondary schooling in Znaim (Znojmo), he moved to Vienna to study and became a doctor of law in 1895. He then went to Berlin to study economics but stopped after just one semester to devote himself to the theatre, working initially above all as an actor. In these early years, he met Max Reinhardt, who became a lifelong friend. After converting from Judaism to Protestantism, Goldmann is documented at least from 1902 as performing under the name Geyer. After working at the Schauspielhaus in Dusseldorf as director and dramaturge, and in the Märkisches Wandertheater in Berlin, Emil Geyer returned to Vienna in 1912 with his wife, the Berlin actress Ellen Neustädter (1885–1926), and their daughter Eva Maria (1907–1975), where he became director of the Neue Wiener Bühne in Harmoniegasse in Vienna's 9th district. Probably as a result of the separation from his wife, who left for Hamburg with the actor Leo Reuss, he moved again to Berlin in 1921 to take up the position of chief director and deputy manager at the Robert-Bühnen belonging to Eugen Robert. After Ellen Neustädter's suicide in 1926, Geyer, who had now been appointed deputy director of Theater in der Josefstadt by Max Reinhardt and in 1930 also authorized director of the Max Reinhardt Seminar, returned to Vienna. In this theatre, which had considerable financial difficulties as a result of the general theatre crisis, he was replaced by his former deputy, the future Hollywood director Otto Preminger, but he continued as a director there and at the Deutsches Volkstheater. Thanks to his various engagements, he had many contacts in the German-speaking art and culture world, including Arthur Schnitzler, Richard Beer-Hofmann, Egon Friedell, Franz Theodor Csokor, Else Lasker-Schüler, Lina Loos, Salka Viertel, Attila Hörbiger and Paula Wessely.

There are numerous letters from the time after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich describing Geyer's increasing despair at the successive deprivations of his rights. His daughter Eva Geyer, also an actress, managed to escape to the USA with her husband, the gynaecologist and art collector Paul Singer (1904–1997), but Emil Geyer, who was now obliged to use his former name Goldmann, was no longer able to escape from Austria. After his dismissal from the Reinhardt Seminar he was forced of necessity, as he told his former student Judith Holzmeister, to sell some of his art collection. It is not possible today to reconstruct exactly what it consisted of. On the advice of the writer and art historian George Saiko, whom Geyer had supported financially, he had acquired works by Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, whose patron Arthur Roessler he also knew personally, Gustav Klimt, Theodor Allesch-Alescha, Franz Pechstein and also Wassili Kandinsky. The many letters by Geyer, among others to his friends Richard Beer-Hofmann or Max Reinhardt's secretary Gusti Adler in US exile and to Erhard Buschbeck at the Vienna Burgtheater, asking them to intervene were in vain. He was forced to move from Siebensterngasse (renamed Straße der Julikämpfer to commemorate the failed July putsch by the Austrian National Socialists in 1934) to collective housing at Krugerstraße 5 in the 1st district. After being captured by the Gestapo following a failed attempt to escape with his sister Jeanette and her husband Otto Richard Hermann, he was deported on 31 July 1942 to Mauthausen concentration camp and shot a few days later "while attempting to escape". There is no documentary evidence to support the claims made after the war that Paula Wessely and other fellow actors attempted to have Geyer released from Gestapo detention. It is unclear whether and in what way Joseph Gregor, director of the Österreichisches Theatermuseum, shared responsibility for Geyer's fate, as his future wife Maria Kotera attempted to disclaim in 1947. That same year George Saiko's partner Gabriele Gross informed the Federal Monuments Authority that he had acquired from Emil Geyer a watercolour by Josef Kriehuber, which she had brought to the Dorotheum in 1943 and sold for the Linzer Kunstmuseum. Research subsequently revealed, however, that this watercolour had been part of the art collection of the Viennese lawyer Josef Blauhorn, who fled to London. The picture was returned to his legal successors in May 2013. The whereabouts of Emil Geyer's art collection and extensive library are not known.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Auguste und Josef Blauhorn, 3.5.2013, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Blauhorn_Auguste_Josef_2013-05-03.pdf (3.12.2020).

Ilse Bachmann, Emil Geyer (1872–1942). Regisseur – Theaterleiter – Pädagoge – Schauspieler, Dissertation Universität Wien 2003.

Franz Theodor Csokor, Auch heute noch nicht an Land. Briefe und Gedichte aus dem Exil, hg. v. Franz Richard Reiter, Wien 1993.

Milan Dubrovic, Veruntreute Geschichte. Die Wiener Salons und Literatencafés, Wien 1985.

Edda Fuhrich, Das Theater in der Josefstadt 1924 bis 1935, in: Gerald M. Bauer/Birgit Peter (Hg.), Das Theater in der Josefstadt. Kultur, Politik, Ideologie für Eliten? (= Wien – Musik und Theater 3), Wien 2010, 47–58.

Hilde Haider-Pregler, Überlebens-Theater. Der Schauspieler Reuss, Wien 1998.

Hilde Haider-Pregler, Wien 1938 – Spurensuche nach den Vergessenen der Theatergeschichte. Eine biographische Annäherung an Emil Geyer und Lilly Karoly, in: Theo Girshausen/Henry Thorau (Hg.), Theater als Ort der Geschichte. Festschrift für Henning Rischbieter, Velber 1998, 183–191.

Judith Holzmeister, Erzählte Erinnerung, in: Peter Roessler/Susanne Gföller (Hg.), Erinnerung. Beiträge zum 75. Jahrestag der Eröffnung des Max Reinhardt Seminars. Eine Dokumentation, Wien 2005, 37–39.

Else Lasker-Schüler, Briefe 1925–1933, bearb. v. Sigrid Bauschinger, Frankfurt am Main 2005.
Else Lasker-Schüler, Briefe 1933–1936, bearb. v. Karl Jürgen Skrodzki, Frankfurt am Main 2008.

Peter Roessler, Paul Kalbeck – der Regisseur als Lehrer, in: Judith Pór-Kalbeck (Hg.), Paul Kalbeck – ein Poet der Regie. Der Lebensweg eines Wieners (= Bilder aus einem Theaterleben 3), Wien 2005, 173–212.
Peter Roessler, Zur Geschichte des Reinhardt-Seminars von 1928 bis 1938, in: Peter Roessler/Günter Einbrodt/Susanne Gföllner (Hg.), Die vergessenen Jahre. Zum 75. Jahrestag der Eröffnung des Max Reinhardt Seminars, Wien 2004, 11–52.

Arthur Schnitzler, Tagebuch 1913–1916, hg. v. Peter Michael Braunwarth, Wien 1983.
Arthur Schnitzler, Tagebuch 1920–1922, hg. v. Peter Michael Braunwarth, Wien 1993.

Pia Schölnberger, Emil Geyer – Ein Sammler im Verborgenen, in: Eva Blimlinger/Heinz Schödl (Hg.), Die Praxis des Sammelns. Personen und Institutionen im Fokus der Provenienzforschung (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 5), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2014, 135–160, URL: doi.org/10.7767/boehlau.9783205793564.135.

Andrea Winkelbauer/Brigitte Borchardt-Birbaumer (Hg.), Euphorie und Unbehagen. Das jüdische Wien und Richard Wagner. Publikation anlässlich der Ausstellung Euphorie und Unbehagen. Das jüdische Wien und Richard Wagner des Jüdischen Museums Wien, 25.9.2013–16.3.2014, Wien 2013.

Publications by the person / institution

Emil Goldmann, Gerhart Hauptmann. Vortrag, gehalten in der Redehalle-Versammlung vom 29. October 1892, in: Bericht der Lese- und Redehalle der Deutschen Studenten in Prag über das Jahr 1892, Prag 1893, 3–23.

Emil Geyer, Das Pathos im Werk des Kuenstlers, in: Franz Flaum, Fuenf Essays von Stanislaw Przybyszewski, Rudolf v. Delius, S. Lublinski, Dr. Emil Geyer, Cesary Jellenta, Berlin 1904, 26–31.
Emil Geyer, Ein Dichter, in: Morgen 2 (1908) 2, 1208–1210.
Emil Geyer, Vom Pathos der Zeit, Leipzig 1908.

Theater und Kunst. Vokstheaterkandidaten. II. Gespräch mit Direktor Dr. Emil Geyer, in: Fremden-Blatt, 21.2.1918, 10–11, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=fdb&datum=19180221&seite=10 (3.12.2020).

Archives

Archiv des Max Reinhardt Seminars, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Zl. 84/Res/39.

Archiv hl. mesta Prahy, Bratislava, NDT Inv. cis 13/Karton 15, Regieseminar Schönbrunn.

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 36/3, PM Gabriele Gross.
BDA-Ausfuhr, Zl.167/1941, Emil Geyer.

Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, A: Salka Viertel.

DÖW, Datenbank österreichischer Shoah-Opfer und Todesopfer politischer Verfolgung 1938 bis 1945 sowie von der Gestapo Wien erkennungsdienstlich erfasster Männer und Frauen.
DÖW, Zl. 5733c, Gestapo-Leitstelle Wien, Tagesbericht Nr. 10, Rapport vom 22. bis 24.5.1942.
DÖW, Zl. 15.950, Gustav Breuer an Adrienne Gessner, 18.9.1945.

Harvard University, Houghton Library_Beer-Hofmann, Richard, 1866–1945, Richard Beer-Hofmann correspondence, 1882–1967, MS Ger 183 (177).

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, VA 40.256, Emil Goldmann.
OeStA/AVA, 2898, 15 C 1, Leumundszeugnis Emil Geyer, Bundespolizeidirektion Wien, 17.12.1928.

ÖNB, Literaturarchiv, Teil-NL Ernst Martin Benedikt, Zl. 381/B21.
ÖNB, Sammlung von Handschriften und alten Drucken, NL Erhard Buschbeck.

ÖTM-Archiv, PA Josef Gregor, Maria Kotera, Eidesstattliche Erklärung, 5.6.1947.
ÖTM, Handschriftensammlung, NL Heinrich Schnitzler.
ÖTM, Handschriftensammlung, NL Paula Wessely.

Wienbibliothek, Handschriftensammlung, NL Theodor Allesch-Alescha, ZPH 1399/1; ZPH 1331.
Wienbibliothek, Handschriftensammlung, NL Milan Dubrovic, ZPH 944
Wienbibliothek, Handschriftensammlung, NL Max Reinhardt, ZPH 1565, K. 11, 2.5.193.

GND: 116602872

VIAF: 74607487

Wikidata: Q1336114

Gregor, Joseph

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:26 +0000

Gregor, Joseph Leonhard Weidinger Thu, 04/01/2021 - 18:22

Joseph Gregor

26 October 1888 Czernowitz (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine) – 12 October 1960 Vienna

Joseph Gregor grew up in Czernowitz as the son of the city architect Josef Gregor. He came to Vienna in 1907 to study art history, German and music. He obtained his doctorate in 1911 with a musicological thesis, but his main interest had always been the theatre. After studying at the Wiener Hofoper, the Deutsches Theater in Berlin under the direction of Max Reinhardt and the University of Leipzig under Albert Köster, he returned in 1912 to Czernowitz to become a university music lecturer. He served during the First World War in the Tiroler Kaiserjäger regiment and as a Kriegswirtschaftskommissär (War Economy Commissar) but remained resident in Vienna. In 1918 he embarked on a career at the National Library, where he was entrusted after just two years with the establishment of a theatre department, whose head he became in 1922. He was also head of the Bundestheatermuseum (Federal Theatre Museum) founded in 1931 and was awarded the title of professor in 1933 and a few years later the rank of Oberstaatsbibliothekar (senior state librarian). When he applied as a writer for admission to the Reichsschrifttumskammer (Reich Literature Chamber) after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich, opinions as to his political reliability were split. He was thought to be sympathetic to the National Socialist movement, but as editor of the magazine Die Theater der Welt in 1936/37 he was suspected of being friendly with Jews and internationalists. He had already had to passed on his role as editor in 1937 to Karl Niessen, head of the Institute of Theatre Studies at the University of Cologne. The mistrust of the Ministry of Propaganda in Berlin combined with the efforts of his rival Niessen almost resulted in the theatre collection being moved to Berlin or Cologne and Gregor being removed from office. Thanks to Gregor's contacts and those of his staunch supporter Paul Heigl, director general of the National Library, the institute was not transferred and Gregor was left in peace in spite of the unfavourable political assessment by the NSDAP. He was ultimately able to enlarge the theatre collection during the Nazi era through donations, purchases and also Aryanization. Gregor retired at the end of 1953 and in subsequent years he lectured in the history of theatre at the Akademie der bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts) and the Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst (Academy of Music and Performing Arts) in Vienna. During his lifetime he published an impressive number of articles about the history of theatre.

Since 1998 objects that Gregor had acquired during the Nazi era have been successively restituted.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Christina Gschiel, Joseph Gregor und die Theatersammlung der Nationalbibliothek in Wien – rastlose Tätigkeit im Interesse der Sammlung, in: Eva Blimlinger/Heinz Schödl (Hg.), Die Praxis des Sammelns. Personen und Institutionen im Fokus der Provenienzforschung (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 5), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2014, 263–298, URL: doi.org/10.7767/boehlau.9783205793564.263.

Agnes Bleier Brody, Versuch einer Joseph-Gregor-Bibliographie, 1908–1958, Berlin 1958.

Publications by the person / institution

Joseph Gregor, Weltgeschichte des Theaters, Zürich 1933.
Joseph Gregor, Shakespeare, München 1935.
Joseph Gregor, Das spanische Welttheater. Weltanschauung, Poltik und Kunst der großen Epoche Spaniens, Wien-Leipzig-Zürich 1937 (Vollständig überarb. Neuausgabe München 1943).
Joseph Gregor, Perikles. Griechenlands Größe und Tragik, München 1938.
Joseph Gregor, Richard Strauss, der Meister der Oper, München 1939.
Joseph Gregor, Alexander der Große. Die Weltherrschaft einer Idee, München 1940.
Joseph Gregor, Kulturgeschichte der Oper. Ihre Verbindung mit dem Leben, den Werken des Geistes und der Politik, Wien 1941 (2. rev. u. erw. Ausgabe 1950).
Joseph Gregor, Kulturgeschichte des Balletts. Seine Gestaltung und Wirksamkeit in der Geschichte und unter den Künsten, Wien 1944.
Joseph Gregor, Oskar Strnad. Sein Vermächtnis an das Theater, Wien 1949.

Joseph Gregor/Karl Ecker, Die Theatersammlung, Wien 1948.

Archives

ÖTM-Archiv, PA Joseph Gregor, Personenstandesblatt v. 29.10.1945; Curriculum vitae, Dr. Joseph Gregor, 4.8.1945; Personalnachrichten über den Oberstaatsbibliothekar I. Kl. Dr. Josef Gregor, 10.5.1940.

GND: 118697455

VIAF: 27078923

Wikidata: Q112233

Hadamowsky, Franz

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:24 +0000

Hadamowsky, Franz Leonhard Weidinger Thu, 04/01/2021 - 18:34

Franz Hadamowsky

31 January 1900 Rappoltenkirchen, Lower Austria – 9 January 1994 Vienna

While still a student of German, history and geography at the University of Vienna, Franz Hadamowsky showed an interest in the theatre. He obtained his doctorate in 1922 with a thesis on the work of the old Viennese theatre director Franz Pokorny. After working as a librarian and from 1923 as director of the Vienna Volksbildungsverein (adult education institute) library, he was made redundant in 1933, but in March of the following year Karl Lugmayer, who was responsible for popular education in Vienna, appointed him as director of this establishment, a position he held until he was dismissed in March 1938. When he fulfilled the conditions for his reinstatement at the end of 1938 by joining the NSDAP, he went back to work as "Gausachbearbeiter (expert) in the office of the Deutsches Volksbildungswerk (DAF) in the Gau of Vienna". From January 1940 until the end of the war, however, he served in the military, first in Poland, then on the Russian front. He was taken prisoner in May 1945 but released in the autumn of that year. He found work as an unpaid intern at the Institute of Theatre Studies at the University of Vienna until obtaining full-time employment in the National Library. Having already worked as a research assistant in the theatre collection from 1929 to 1934, Hadamowsky, who during his career wrote numerous articles about the history of Viennese theatre, became director of this collection and of the Theatermuseum in 1954 until his retirement in 1966.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications by the person / institution

Franz Hadamowsky, Ferdinand Raimund als Schauspieler, 2 Bände, Wien 1925.
Franz Hadamowsky, Gründungsakten der Leopoldstädter Schaubühne, Wien 1928.
Franz Hadamowsky, Schrifttum und Bühne in Niederösterreich, Wien 1930.
Franz Hadamowsky, Das Theater in der Wiener Leopoldstadt, Wien 1932.
Franz Hadamowsky, Die Wiener Privattheater 1848–1918 in: Dt.-österr. Literaturgeschichte

Fritz Brukner/Franz Hadamowsky, Die Wiener Faustdichtungen von Stranitzky bis zu Goethes Tod, Wien 1932.

Joseph Gregor/Franz Hadamowsky, Katalog der Handzeichnungen der Theatersammlung der Nationalbibliothek, Wien 1930.

Franz Hadamowsky/Felix Trojan, Katalog der "Alten Bibliothek" des Theaters an der Wien, 1928.

Archives

WStLA, Gauakten, A1, Personalakten des Gaues Wien, Franz Hadamowsky.
WStLA, M.Abt. 119, A42, NS-Registrierung, Franz Hadamowsky, Karteikarte.

GND: 1019196734

VIAF: 161642115

Wikidata: Q1447050

Heim, Heinrich

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:26 +0000

Heim, Heinrich Leonhard Weidinger Thu, 04/01/2021 - 18:39

Heinrich Heim

15 June 1900 Munich – 26 June 1988 Munich

The Munich lawyer Heinrich Heim, who had known Adolf Hitler since 1920, was appointed to the Brown House in 1933 by Rudolf Hess, where he dealt with legislative questions, until he was transferred to the "Führer's headquarters" in 1939 as Martin Bormann's adjutant. In July 1940, after the France campaign had ended, Bormann ordered him to seek out all literature, particularly illustrated books, on theatre architecture. There were plans immediately after the ceasefire to starting building new theatres in the German Reich, because Hitler found it "grotesque" that most German cities had such mediocre theatres, some over two hundred years old. During his travels, which took him to antiques dealers, libraries and theatre collection, Heim met Joseph Gregor in Vienna. In mid-December 1940 he travelled to Paris, where he discovered a book with designs by Edward Gordon Craig at the bookshop Shakespeare and Company. He visited Craig in Saint-Germain-en-Laye with the art dealer Bruno Conrad and on subsequent meetings acquired parts of his collection and other works as thanks for financial support. Heim remained in Paris until the start of the Russian campaign and was known above all for his reports from July 1941 to September 1942 of Hitler's "table talk" at the Berghof. In autumn 1942 he became head of the department dealing with basic aspects of the reordering of Europe. After the war he was interned by the US military government as a former Nazi until the end of 1948.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Peter Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter. Führung der NSDAP und Kontrolle des Staatsapparates durch den Stab Heß und Bormanns Partei-Kanzlei, München 1992.

Publications by the person / institution

Werner Jochmann (Hg.), Adolf Hitler. Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941–1944, aufgezeichnet von Heinrich Heim, München 2000.

Archives

ÖTM-Archiv, NL Edward Gordon Craig, 2 Varia, Brief von Heinrich Heim an Edward Craig, Januar 1967.

GND: 116656255

VIAF: 769782

Wikidata: Q118681