Ludwig Wolf (musician)

Ludwig Wolf , until 1924 Ludwig Isaac , (born on December 4th, 1867 in Hamburg ; died on March 9th, 1955 there ) was a Hamburg folk singer , songwriter , comedian , vaudeville artist and horn player of Jewish origin.

Life

Plaque for Ludwig Wolf, Hütten 86 (Hamburg)

Ludwig Wolf grave, Ohlsdorf cemetery

Ludwig Wolf grew up in Hamburg-Neustadt as one of twelve children of the Hamburg journeyman butcher Isaac Joseph Isaac and the midwife Pauline Isaac . He completed an apprenticeship as an engraver and then in 1890 a year in the military. During this time he also appeared as a horn player. He had to give up subsequent training as an opera singer due to a lack of funding. After he had performed as a singer under the pseudonym Lorjé with folk songs and popular songs, for example on the Spielbudenplatz in St. Pauli , Ludwig Wolf founded the Wolf Trio in 1895, in which his two younger brothers Leopold and James Wolf also entered. The trio performed in various Hamburg opera and theater houses. In 1901 the Wolf brothers were among the founding members of the International Artist Lodge (IAL) in Hamburg. When James Wolf left the trio in 1906, Ludwig and Leopold Wolf continued as the Wolf brothers . Together with James, who went into business for himself as a newspaper dealer and later died in 1942 in the Theresienstadt ghetto , Ludwig Wolf wrote the couplet An de Eck steiht'n Jung mit'n Tüdelband in 1911 , which became a hit .

Ludwig and Leopold Wolf concentrated on entertaining the audience as vocal humorists with the help of comical costume appearances, parodic couplets, chats and antics. This also were anti-Semitic and German national stereotypes not left out, as the hamburger pepper sacks or ultra-Orthodox Jews . While the historian Frank Bajohr advocates the thesis that the statements in the texts presented by the brothers in no way contradicted their personal attitudes, their biographer Dieter Guderian strictly separates the texts aimed at a broad audience from the brothers' personal views.

Ludwig Wolf primarily took on the artistic part of the duo, in particular writing the text rhymes and setting the couplets to music, while Leopold was more concerned with business matters. Among other things, the brothers acquired the Hamburg Operettenhaus in St. Pauli . In this way they were successful in the 1910s and 1920s, additionally through record sales, but with the onset of the global economic crisis in 1929 and the further increase in anti-Semitic moods, they had fewer and fewer appearances. Finally, after the National Socialists came to power in 1933 , they were banned from performing. The Hamburg Operettenhaus became the property of NSDAP member Gustav Adolph Pohl. In 1943, Ludwig Wolf and his family had to move into a “ Judenhaus ” at Kippingstrasse 12, but survived.

After 1945, Ludwig Wolf was one of the new founders of the IAL, of which he has now become honorary chairman. He was only on stage a few times and died in March 1955 in Hamburg, where he was buried in the Ohlsdorf cemetery , plan square Bh 60 (southwest of
chapel 12).

monument

Ludwig Wolf House, Hütten 86 (Hamburg)

On May 4, 2019, a sculpture in his honor was inaugurated in front of Wolf's former home, the Hütten 86 building in Hamburg-Neustadt . The bronze figure is a representation of the young with a Tüdelband and was made by the sculptor Siegfried Assmann .

literature

• Frank Bajohr: “I only want to be German.” Jewish popular artists, anti-Jewish stereotypes and today's culture of remembrance. The example of the Hamburg folk singers "Gebrüder Wolf" . In: Marion Kaplan and Beate Meyer (eds.): Jüdische Welten. Jews in Germany from the 18th century to the present (= Hamburg Contributions to the History of German Jews; Vol. 27). Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-888-4 , pp. 373-396.
• Dieter Guderian: The Hamburg family Isaac. Life story of the folk singers Wolf brothers . D. Guderian Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-8311-2680-1 .

Web links

• Sophie Fetthauer: Ludwig Wolf In: Lexicon of persecuted musicians of the Nazi era , University of Hamburg 2006

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gerd Koch : An old bench song? In: Dreigroschenheft . Information on Bertolt Brecht. Issue 4/2013, p. 11.
2. ^ Sophie Fetthauer: Ludwig Wolf . Musicians persecuted in the lexicon of the Nazi era . Universität Hamburg 2006. Fetthauer relates her statements to the publications by Frank Bajohr listed in the bibliography: “I want to be only German.” Jewish popular artists, anti-Jewish stereotypes and today's culture of remembrance. The example of the Hamburg folk singers "Gebrüder Wolf" and Dieter Guderian: The Hamburg family Isaac. Life story of the folk singers Wolf brothers .
3. ^ Sophie Fetthauer: Ludwig Wolf In: Lexicon of persecuted musicians during the Nazi era , University of Hamburg 2006.
4. ↑ Celebrity Graves
5. ↑ A memorial for the "Jung mit'n Tüdelband" , Hamburger Abendblatt dated May 2, 2019, accessed on May 5, 2019