Otto Wallburg

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Otto Wallburg as a young actor (Bern, 1909)

Otto Wallburg , actually Otto Maximilian Wasserzug (born February 21, 1889 in Berlin ; † October 30, 1944 in Auschwitz concentration camp ), was a German actor . As a cabaret artist , he was considered the fastest- speaking comedian in the world at the time.

Live and act

Otto Wallburg, who was born as the fourth child of a Jewish banker , first completed a commercial apprenticeship in a machine factory after completing secondary school - probably at the request of his father - which he broke off to become an actor. After attending the drama school founded by Max Reinhardt , he made his debut in 1909 in the role of Brandner in Goethe's Faust at Reinhardt's Deutschem Theater Berlin . After first engagements in Bern , Halberstadt and at Arthur Hellmer's New Theater in Frankfurt am Main (1913/14) Wallburg was drafted into military service and received the Iron Cross on the Eastern Front . After a serious wound he returned to Frankfurt and from April 1916 worked again at the New Theater. After trying unsuccessfully as a director, Wallburg turned to cabaret in the early 1920s and performed repeatedly in the Frankfurt “Astoria”.

In 1926 Otto Wallburg accepted an engagement at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater Berlin. After having embodied lovers, bon vivants and nature lovers at the beginning of his stage career, after a considerable increase in his body weight he now switched to the cheeky, flippant character subject . Among other things, he played in the music revue It is in the air in the comedy on Kurfürstendamm . Because of his slurred, hasty way of speaking, critics and audiences affectionately called him the "Bubbler". Otto Wallburg also made his film debut in 1926. After supporting roles in several silent films, the first sound film role followed in 1930 in Gustav Ucicky's comedy Hokuspokus . Larger roles follow in the films Who Takes Love Seriously? (1931), The Congress is dancing (1931) and child, I'm looking forward to your visit (1933).

After the National Socialist accession to government in January 1933, Otto Wallburg lost his contract with Ufa and shortly afterwards his theater engagement in Berlin. In 1934 he was temporarily able to work again at Arthur Hellmer's New Theater in Frankfurt, but he soon moved with his family to Austria , where he found work with Joe Pasternak , the production manager at Universal. Until 1936 he was in front of the camera for several other films, none of which were allowed to be shown in Germany.

After the German troops marched in in March 1938, Otto Wallburg fled via France to Amsterdam , where he worked with Kurt Gerron and Rudolf Nelson at the Joodsche Schouwberg Theater , a Jewish cabaret. After the Netherlands was occupied by German troops in May 1940 , he went into hiding in 1943, but was arrested the following year after being denounced. He had considered emigrating to the United States , but prepared too late.

After being deported to the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands , the diabetic Otto Wallburg was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto on July 31, 1944 and from there on to the Auschwitz concentration camp on October 28, where he was murdered in the gas chamber .

Otto Wallburg was married at least three times: with the Swiss actress Lisa Brosow (one son Reinhard), with the daughter of a print shop owner, Anna Luise Theis (two daughters), and - in exile in Amsterdam - with Ilse Rein.

Filmography (selection)

literature

  • Kay Less : Between the stage and the barracks. Lexicon of persecuted theater, film and music artists from 1933 to 1945 . With a foreword by Paul Spiegel . Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-10-9 , p. 364.
  • Kay Less: 'In life, more is taken from you than given ...'. Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. S. 524 ff., ACABUS-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrich Liebe: Adored, persecuted, forgotten. Actor as a Nazi victim. 2nd Edition. Beltz Quadriga, Weinheim u. a. 1997, ISBN 3-88679-292-7 , p. 182.
personal data
SURNAME Wallburg, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wasserzug, Otto Maximilian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH October 30, 1944
Place of death Auschwitz concentration camp , Poland