Alfred Greven

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Alfred Greven (born October 9, 1897 in Elberfeld , † February 9, 1973 in Cologne ) was a German film producer .

Life

The son of the businessman Franz Joseph Greven and his wife Augusta Minna Emilie, née Freytag, attended the high school and the reform high school in Düsseldorf , Stuttgart and Leipzig . After the outbreak of World War I, he volunteered for the infantry in September 1914. In 1914 and 1915 he was seriously wounded. Since July 1917 he flew missions for the Jagdgeschwader II. Lieutenant Greven was awarded the Iron Cross II. And I. Class.

From 1920 he worked for the film in distribution and distribution. Between 1922 and 1924 he managed the Leipzig branch of the Film- und Lichtspiel AG and was active as a managing director at various Berlin and other cinemas in the late 1920s. On December 24, 1931, he joined the NSDAP with membership number 861.517 . So he's an old fighter .

Apart from a production assistant for the film Trenck 1932, Greven's career as a film producer only began after the National Socialists came to power in 1933. From 1933 to 1934 he was head of the specialist group production manager in the Reichsfachschaft Film , then chairman of the specialist committee for film production of the Reichsfilmkammer . When Terra Filmkunst GmbH was founded in Berlin on June 26, 1937 , he took on the position of head of production. Occasionally he continued to produce himself, including the detective film parody The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes .

On March 1, 1939, he was appointed by Joseph Goebbels as head of production at UFA to succeed Ernst Hugo Correll . At the end of May he received his dismissal without notice following an intervention by Karl Hanke . On October 1, 1940, Goebbels appointed him managing director of the newly founded, officially French production company Continental Films SA. His immediate superior was Max Winkler .

Greven acquired several European film companies for Continental Films and converted them into subsidiaries. His Continental Films became the dominant French film company. Under his aegis, several critically acclaimed productions were made, including the thriller The Raven by director Henri-Georges Clouzot . In the summer of 1944 he left Paris in the direction of Düsseldorf.

After the war, Greven testified in March 1949 as a sworn witness in Hamburg at the trial of Veit Harlan . He explained that Alf Teichs developed the idea for the film Jud Suss and pushed for its realization. Nothing is known about its denazification . He initially worked as a bank advisor in post-war Germany and played a key role in founding a film financing company in 1950. At the end of 1952 he ran for the post of head of production at the Norddeutschen Filmkontor, but criticism arose because of his past. At the end of May 1953, the project failed, not least because of the unsolved occupation of a key position.

In October 1953 he founded Alfred Greven Film GmbH in Düsseldorf, which moved its headquarters to Cologne in 1958. In 1959 he himself directed an advertising film for NATO entitled Alarm in the Mediterranean .

Filmography

literature

  • ULD [= Ulrich Döge]: Alfred Greven. In: Hans-Michael Bock (ed.): CineGraph - Lexicon for German-language film . LG 34, D 1-15. Edition Text + Criticism, München 2000.
  • Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 3: F - H. Barry Fitzgerald - Ernst Hofbauer. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 392.
  • Kathrin Engel: German cultural policy in occupied Paris 1940–1944: film and theater . In: Paris historical studies . tape 63 . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-486-56739-X .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Greven, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German film producer
DATE OF BIRTH October 9, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Elberfeld
DATE OF DEATH February 9, 1973
Place of death Cologne