Andrew Thorndike

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Andrew Thorndike (born August 30, 1909 in Frankfurt am Main , † December 14, 1979 in Berlin ) worked as a director, screenwriter and scenarioist for the documentary film of the GDR .

Life

Thorndike's ancestors belonged to the pilgrim fathers on the " Mayflower " in 1620 . His father was Dr. Andrew Thorndike III , the general director and chairman of the supervisory board of the hugenbergsche Allgemeine Werbung GmbH (Ala) from 1920 to 1932 and from 1932 to 1944 managing director of August Scherl GmbH. Hugenberg's father was Hugenberg's shop steward as head of the general advertising company from 1914 and from 1918 to 1920 managing director of Auslands GmbH. In July 1915, the father became head of the Krupp news office and was a member of the board of directors of DLG . The son Andrew Thorndike grew up in Senzig and attended school in Königs Wusterhausen. After graduating from high school in 1928, he began an apprenticeship as a businessman at Scherl-Verlag. In 1930 he worked for the "Württembergische Zeitung". He was employed at UFA from 1931 , in the advertising film department from 1933. From 1939 he served at the police reserve in Dresden. From 1941 he worked as a director of cultural films, including for educational films for the Wehrmacht High Command. His cultural film Die Herrin des Hofes , made in 1942, was intended to show “the versatile and responsible work of a farmer's wife”, but was banned. After extensive reworking, it was given the title “popular education” and was premiered on December 22, 1942. Thorndike was arrested on suspicion of "decomposing military strength" and drafted into the Wehrmacht .

In Soviet captivity he became a member of the National Committee "Free Germany" (NKFD) and graduated from the Antifa school . In 1948 he returned to Germany and from 1949 worked as a director at the DEFA studio for newsreels and documentaries.

While working on the project Stalin and the German people , Andrew Thorndike was lured to West Berlin on April 9, 1953 with a fake telegram , arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting treason of the Federal Republic of Germany and brought to Karlsruhe . After international protests against this practice, Thorndike was released in July 1953. According to the latest findings, Thorndike was only one suspect among dozen who died on 9/10. April 1953 in West Berlin and the FRG within the " Aktion Vulkan " were arrested. Because of the pragmatic attitude of one of his defense lawyers, the GDR lawyer Friedrich Karl Kaul , and the federal prosecutor Carlo Wiechmann , there was no trial.

Andrew Thorndike became a member of the GDR Academy of Arts in 1961 . In 1967 he founded the Association of Film and TV Workers in the GDR and was its president until his death.

His first marriage to his wife Irma in the 1930s had the children Andrew V., Jan and Peggy. Andrew's illegitimate son Gregor was also born during this marriage. Because of Gregor there was a divorce. In 1953, Andrew Thorndike married Annelie Kunigk , whom he met while working on a film. In her third marriage Thorndike was married to Helga Schrader, from this marriage the children Katharina and Andreas come.

Andrew Thorndike's films (selection)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans-Michael Bock : “ CineGraph . Lexicon for German-Language Films ". Lg. 10. Munich: Edition text + kritik 1988.
  2. ↑ Immo Eberl , Helmut Marcon (edit.): "150 Years of Doctorate at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tübingen: Biographies of Doctors, Honorary Doctors and Habilitation, 1830-1980", (1984) Stuttgart 1984, p. 93.
  3. ↑ Heidrun Holzbach: The "Hugenberg System". The organization of bourgeois collection policy before the rise of the NSDAP , Stuttgart 1981, p. 53.
  4. ↑ Immo Eberl, Helmut Marcon (edit.): "150 Years of Doctorate at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tübingen: Biographies of Doctors, Honorary Doctors and Habilitation, 1830-1980", (1984) Stuttgart 1984, p. 93.
  5. ^ Paul Hoser: The political, economic and social background of the Munich daily press between 1914 and 1934, methods of influencing the press , Frankfurt am Main 1990, p. 187
  6. ^ Hans Barkhausen: Film Propaganda for Germany in the First and Second World War , Hildesheim 1982, p. 81.
  7. ^ CineGraph Lexicon for German-language film 1984ff edition text + kritik in Richard Boorberg Verlag, Munich
  8. ↑ Jens Michalski: Andrew Thorndike and the imploded "volcano" . Treibgut Verlag, Berlin 2008.
personal data
SURNAME Thorndike, Andrew
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German documentary filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH August 30, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 1979
Place of death Berlin