Armin Wick

Armin Wick (born December 20, 1914 in Hamburg ; † March 19, 2008 in Hamburg) was a German actor, stage and film director, award-winning filmmaker and lecturer in art history.

From the twenties to the war

childhood

Armin Wick grew up as the son of the Hamburg painter Robert Wick in Wandsbek , which is now a district of Hamburg. As a child, signs of his passions painting, theater and film became noticeable. He took part in the Wendemuth children's circus and received violin lessons from the Hamburg composer Hugo Rüter when he was six. Wick befriended a projectionist and quickly became a cineast who watched everything that flickered across the screen in the 1920s.

He accompanied his father to Berlin and made the acquaintance of his foster mother Andrea L'Arronge, granddaughter of Adolph L'Arronge , one of the co-founders of the German theater , in the Sarotti branch on Unter den Linden . Wick commuted back and forth between Hamburg and Berlin, took advantage of the cultural offerings in the Reich capital and over the years made the acquaintance of the painter Jeanne Mammen and the painter Max Liebermann , who helped his father organize an exhibition. Wick made his musical debut at the age of twelve with a violin solo in the Hamburg Music Hall .

education

At 16, Wick left school and started training as a window dresser at the Hamburg fashion house Hirsch & Cie . He later moved to the Hermann Tietz department store and also attended the State School of Applied Arts in Lerchenfeld (today: Hamburg University of Fine Arts ).

In 1930 most cinemas switched from silent films to talkies . In 1932 he met the film director Erich Waschneck in Berlin and watched the filming of his film Eight Girls in a Boat . The following year, Wick, who had registered for an audition with Gustaf Gründgens , became a production assistant for Waschneck's sound film Impossible Love with Asta Nielsen .

In the late summer of 1933 he auditioned in the presence of Gründgens, Lucie Höflich and Friedrich Kayssler in the Berlin theater on Gendarmenmarkt . He received a scholarship and began acting training at the Hamburg German Theater with director Karl Wüstenhagen . He received dance lessons from Lola Rogge and foil lessons from Stefan von Keric. In the Schauspielhaus he played a small role alongside Gustav Knuth in Wilhelm Tell .

However, Wick switched to Erich Ziegel in the Thalia Theater and was taught by Ernst Fritz Fürbringer , Albrecht Schoenhals and Ferdinand Marian . He took tap lessons and tinkered with his own revue, in which he included melodies on the index of composers. Through the director Fritz Wendhausen, Wick got a small role in the film Peer Gynt with Hans Albers in the title role. He befriended the popular folk actor while filming. In 1936, Wick completed his final examination in acting and went to Berlin.

Actors and dancers

The Dietrich Eckart stage (today the Berlin Waldbühne ) was built on the occasion of the Summer Olympics in 1936 . Through the Berlin artist agency Koschmieder, Wick was commissioned to perform the monologues alongside the young actress Toni van Eyck and to dance Achilles in the Penthesilea scene for the opening spectacle of the open-air stage entitled The Amazons .

From childhood friends with the clown Grock in Hamburg, Wick visited the jester after one of his performances in the Berlin Scala in the cloakroom. Here he made the acquaintance of the director of the variety show , whom he told about his planned revue. He showed interest and Wick contacted the director the following year and presented his concept. Wick's Revue World Tour Totally Crazy was to premiere in January 1938 at Scala. But during a rehearsal in which, as a colored man, he was tapping to melodies by George Gershwin and Irving Berlin , four gentlemen from the Reich Chamber of Culture entered the hall. Wick's effort to convince the gentlemen that the Harlem number was a parody, however, failed; they disparagingly described what they saw as "the worst, Yiddish nigger howl". The rehearsals were discontinued and he was immediately drafted by the Wehrmacht in order, as it was said, to have "ample opportunity to reflect on his Germanness ".

Military interlude

In the Graf Kolz barracks in Rahlstedt near Hamburg, Wick, like many others, had to undergo a tough drill. For an upcoming celebration with NCOs, company commander Sander gave him the order to put on a little dance performance. He stitched something that was received with enthusiasm. He was then summoned to lieutenant colonel von Klinkowström, who wanted to know the reason for his offense, since his file stated that he had been given a rigorous and thorough training . During the conversation, Klinkowström came out as an avowed “ Swing- Heini” and suggested that the revue be performed at a Wehrmacht celebration, including the Harlem number, except for a few deletions.

Wick has been released from duty. He was provided with an ensemble and the revue celebrated its premiere on May 21, 1938 in the Wandsbeker Stadttheater. This was followed by guest appearances in Lübeck , where Wick met General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel for the first time . During a short vacation, Klinkowström advised Wick to visit the Thalia Theater and obtain a certificate stating that his participation in one of the plays was absolutely necessary so that he could obtain his release from the military because of indispensability. He took the advice and was actually "at large" afterwards.

War years

Way to the movie

Wick went to Berlin and looked for Gründgens, who signed him, where he played small roles. Smaller engagements at the Thalia Theater followed. In 1939, through the Koschmieder agency, he got the opportunity to take on a summer engagement in the Baltic resort of Kolberg (today Kołobrzeg). Here he saw the outbreak of World War II . In the Baltic Sea he met his first wife, Gudrun Glawe, one of Otto von Bismarck's great-grandchildren . His son Harald Wick (born August 20, 1940) comes from this marriage.

In the spring of 1940, Wick came back to the UFA and became Helmut Käutner's assistant for the film Clothes Make People with Heinz Rühmann in the lead role. In the studios he met his acting teacher Ferdinand Marian , who was in front of the camera in the role of Jud Suss under the direction of Veit Harlan . Marian asked the director to cast Wick in the film. He eventually became assistant director for the crowd scenes and made the acquaintance of Heinrich George . After filming was over, Wick went to the Schillertheater in Berlin and auditioned for George, who hired him.

Even before rehearsals for the new play had begun, something unexpected happened: Heinrich George received a letter from the Propaganda Ministry saying that his two actors Will Quadflieg and Armin Wick, both born in 1914, had to be drafted into the war without delay. The director then went to see Joseph Goebbels and asked if he could keep the young actors. But Goebbels was reluctant to make concessions. He left George to choose one in the end. Will Quadflieg was allowed to stay and Wick, like many others, had to take the difficult step into an uncertain future with the Wehrmacht.

The lieutenant colonel von Klinkowström had meanwhile been promoted to general and was stationed in France. Wick, who was also supposed to move to the Western Front , managed through Klinkowström's wife to make a phone call to France to ask him to detach him on the spot. The only possibility that the general held out to him was that he should silently allow the transfer to Paris for the time being so that General von Stülpnagel would assign him to the site. So it finally happened. Wick was used by General Karl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel in the military support area. A small ensemble was put together in which Wick played and staged.

Intendancy in Cherson, Resistance in Paris

In the summer of 1941, German troops invaded the Soviet Union . The advance on land and the attempted conquest from the air led to the occupation of large parts of the USSR. General von Stülpnagel was temporarily appointed leader of the 17th Army in the Russian campaign on Hitler's orders . In his place his distant cousin Otto von Stülpnagel took over the office in Paris. In the Ukrainian city of Cherson , Stülpnagel came across a large, undamaged city theater for which he proposed Wick as artistic director to the command post in Berlin's Bendlerstrasse .

So it happened that Wick was transferred to Kherson in December of the same year. He headed the requisitioned theater until the beginning of 1943 and heard horror scenarios on site that shook him. After being grazed by a bullet in the head during an air raid by the Red Army, Wick stopped working in Ukraine and returned to Paris.

Here he fell into the hands of his former general, who used him as a secret courier for the Paris resistance . Since drama was forbidden on all sides, von Stülpnagel made it possible for him to pursue his art history studies. A few days before July 20, 1944 , the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler and the attempted coup, Wick was transferred by his general to La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast. Karl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel was executed on August 30th. Wick was now subordinate to Rear Admiral Walther. After the German surrender, he was taken prisoner near Lörrach in early May 1945 .

After just a few days, Wick was free because the prison camp's doctor was the son of the actor Aribert Wäscher , who had finished his studies in exile and had learned from the confiscated papers of the prisoners that Wick was an actor. Wick had been called to the doctor and when it turned out that he knew Wäscher from his time with Gründgens, he was commissioned to bring him a letter to Berlin stating that he had become a grandfather. Thereupon the early discharge succeeded with a certified heart failure.

Post war career

Again director and actor

Wick contacted Hans Albers again and sought out Otto Falckenberg , the former artistic director of the Münchner Kammerspiele , who feared for a license to resume his office due to incriminating evidence. Thus, Wick saw no possibility of getting an engagement in post-war Germany, and together with Ida Ehre he concentrated on founding the Hamburger Kammerspiele .

Personal differences meant that Wick ended the collaboration with Ida Ehre and joined the Junge Bühne as senior stage manager, which included well-known actors. He stayed in the association for two years and then worked as a freelance director and actor. In 1949 he worked at the side of his friend Hans Albers in Molnar's Liliom .

Art history films

In the early 1950s, Wick began to give lectures on painters in small groups. The editor of a Hamburg newspaper soon after helped him to give these lectures in larger rooms. The rush of visitors ultimately led to a large lecture hall at Hamburg University being made available to him. Wick expanded his repertoire to include country and city studies and led study trips to various major European cities.

He was also involved in founding the first German post-war cultural film department (GEA), for which he shot the cultural strip Nur ein Wiesentag in 1951 . The following year, Wick made films in Italy and France. Paris became a particular focus. He produced a two-part series about the city (1953 Parisian Impressions - On the banks of the Seine ) and 1954 In the heart of Paris . For his work he was honored by the Paris cultural authorities as the best foreign director who documented the city's aura on film. This success was certainly also due to his cameraman Werner Hundhausen. In the years that followed, Wick made other films in Paris such as Immortal Montmartre (1955) and Around Sacré-Cœur (1956), which earned him honorary citizenship of the community. He has now worked on behalf of Pathé Cinema (Paris), Cinedis and Filmsonor.

Wick spent a lot of time in his adopted country of France, mainly in Juan-les-Pins on the Côte d'Azur. Here he met the English-American actor Cary Grant , who made it possible for him to meet Alfred Hitchcock in the projection room of the studio near Nice , in the summer of 1955 while shooting his film about the Flower Festival in Ventimiglia , an Italian border town with France . Hitchcock bought Wick's footage of the Flower Festival.

Over the years, Wick met many celebrities in the fields of film and painting. In 1957 a film was made about Pablo Picasso . He had a particularly trusting relationship with Romy Schneider .

In April 1957, Wick was appointed lecturer in art history at the University of Hamburg by honorary senator Max Nonne and the rector of the Karl Schiller University of Applied Sciences. In the same year, Wick married his long-time girlfriend Lilo (Lieselotte) Schröder.

He also shot films in Hamburg and was awarded the Federal Film Prize in 1958 for his documentary Between Elbe and Reeperbahn .

Afterwards he founded his own film production. In 1967, Wick brought the painter Otto Dix in front of the camera for the documentary Twenty Years of Otto Dix . The color film was shown in the GDR in the same year on the occasion of the Xth All-German Leipzig Week for Culture and Documentary Film as a contribution from the FRG. It was bought up by the federal government soon afterwards, translated into four languages ​​and was also one of the first broadcasts of color television in the GDR, which was introduced in 1971 .

In 1967, Wick's wife developed cancer. He therefore withdrew from the film business and devoted himself to it intensively until her death in 1974. After that, he slowly gained a foothold again, made films in France, led study trips and gave more lectures.

Honors

On 21 February 1983 he organized in Hamburg St. Pauli Theater a tribute to his late friend Hans Albers in 1960, a detailed portrait under the title Hans Albers - his life - his films - his songs . In October of the same year, Wick paid homage to his beloved Hamburg for his own 50th stage anniversary and showed his old Hamburg films in Hamburg's Esplanade film theater.

He also gave lectures on theater and art history at the drama school of his long-time friend Margot Höpfner . Here he met the young Nikos Ritsikalis in November 1983. Ritsikalis became Wick's only student, whom he taught in acting, scenic design, theater and art history until 1987.

The Paris Match magazine honored Wick's achievements in 1994 with an article on his 80th birthday. Until his death, Wick lived under the care of his pupil Ritsikalis in Hamburg-Rotherbaum. He passed away after being hospitalized for several days.

Filmography (selection)

• 1950s: Alsterstadt in the spring wind
• 1950s: One night in Hamburg
• 1952: The 3 faces of Campania
• 1954: In the heart of Paris ^*
• 1955: Immortal Montmartre ^*
• 1957: Between Elbe and Reeperbahn ^*
• 1959: The last years of Vincent v. Gogh
• 1959: Trip to Blankenese
• 1960: Chomo ^*
• 1961: Paths to J.-Sebastian Bach
• 1967: 20 years of Otto Dix

^* Award

literature

• Ingrid Bigler-Marschall: Deutsches Theaterlexikon, Vol. 6, Munich, Saur 2008, p. 3305.

Web links

• Armin Wick in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• official homepage