Circus Lorch
The Circus Lorch was a traditional, medium-sized circus from Germany. The Lorch family's circus company existed from the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century and then again at the end of the 1920s. You were mainly in southern Germany, but also in Upper Franconia and Thuringia , Switzerland and Austria .
Circus Lorch - roots
The company was run by the Jewish Lorch family as early as the 19th century. Like his father Hirsch (1817–1901), the brothers Adolph (1845–1918) and Louis (1847–1924) later owned their own circus. Before the turn of the century, the brothers got together. You now traveled primarily in southern Germany and Switzerland as the Lorch Brothers Circus. The program included B. demanding horse training and artistic attractions. So the children of Louis appeared as first-class Icarians - the Lorch siblings.
The Circus Lorch had its winter quarters in Eschollbrücken . The circus family had settled in the small town (now part of Pfungstadt ) in southern Hesse towards the end of the 19th century.
While the older brother Adolph continued to run the company, Louis went into business for himself with his Icarian group at the beginning of the 20th century. Director Adolph Lorch's circus existed until 1905.
The Icarians of the Lorchs
The Ikariergruppe - Lorch family - was world famous. The Lorchs performed with up to 11 artists . There were no larger Ikarier groups later. The Lorchs' troupe with their siblings and children sometimes included other artists and apprentices. The group had engagements in Europe, North and South America. The Icarians also became known as the "Lorch Family" in the USA and Great Britain. For example, you made guest appearances in the Ringling Brothers' circus in 1910, in “ Ringling Bros World's Greatest Shows”. In the winter months the Lorchs were engaged in New York theaters and variety shows. The tour in the States lasted for several years, from 1909 to 1912.
Although the founder Louis was always there, the Lorchs' Icarian group was later led by his eldest son, Julius Lorch (1875–1942). He was also called "King of the Icarians". Julius was able to push his son Egon Lorch (1900–1954) upwards three times in a row so that he performed a double somersault.
The Lorch family accompanied the Sarrasani Circus on its first trip to South America (1923 to 1925). Louis died in 1924 while on tour in Buenos Aires (Palermo), Argentina .
Circus Lorch in the late 1920s
Around 1927 the brothers Julius, Arthur and Rudolf took over the Circus W. Althoff and now ran their own circus company. They re-founded the Circus Lorch (Circus Lorch GmbH). While the brothers accepted engagements in the winter months as the “Lorch Family”, they were preferably on the road with their circus in southern Germany during the summer months. In addition to the Lorchs, z. B. also Therese Renz (famous horse rider; was married to Ernst Jakob Renz 's nephew Robert). But at the end of 1930 the brothers had to give up. The increasing anti-Semitism , the hostility and boycott associated with it were, along with the effects of the global economic crisis, major reasons why the circus had to file for bankruptcy.
To the Lorch circus family
As the profession often brought with it, the Lorchs were also related to other circus families. These connections were both family and professional. For example, the Lorch family was related by marriage to the famous Althoffs . Louis Lorch's eldest daughter Rosa (1876–1959) married Alphonse Althoff (1877–1916) from the Althoff circus dynasty and went to New York with him at the beginning of the 20th century. The couple's daughters were later well-known variety artists in the USA.
During the time of National Socialism , many members of the circus family were deported and, such as B. Arthur (1882–1942), Eugen (1885–1943) and Rudolf Lorch (1893–1944) in Auschwitz concentration camp , murdered.
Julius Lorch's granddaughter Irene Storms Bento (1923-2006) was a circus rider. She fell in love with the clown Peter Storms Bento (1923–2013), who worked for Circus Adolf Althoff, whom she was finally able to marry after the end of the National Socialist regime. With her family, including her mother Alice Danner, geb. Lorch (1902–1993) and her sister Gerda (* 1927) survived the Nazi regime in the Circus Adolf Althoff, thanks to the courage of the circus director Adolf Althoff (1913–1998) and his wife Maria.
literature
- August H. Kober: The big number. History and fates of famous circus and variety acts . Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 1925.
- Marlies Lehmann-Brune: The Althoffs. History and stories about the largest circus dynasty in the world . Look around, Frankfurt / M. 1991, ISBN 3-524-69096-3 .
- Ingeborg Prior: The clown and the circus rider. A love in the dark . Piper, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-492-22832-1 .
- Wolfgang Roth: Jews in Eschollbrücken . Self-published, Pfungstadt 1996.
- Stephanie Goethals, Manfred Heinrich, Carsten Jeserigk, Angela Jobs, Monica Kingreen, Wolfgang Roth and Sonja Wegener: Farewell without return. Jewish life in Pfungstadt from 1933 to 1945 . City of Pfungstadt, 2007, ISBN 978-3-9805103-2-5 .
documentary
- Raymond Toussaint: De Omdraai. Peter Bento tells about the Lorch and Bento families. Moving Media Productions (Netherlands), 1993, S16mm film / video.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento from November 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) A man of the ring (published on May 14, 2013 00:06 on echo-online.de)