Claudius Kraushaar

Samuel "Claudius" Kraushaar (born January 21, 1878 in Vienna ; † June 13, 1955 in Stuttgart ) was an Austrian theater director who ran the theater on Kleine Königstrasse in Stuttgart from 1923 to 1933 . Because he was of Jewish descent, the city of Stuttgart forced him in 1934 to sell the theater that belonged to him. After the war there were years of legal battles over refunds and reparations.

biography

Background and family

Claudius Kraushaar came from a petty-bourgeois Jewish family who had come to Vienna from Krakow . He was the first of four children of Feibusch Philipp and Rachel Rosel Kraushaar (nee Weingrün) and originally had the first name Samuel . Nothing is known about his youth and education. In 1903 he described himself as a “writer” and called himself Siegfried Kraus . On registration slips from 1915 he stated his status as married and his religious affiliation as Protestant . Presumably he converted to the Protestant faith on the occasion of his marriage, since his wife Maria Helene Mayerhans (born in Stuttgart in 1883) belonged to this denomination. Before the marriage, the son Hubert Reinhard was born in Geneva in 1906; the daughter Edith Hilde was born in Stuttgart in 1916.

Professional background

Altes Schauspielhaus in Stuttgart (2017)

Siegfried Kraus initially worked as a journalist until he discovered his passion for the theater. He began as an actor in traveling theater companies; it is not known when he took the name Claudius Kraushaar .

In 1909 Claudius Kraushaar appeared in the theater in the Kleine Königstrasse in Stuttgart, his wife's hometown, in Kabale und Liebe von Schiller as the prince's valet. It was the first premiere in the newly opened theater (now called the Altes Schauspielhaus ), which offered an alternative to the “rigid educational theater ” of the Royal Court Theater with a colorful program . In 1910 the Schauspielhaus-Betrieb GmbH was founded for the theater and Kraushaar was its deputy director. Although a director was superordinate to him as superior, since the owner of this post changed more frequently, he was able to establish himself and, after becoming a member of the supervisory board in 1919, was appointed director himself from the beginning of the 1923/24 season. With this, "the right man came to the fore", as the theater critic Hermann Missenharter wrote. Kraushaar took over the now over-indebted house "in a desolate state".

From 1912, Kraushaar and his brother-in-law Ferdinand Mayerhans had gradually acquired shares in the Schauspielhaus-Betrieb GmbH and shares in the Theaterbau-AG , which owned the building. In 1931 the Kraushaar couple bought the property for 400,000 Reichsmarks . The theater flourished, and Kraushaar not only managed to pay off old debts, but also had the building expanded and renovated. His house was considered one of the most profitable private theaters of the Weimar Republic , and Kraushaar himself came to some prosperity; so he bought other properties in downtown Stuttgart and in Austria. From 1922 to 1928 he also ran the Wilhelma Theater in Bad Cannstatt as a leaseholder as a summer stage. In her history of the Schauspielhaus, Gisela Fechner judges Kraushaar's work: "Under his leadership, the house experienced a glamorous era from 1922 to 1933 and gained the reputation of a first-class stage beyond the city limits."

Kraushaar's success was based on a successful mixture of "light and demanding theater food", whereby he preferred contemporary socio-critical and expressionist pieces to the classics; the repertoire was "versatile, modern and brave". Nationalist content, on the other hand, had no chance with him. The program included pieces by Hauptmann , Ibsen , Strindberg , Wedekind , Sternheim , Schnitzler and Bronnen . Kraushaar traveled to all the important premieres, and if he liked the pieces, he sometimes secured the performance rights that same evening. The actor Oscar Heiler reported about Kraushaar as boss in his memoir: “Kraushaar was the classical theater director; he spared his young people nothing. Everything had to be done, from time to time selling tickets at the box office, prompting at the rehearsals, [...] lending a hand in the painter's hall [...]. "

Missenharter wrote: "It was thanks to him (Kraushaar) [...] that Stuttgart [...] not only had the avant-garde of the dramatists speak at once, but also the prominent actors [...] made regular guest appearances here (sic)." Reopening after the renovation in 1926, the former silent film star Asta Nielsen appeared on the Stuttgart stage as Rita Cavallini . For the first time, a black jazz orchestra performed with its revue Black People, the Chocolade Kiddies . Otto Falckenberg's ensemble performed comedies, with Heinz Rühmann in the lead role . The company of Max Reinhardt , the Vienna Burgtheater and the Moscow Hebrew Art Theater Habima gave further guest performances . New Year's Eve 1927, The Sorcerer of Edgar Wallace listed.

In January 1929 , a few months after its premiere in Berlin, the Threepenny Opera was on the program with a twelve-piece jazz orchestra and was then performed 120 times in a row. Brecht and Weill attended some rehearsals. Willy Reichert played the Mackie knife and Margarete Haagen played Mrs. Peachum. At Kraushaar, theater stars like Albert Bassermann , Käthe Dorsch , Tilla Durieux , Curt Bois , Heinrich George , Fritzi Massary and Elisabeth Bergner were on the stage, but also younger actors like Ida Ehre and Marlene Dietrich .

After 1933: expelled from the theater

Although Claudius Kraushaar had been a Protestant since 1915, he was considered a Jew in the eyes of the National Socialists , albeit living in a “ privileged mixed marriage ” with an “ Aryan ”. As such as as an artist, he was caught in the crossfire of National Socialist agitation. After the “ seizure of power ”, the theater was briefly occupied in March 1933 and Kraushaar was prohibited from continuing to run the theater. The building was smeared with slogans like “Saujude”, and Kraushaar itself was badly insulted. In May, police chief Rudolf Klaiber banned the performance of the operetta A Woman Who Knows What She Wants from Oscar Straus , with Trude Hesterberg in the lead role, as it is an "artistically worthless and immoral play" about a prostitute. The Nazi courier on May 6th welcomed the fact that the “Jewish guest performance” had been “blown”.

Kraushaar was also accused of illegal money and gold deals. In the following weeks he was forced to give up the theater license, forced to lease his theater to the general director of the State Theater, and he was expelled from the German Theater Association because he was no longer acceptable as a Jew and “cultural Bolshevik”. The “staunch National Socialist” new general manager Otto Krauss was “pleased” about the takeover of the theater, since the audience could now be “gradually educated”, especially since the “light fare was mostly in the hands of Jewish publishers”.

In 1934 the city, "above all" the "anti-Jewish" Stuttgart city ​​treasurer Walter Hirzel , urged the Kraushaar couple to sell the theater by threatening them with the termination of a mortgage from the municipal savings bank. With the help of his wife and brother-in-law, both "Aryans", Kraushaar tried to avert the sale. Hirzel is supposed to do this with the words “Jud remains Jud. It must be sold ”have refused. After all, the couple had to sell their private house and theater below their value, but were not allowed to freely dispose of the purchase price. The theater was taken over by the author and director Max Heye, who initially rented it from Kraushaar and later from the city, which he said he preferred to "lease it from the Jew Kraushaar".

The couple lived one after the other in various Stuttgart hotels before they moved to Vienna in 1937, where they also lived in hotels until they moved into an apartment registered with the wife. They had to vacate them in December 1942 after they had previously paid the Jewish property tax of 19,750 Reichsmarks and then had to transfer their remaining assets to the Wiener Länderbank. Kraushaar was imprisoned several times, most recently in August 1944.

The son Hubert emigrated to England in 1933, from there to the USA . His sister Hilde, who studied singing, first moved to Vienna with her parents, fled from there to Switzerland and then followed her brother to the USA. The children had sent their parents train tickets to Switzerland, but they could no longer redeem them.

Kraushaar's brother Alfred and his wife Irene were murdered on November 5, 1942 in the Riga-Kaiserwald concentration camp , his sister Gisela in the Maly Trostinez extermination camp and his brother-in-law Jacob Teller in the Theresienstadt concentration camp . Kraushaar's brother Lobel, who was two years older than him, died in Vienna in 1900 at the age of 23.

After 1945: struggle for reparations

Grave site in the Stuttgart forest cemetery

Two months after the end of the war in 1945, a letter from the lawyer Alfons Nagel reached the Reparation Office in Stuttgart. Although he was only briefly acquainted with Kraushaar, not commissioned by him and without his knowledge, Nagel, who had campaigned for Jewish citizens from 1933, requested the city of Stuttgart “to return the theater property to the rightful owner of Kraushaar as soon as possible”. The Kraushaars power of attorney to act on their behalf was only given to Nagel the following year. These were now impoverished and received state support in Vienna. The then Mayor of Stuttgart Arnulf Klett refused to return the theater: “Political conditions in Germany in 1935 had developed in such a way that Mr Kraushaar probably thought it advisable to return to his Austrian homeland and take his assets with him from Germany. Klett did not see a “moral obligation” as everything was “carried out correctly” and Kraushaar had been paid the full value.

On February 17, 1946, the American military government confiscated the property and came to the conclusion that Kraushaar had had to sell it under pressure and significantly below its value. Among the names of the officers who signed the document was that of Carl Zuckmayer , who was of the opinion that the city would return the theater. Lawyer Nagel was appointed trustee by the Americans.

In October 1948, the lawyer Benno Ostertag , who was well-known in reparation issues, took over the legal representation of the Kraushaars at the side of Nagel and submitted an official application for a refund. This was followed by lengthy negotiations "with hard work". In April 1949 a partial settlement was made, whereby the sale from 1934 was declared null and void. Ultimately, the restitution of all property - including the former private house - of the Kraushaar couple dragged on for years. In autumn 1949 Kraushaar took over the management of the theater again, but, now 70 years old and worn down by the experiences of the Nazi era and the legal disputes, he was unable to build on his old successes. In March 1950 he finally leased the theater to the Württemberg State Theaters.

During the last years of his life, Claudius Kraushaar lived with his wife in an apartment on the first floor of the theater, in which he had his own box, from which he continued to watch the events. He died on June 13, 1955 in the Robert Bosch Hospital in Stuttgart. His work was recognized in obituaries: “A king of the stage has passed away, an artist, a person”, according to the Stuttgarter Zeitung . "With the Stuttgart theater friends, the German theater world mourns one of its best". His fate during the Nazi era was only "vaguely hinted at" in the obituaries.

After Kraushaar's death, his wife and children continued the legal battle. Among other things, a compensation payment to Kraushaar for suffering imprisonment was rejected, as it "only" lasted 26 days. Finally, the city of Stuttgart bought the theater in the summer of 1961 for 3.9 million DM. The building then stood empty for two decades.

The daughter Edith and the son Hubert had taken the surname Kent during their stay in the USA and both later called themselves Kent-Kraushaar . Hubert Kent died in 1997, his sister in 2001, both in Stuttgart and without descendants. After Edith Kent-Kraushaar's death, their fortune of ten million DM went to five organizations, including a foundation for the promotion of young musicians and an animal welfare association.

The Kraushaar couple and their two children Hubert and Edith are buried together in a family grave in the forest cemetery in Stuttgart (Dept. 73B, No. 23675).

memory

In 1984 the old theater was reopened after extensive renovation. The name of Claudius Kraushaar can be found on a board in the foyer in a row with his predecessors and successors.

In December 2016, the revue A Dance on the Volcano was performed in the Alten Schauspielhaus Stuttgart , in which the figure of Claudius Kraushaar plays a connecting role between individual anecdotes.

literature

• Ingrid Bauz / Sigrid Brüggemann / Roland Maier: “You don't need to come any more!” The suppression of artists of Jewish faith and of Jewish descent from the Stuttgart theater and music scene by the National Socialists . Bauz, Stuttgart 2008, p. 12-13 .
• Gisela Fechner: A Century of Theater History. 100 years old Schauspielhaus Stuttgart . Ed .: Carl Philip von Maldeghem / Manfred Langner. Hohenheim, Stuttgart / Leipzig 2009, ISBN 978-3-89850-197-2 .
• Anat Feinberg : Back in the spotlight. Jewish returnees in German theaters after 1945 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-8353-3245-4 , The rise and fall of Mr. K., p. 235-283 .

References and comments

1. ↑ without title. In: stadtarchiv.stuttgart.findbuch.net. Retrieved September 12, 2018 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 237.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Weingrun family. In: ics.uci.edu. Retrieved September 12, 2018 . 
4. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 238.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Feinberg, Again in the Spotlight , p. 239.
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Fechner, A Century of Theater History , p. 29.
7. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 246.
8. ^ Fechner, A Century of Theater History , p. 41.
9. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , pp. 241f.
10. ↑ ^{a b c} Fechner, A Century of Theater History , p. 31.
11. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 243.
12. ↑ ^{a b} Fechner, A Century of Theater History , p. 32.
13. ↑ ^{a b} Fechner, A Century of Theater History , p. 35.
14. ^ Fechner, A Century of Theater History , p. 33.
15. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 241.
16. ↑ Willy Reichert and his colleague Oscar Heiler both began their careers under Kraushaar and later became known as Häberle and Pfleiderer .
17. ↑ Feinberg, Again in the Spotlight , pp. 243f.
18. ↑ Roland Müller: Stuttgart at the time of National Socialism . Konrad Theiss, Stuttgart 1988, p. 123 .
19. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 247.
20. ↑ ^{a b} Bauz / Brüggemann / Maier: “You don't need to come any more!”. P. 13
21. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 248.
22. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 248.
23. ^ Fechner, A Century of Theater History , p. 37.
24. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 250.
25. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 251.
26. ↑ Roland Müller: Stuttgart at the time of National Socialism . Konrad Theiss, Stuttgart 1988, p. 124 .
27. ↑ ^{a b} Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 252.
28. ^ Fechner, A Century of Theater History , p. 42.
29. ↑ Feinberg, Again in the Spotlight , pp. 253f.
30. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 256.
31. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 261.
32. ↑ Feinberg, Again in the Spotlight , pp. 260f.
33. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , pp. 266f.
34. ^ "Claudius Kraushaar died" in Schwäbische Zeitung of June 18, 1955, p. 8.
35. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 272.
36. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 273.
37. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 283.
38. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 282.
39. ↑ Feinberg, Back in the Spotlight , p. 273.
40. ↑ A journey through time - drunk with champagne and pensive - TheaterNETZ. In: theaternetz.jpbw.de. December 25, 2016, accessed September 12, 2018 .