Erich Franz (actor)

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Erich Franz during the 1959 Workers' Festival in Merseburg

Erich Franz (born November 5, 1903 in Laurahütte , Upper Silesia, † February 10, 1961 in Berlin ) was a German actor who primarily embodied characters from the working class.

Life

Erich Franz was only discovered for professional acting at the age of 47 by Manfred Wekwerth and Bertolt Brecht . He was born the fifth child of a worker widow. His father, a steelworker, had a fatal accident at the blast furnace. Franz had completed an apprenticeship as a lathe operator from 1917 to 1920 and worked as a miner in Laurahütte. Since his youth he was also politically active, first from 1920 in the SPD , from 1923 in the USPD and from 1925 in the KPD . In addition, he appeared within the labor movement as an amateur actor and choir director. He was arrested several times as a participant in the strike.

After the National Socialists came to power , he emigrated in 1937 via Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Union , where he worked as a miner in the Karaganda Basin. He also attended an antifa school there .

He returned to Germany in the GDR in 1949 . In the same year he became a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB) and the Society for German-Soviet Friendship (DSF). In 1950 he joined the Kulturbund . He worked as a lathe operator at VEB Kranbau Köthen . There he also became a member of Manfred Wekwerth's Dramatic Circle . Franz and Wekwerth were engaged by the Berliner Ensemble in 1951 after a Brecht performance and a subsequent audition in Berlin .

Erich Franz was on the stage of this theater until his untimely death in 1961. In addition, he was increasingly involved in DEFA films and radio plays and also worked as a voice actor . He also headed the company union group of the Berliner Ensemble and, since 1957, the art union in Berlin. For almost three years from July 1958 he was a member of the parliamentary group of the Kulturbund of the People's Chamber of the GDR .

tomb

He is buried in the cemetery of the Dorotheenstadt and Friedrichswerder communities in Berlin-Mitte.

Honors

In September 1962, the Kreiskulturhaus was opened in Schönhauser Allee and Sredzkistr. reopened in what was then the Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg district after a long period of closure and named after Erich Franz. The legendary Franz Club was founded here in 1970 .

The cinema in Köthen was named Erich-Franz-Lichtspiele in September 1962 .

Awards

literature

  • Handbook of the People's Chamber of the German Democratic Republic, 3rd electoral period, Kongress-Verlag, Berlin 1959, pp. 272f.
  • Klaus-Dieter Winzer: Playing a king ... with a micrometer screw and folding rule - memories of the working-class actor Erich Franz . In: Film und Fernsehen , 12/1978.
  • Günter Reisch : Erich Franz . In: Ralf Schenk (Ed.): In front of the camera - 50 actors in Babelsberg . Henschel Verlag, Berlin 1995.
  • Frank-Burkhard Habel , Volker Wachter : Lexicon of the GDR stars. Actors from film and television. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-89602-304-7 , p. 85.

Filmography

theatre

Radio plays

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmut Baierl : Remember Erich Franz . In: Neues Deutschland , February 10, 1971, p. 4.
  2. ↑ Meeting point after work . In: Berliner Zeitung . September 14, 1962, p. 8 .
  3. ↑ History: First demonstration in 1908 . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, April 5, 2013
personal data
SURNAME Franz, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actors and politicians (SPD, USPD, KPD), MdV
DATE OF BIRTH 5th November 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Laurahütte
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 1961
Place of death Berlin