Ernst Hirsch (cameraman)

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Ernst Hirsch 2013

Ernst Hirsch (born July 13, 1936 in Dresden ) is a German cameraman and director who is primarily active as a documentary filmmaker . His collection of historical films about the city of Dresden is one of the largest private collections of its kind.

Life

Hirsch was born in 1936 as the son of a higher regional judge in Dresden. His father was arrested in 1946 and died in the Mühlberg camp that same year . It was not until 1998 that Hirsch found out about his father's fate. Hirsch discovered his interest in photography and filming as a child and owned a plate camera with simple laboratory equipment and a 16-millimeter camera. He attended elementary school and trained as a precision optician from 1950 to 1953 at Zeiss Ikon in Dresden . At the same time, he was a member of a company photo group and learned the film trade in an amateur film studio of the Kulturbund, which he described in retrospect as "[s] an actual apprenticeship period". The first films, including about the Dresden Zwinger , were made during his apprenticeship with Herrmann Zschoche and under the guidance of the later documentary filmmaker Manfred Gussmann . Hirsch had just finished his apprenticeship at Zeiss Ikon in 1953 when GDR television began broadcasting. With Zschoche, Hirsch came to German television in the same year . Their first joint television work was a film about Pillnitz Palace and Park in 1953 , for which Hans-Hendrik Wehding composed the film music.

From 1954 to 1968 Hirsch worked as the first film reporter in Dresden for the current camera ; During this time, around 3,000 news items were made. From 1966 to 1968, Hirsch also completed a correspondence course in journalism at a journalism school in Leipzig. From 1968 he worked as a freelance cameraman and editor in his own Hirsch-Film studio in Dresden- Niederpoyritz . Hirsch made advertising and documentary films, including films for the TV series Postcard . However, his focus was on films about Dresden art treasures, including the return of important works of art such as the Sistine Madonna . In 1983 he directed Erlebte Träume, a short animation film for DEFA-Studio für Trickfilme Dresden , as well as various real-life films. After a study trip to Italy lasting several weeks, Hirsch submitted an application to leave the GDR in 1986, which was approved in 1989. Hirsch settled in Munich with his wife and son in the same year and from 1990 worked several times as a cameraman with Peter Schamoni . Her film Max Ernst: My vagabonding - My restlessness received the Bavarian Film Prize in 1991 .

In 1993 Hirsch moved back to Dresden and settled in Bühlau . From 1994 to 2005 he documented the reconstruction of the Dresden Frauenkirche . From 1994 onwards, the seven-part documentary film series Die steinerne Glocke was created from more than 500 hours of video material , the last part of which premiered on October 24, 2005. “Never before has the rebuilding of a building been so thoroughly documented in the film,” wrote the critic. For Hirsch himself, the film series was “the highlight and the crowning conclusion of my professional career.” As early as 2001, the Society for the Promotion of the Reconstruction of the Frauenkirche had the “cinematic chronicler of the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche” Hirsch at one of their honorary members. In 2007 he also received a Medal of Honor from the Dresden Trust - the British organization that contributed to the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche - and the British-German Association. In 2008, Hirsch handed over the complete documentation of the reconstruction to the media library of the SLUB Dresden .

Ernst Hirsch in his film archive

In addition to the Dresden area, Hirsch has also made a name for himself as a collector of old film recordings from his hometown and thus as the “guardian of Dresden's cinematic archive treasure”. An extensive private archive of historical film recordings has been created since the 1950s, including films from 1903, the oldest known film recordings in Dresden. They were discovered in 1996 in a farmhouse in South Tyrol and contain 33 film cans from the Dresden company Heinrich Ernemann . Hirsch had the films restored, which premiered in the Dresden City Museum in 1996 . Various compilation films were made from the fund of his film archive, including Dresden in the 1920s , Dresden in old films and Once & Now - On the Road with the Tram . In collaboration with the Sächsische Zeitung , Hirsch has been working on the DVD series Dresdner Filmschätze since 2014 , some of which are presenting historical amateur film recordings from Dresden to the public for the first time; by 2016 five parts of the series appeared. Hirsch also regularly organizes lecture evenings and events at which parts of the archive are presented to the public.

In 1995, the discovery of a 20-minute film that came from the stock of the photojournalist Erich Höhne and was handed over to Hirsch drew wide circles . He had the film restored. These were recordings that Höhne had to shoot as a laboratory assistant for Zeiss Ikon in 1942 in the so-called " Hellerberg Jewish camp " in Dresden. Hirsch shot the 70-minute documentary The Jews Are Gone in collaboration with Ulrich Teschner . The Dresden Hellerberg camp , which contained parts of the original video and allowed contemporary witnesses to have their say. The film premiered on November 23, 1997 on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of the establishment of the Jewish camp on the Heller . The original film from 1942 was transferred to the film archive of the Federal Archives . Copies of the original and the documentary are among others in the holdings of Yad Vashem . In 1998 the book The Memory Has a Face was published that followed the fate of the people in the film. In addition, the films and pictures were part of a special exhibition that opened in 2006 in the Dresden City Hall.

On the occasion of his 65th birthday, the Dresden Leonhardi Museum honored Hirsch in 2001 with the special exhibition The Eye of Dresden . In 2008, as part of the Long Night of the Film, a retrospective on Ernst Hirsch followed in the Small House in Dresden. In 2010 the documentary film Das Auge von Dresden - Ernst Hirsch by Nanina and Peter Bauer about Ernst Hirsch was released. The Dresden City Museum honored Hirsch in 2011 with the special exhibition Dresden. Camera / Director: Ernst Hirsch - Ernst Hirsch on his 75th birthday .

In 1996, Hirsch was elected as one of four people to the media council of the Saxon State Media Authority, of which he was a member for several months. He has been a member of the Saxon Academy of the Arts since 2005 . Hirsch has lived in Dresden- Kleinzschachwitz since 2008 , is married and has two children, including the director and cameraman Konrad Hirsch, who has been working on Peter Schamoni's estate since 2012 as managing director of the Schamonifilm und Medien company in Munich. In 2016, Hirsch began work on his autobiography, which was published in 2017 under the title Ernst Hirsch: The Eye of Dresden . For his services to the city of Dresden and as “the cinematic memory of the city”, Hirsch received the Medal of Honor from the state capital of Dresden in October 2017, making it the second highest award given by the city.

be right

"Whether Ernst Hirsch points the camera at the Frauenkirche, whether he has Dresden in his sights, his sensitive gaze through the lens turns his films into unmistakable works of art."

“Ernst Hirsch from Dresden is a very subtle observer, his camera style has the utterly unpretentious nature of his being, cautiousness and solidity. Above all in his multi-layered work, the man testifies to a type of culture that has become rare in a time of declining values, and not just aesthetic categories. "

“It gives you an honest closeness to home without falling into a mess. [...] He approaches his motives, but he always maintains distance and decency. "

Filmography (selection)

  • 1953: Baroque in reconstruction
  • 1970: A Venetian painted Dresden - Bernardo Bellotto, called Canaletto
  • 1972: Artists drawing - drawings in the art of the GDR
  • 1972: Silbermann organs in Saxony
  • 1974: Bombastus mouthwash
  • 1974: Artists draw
  • 1974: Motor vehicle contribution collection procedure
  • 1975: VEB Schwermaschinenbau Lauchhammer: New trumps from Lauchhammer
  • 1975: Transport system project Leipzig: on a large scale
  • 1979: Even the Elbe was on fire
  • 1980: German painting of the Dürer period - Dürer, Cranach and Holbein in Dresden
  • 1981: Above all else, he wanted to be a painter - Peter Paul Rubens
  • 1981: The homecoming of the Madonna
  • 1982: Otto Griebel - The painter of the "Internationale"
  • 1983: Experienced dreams (also screenplay)
  • 1984: Raffael: The Sistine Madonna
  • 1984: Caspar David Friedrich - Pictures of his Life
  • 1984: Bernardo Bellotto, called Canaletto - Dresden from the right bank of the Elbe below the Augustus Bridge
  • 1986: Caspar David Friedrich - Limits of Time (only preliminary work)
  • 1987: Curt Querner - self-portrait with a thistle
  • 1988: The judgment of Paris
  • 1988: Ludwig Richter - crossing over the Elbe on the Schreckenstein
  • 1989: Otto Dix: The Eye of the World
  • 1989: Pictures of Memory - August Kotzsch - photographer in Loschwitz near Dresden
  • 1989: Paolo Veronese - The Madonna with the Cuccina family
  • 1989: Carl Gustav Carus - A personal portrait
  • 1990: Katsushika Hokusai - Views of Mount Fuji
  • 1991: Max Ernst: My vagabonding - My restlessness (camera)
  • 1995: Niki de Saint Phalle (camera)
  • 1996: "I was infinitely well ..." - Ludwig Richter in Civitella
  • 1997: The Jews are gone. The Dresden-Hellerberg camp
  • 1998: The Green Vault in Dresden
  • 1998: Painting with light - Hermann Krone
  • 1999: Majesty need the sun (camera)
  • 2000: Mr. Goethe's happy and big trip through Switzerland
  • 2006: 800 years of Dresden - 100 years of city history on film
  • 2007: Dresden in film from 1933 to 2005
  • 2008: Botero - Born in Medellín (camera)
  • 2012: 200 years of Neustift parish in the Stubaital, Tyrol
  • from 2014: Dresden Film Treasures (with Peter Ufer ; five parts)
  • 2017: Saxon film treasures - Pirna and Saxon Switzerland in the 1920s to 1960s (with Pirna and Peter Ufer film and video club)

Publications

  • 1985: August Kotzsch - photographer in Loschwitz near Dresden (as editor)
  • 2017: Ernst Hirsch: The Eye of Dresden. Autobiography

honors and awards

literature

  • Ernst Hirsch . In: Ralf Schenk (Ed.), Sabine Scholze (Red.): The Trick Factory. DEFA animation films 1955–1990 . German Institute for Animated Film , Dresden 2003, ISBN 3-929470-27-6 , p. 508.
  • Ernst Hirsch . In: Artists on the Dresden Elbhang . Volume 1. Elbhang-Kurier-Verlag, Dresden 1999, p. 75.

Web links

Commons : Ernst Hirsch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ingrid Roßki: Watchful eye behind the camera . In: Sächsische Zeitung , May 17, 2001, p. 11.
  2. ↑ Quotation from Ingrid Roßki: Watching eyes behind the camera . In: Sächsische Zeitung , May 17, 2001, p. 11.
  3. ^ Artists on the Dresden Elbhang , p. 75.
  4. ↑ Franz Werfel: Learned from the Old Masters . In: Sächsische Zeitung , December 11, 2014, p. 18.
  5. ↑ a b Karl Knietzsch: With an eye on time and things . In: Dresdner Latest News , July 13, 2001, p. 14.
  6. ↑ a b Valeria Heintges: Always close . In: Sächsische Zeitung , October 26, 2005, p. 9.
  7. ↑ a b Tomas Gärtner: DNN in conversation with the filmmaker Ernst Hirsch at the end of his documentary "The stone bell" . In: Dresdner Latest News , October 27, 2005, p. 14.
  8. ↑ Genia Bleier: The development company wants to remain active even after the building is completed . In: Dresdner Latest News , November 1, 2001, p. 11.
  9. ↑ Duke of Kent honors Güttler with a medal . In: Sächsische Zeitung , October 1, 2007, p. 19.
  10. ↑ Quarters at the Frauenkirche are opened . In: Dresdner Latest News , September 21, 2006, p. 3.
  11. ↑ Restored films. Oldest strip about Dresden from 1903 . In: Sächsische Zeitung , October 24, 1996, p. 13.
  12. ↑ Found the oldest film about Dresden . In: Sächsische Zeitung , December 5, 2014, p. 1.
  13. ^ Rom: A century of Dresden in 60 minutes . In: Sächsische Zeitung , December 2, 2016, p. 26.
  14. ↑ Heidrun Hannusch: Erich Höhne had to make a film about "Jewish camps " . In: Dresdner Latest News , August 7, 1997, p. 13.
  15. ↑ Heidrun Hannusch: “The Jews are gone. The Dresden-Hellerberg camp ”premiered yesterday . In: Dresdner Latest News , November 24, 1997, p. 11.
  16. ↑ Lisa Werner-Art: Memory has a face - an exhibition in the Kulturrathaus . In: Dresdner Latest News , April 27, 2006, p. 18.
  17. ^ Antje Beier: Stadtmuseum opens exhibition with films by Ernst Hirsch . ( Memento from July 31, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) DNN-Online.de, May 17, 2011.
  18. ↑ Private radio supervision reorganized. Saxon State Parliament elected candidates for media council . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , May 30, 1996, p. 13.
  19. ↑ Noted . In: Sächsische Zeitung , August 10, 2005, p. 20.
  20. ↑ Peter Ufer: He records the time . In: Sächsische Zeitung , July 9, 2016, p. 31. Online ( Memento from July 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive ).
  21. ↑ Justus H. Ulbricht: The documentarist's saving look - curious, sober, awake . In: Dresdner Latest News , April 8, 2017, p. 13.
  22. ↑ Ralf Huebner: The meritorious . In: Sächsische Zeitung , October 28, 2017, p. 18.
  23. ↑ Ingrid Roßki: A sensitive look through the lens . In: Sächsische Zeitung , June 13, 2001, p. 9.
  24. ↑ Peter Ufer on Ernst Hirsch. In: Thomas Baumann-Hartwig: Ernst Hirsch . In: Dresdner Latest News , October 28, 2017, p. 16.
personal data
SURNAME Hirsch, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German director and cameraman
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden