Ernst Jäger (journalist)

Ernst Jäger , in the USA: Ernst Jaeger (born January 11, 1896 in Dessau ; † May 31, 1975 in Ventura , United States ) was a German-American journalist specializing in film criticism .

Live and act

In the Weimar Republic, Jäger wrote an abundance of film reviews for the Film-Kurier , often under the abbreviation “Ejott”, which is composed of his initials. He also wrote background reports and film analyzes, for example on the work of the directors Sergej Eisenstein and Piel Jutzi , who identified Jäger as connoisseurs of socialist, revolutionary and proletarian films. Immediately after the National Socialist seizure of power, the Dessau native moved to the United States, although he was not explicitly persecuted by the regime.

From there, Ernst Jäger temporarily went to England in 1935, but there are also records of several returns to Germany by Adolf Hitler. Eventually Jäger returned to the USA, where Leni Riefenstahl remembered and used him and in November 1938 gave him the press work for her Olympic film . After the November pogroms in 1938 at home in the Reich, Jäger decided to stay in the USA for good. His contributions to Hollywood cinema are minimal: in 1944, he suggested to a film studio that they produce a large-scale film about the Majdanek concentration camp , which should exemplify the Nazi atrocities in Poland. In 1945/46, Jäger provided the template for a B-film thriller from the hand of the German émigré Frank Wisbar , The Devil Bat's Daughter .

Other professional activities of the new American citizen (1949) in his adopted home were journalistic contributions for the Hollywood Tribune and taking over the management of a cinema in Hollywood, the Esquire Cinema (1945). In 1949 Jäger was entrusted with the production management of the television series Fireside Theater . In 1956 Ernst Jäger temporarily returned to Germany (Federal Republic). There he was hired the following year as one of several production managers for the Wisbar war film Sharks and Small Fish . A little later, Jäger, who wrote himself “Jaeger” in the USA, returned to his adopted Californian home.

literature

• Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than given ...". Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 583.
• Werner Sudendorf: "Not intended for publication". On the biography of the film journalist Ernst (Ejott) Jäger. In: Filmexile. No. 5, December 1994.

Web links

• Ernst hunters in the Internet Movie Database (English)