Ernst Lothar

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Photo by Georg Fayer (~ 1930)

Ernst Lothar (born October 25, 1890 in Brno , † October 30, 1974 in Vienna ; actually Lothar Ernst Müller ) was an Austrian writer , director and theater director .

Life

Ernst Lothar was born after his brothers Robert and Hans (who later became known as the writer and playwright Hans Müller-Einigen ) as the son of the lawyer Josef Müller and Johanna Wohlmuth. In 1904/1905 the family moved to Vienna. He studied German and law at the University of Vienna, and in 1914 he was awarded a Dr. iur. PhD. After his marriage to Mary Helene Sachs des Renaudes in 1914, he had to do military service until 1917, after which he started the public prosecutor's career that led him to Wels . During this time he wrote his first major work, the novel Der Feldherr , which was published in 1918. Josef Bohuslav Foerster , Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Richard Stöhr set some of his poems to music. In 1919 he moved to the Ministry of Commerce in Vienna, where, following a suggestion from the Viennese tie dealer Ernst Hochmuth, he was involved in the establishment of the Vienna International Fair and - according to his own statements - was involved in the conversion of the kk Export Academy into the University of World Trade . As part of the export promotion, which is part of his agendas, he was co-founder of the Salzburg Festival together with Max Reinhardt and Hugo von Hofmannsthal .

Between 1921 and 1925 the trilogy of novels Power over all people (will- o'-the-wisps ; will- o'-the-wisps ; light ) Already known as an author, he voluntarily resigned from the civil service in 1925 to devote himself entirely to writing. First he became a theater critic and columnist for the " Neue Freie Presse ". In 1928 he published the novel The Clairvoyant , followed in 1932 by The Mill of Justice .

In 1933 Lothar became President of the General Association of Creative Artists in Austria and began to work as a director. During his first directorial work at the Burgtheater he devoted himself in particular to Franz Grillparzer and staged “ A brotherly dispute in Habsburg ” and “ King Ottokar's luck and end ” from 1933–1935 . In 1932 he married the actress Adrienne Gessner .

From 1935 Lothar was director of the theater in der Josefstadt , until 1937 together with Max Reinhardt.

After the “Anschluss” of Austria in 1938, as a Jew, he had to flee to his brother Hans in Einigen on Lake Thun in Switzerland, then to France. At the Christmas party of the Austrian refugees in Paris on December 24, 1938, he performed his emigrant song in front of Oscar Karlweis , Joseph Roth , Guido Zernatto , Otto Habsburg and others: “ A poem instead of a speech ”.

We have lost everything,
the property, the property and the reputation.
Nobody sheared itself around us -
Were we born to misery,
Although a god created us too?
We wrote books,
and made people healthy,
we stayed with the flags
and were still driven out,
robbed, tortured and laughed at.
(Excerpt)

In April 1939, the now almost 49-year-old left for America and suffered emotionally from emigration: Stefan Zweig quotes him in Die Welt von Gestern , which was written between 1939 and 1941, “Emigration is for a young man without memories” and In his 1949 novel The Return , Lothar processed the memories as follows: “In order to take root, one shouldn't have to uproot. Emigration was a matter of memory; whoever did not have it could prosper; whoever had it, spoiled it. ”In New York, with the support of the Young Mens Hebrew Association, he founded the“ Austrian Theater ”and with Ernst Deutsch , Oscar Karlweis, his wife a. a. Pieces by Austrian authors for performance. However, due to a lack of financial success, the theater did not last long. From 1941 to 1945 he held lectures on theater studies and comparative literature as visiting professor at Colorado Springs College . In exile, he wrote five novels that were first published in English translation, including Beneath another Sun , The Angel with the Trumpet and Heldenplatz . The angel with the trumpet was filmed in 1948 with Hedwig Bleibtreu , Attila Hörbiger , Helene Thimig , Paula Wessely and his wife.

In 1946 he returned to Austria as a theater and music representative of the US Department of State ( Office of War Information ) with the rank of lieutenant colonel . In this role he was u. a. involved in the denazification process of Herbert von Karajan and managed the return of Helene Thimig to Austria. After giving up his American citizenship in 1948, he became an Austrian citizen again. 1948–1962 he was a director at the Burgtheater - from 1953 as senior theater director - which he had a lasting influence on by productions, primarily by Austrian dramatists, and which he made a great contribution to the rebuilding of Austrian theater life; he gave lectures at the Max Reinhardt Seminar . From 1952 to 1959 Lothar was a member of the board of directors of the Salzburg Festival and, as a director, was also responsible for the annual production of Jedermann , which he supervised in the spirit of Max Reinhardt's original Salzburg production. There is a recording of the performance from 1958, also published on CD, with Will Quadflieg in the title role.

Ernst Lothar suffered a femoral neck fracture a few days after his 84th birthday and died as a result in a Viennese clinic.

Artistic creation

As early as 1910 Lothar wrote volumes of poetry, but above all short stories, essays and numerous novels. As a narrator he appeared here in the succession of Schnitzler ; In his choice of topics, he preferred sexual psychological problems on the one hand, but also social and time problems after the collapse of the Danube monarchy on the other , which he sometimes carried out on an epic scale. The filmed novel The Angel with the Trumpet and the story The door opens is still known today. His early novel trilogy Power over all people also reached a wide audience. The drama me! is the less successful contribution of the later director and theater manager to theater literature. His novel The Return (1949), based on his own experiences , the autobiography The Miracle of Survival (1960) and the collection The Better World (1955) deserve special attention, also as contemporary documents.

Awards and posthumous honors

Grave of Ernst Lothar and Adrienne Gessner
Honorary member of the Burgtheater and the PEN Club

His honorary grave and that of his wife Adrienne Gessner are located in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 32 C, number 37).

Ernst Lothar's death mask, removed by Wander Bertoni, is located in the anteroom of the foyer gallery of the Burgtheater .

Works

  • The quiet grove . Poems. Munich 1911.
  • The rest . Poems. Munich 1912.
  • The lonely . Novellas. Munich 1913.
  • Italy . Kamönenverlag, Vienna 1915.
  • Austrian writings. Cosmopolitan reflections on the present . Essays. Piper, Munich 1916.
  • The general. Novel of fame . Freytag & Tempsky, Leipzig 1918.
  • Power over all people . Georg Müller, Munich 1921–1925.
Wisp of the world . (The novel's power over all people first part). Georg Müller, Munich 1921.
Wisp of the spirit . (The novel's power over all people second part). Georg Müller, Munich 1923.
Light . (Third part of the novel's power over all people). Georg Müller, Munich 1925.
  • I! A play in 4 acts. Müller, Munich 1921
  • Confession of a heart slave . Novel. Ullstein, Berlin 1923.
  • Triumph of feeling . Two stories. ( Vogelhandlung des Adam Dein . Party: Mensch .) Hartleben's publishing house, Vienna-Leipzig 1925 - Austrian library 2 / 2A
  • God's garden. A book by children . Book decorations by Viktor Schufinsky. Speidel, Vienna 1927.
  • Three days and one night . Novella. Speidel, Vienna 1927.
  • The clairvoyant . Novel. Zsolnay, Berlin 1929.
  • The fight for the heart . (Revised from: Confession of a Heart Slave ). Zsolnay, Berlin 1930.
  • The door opens. Childhood notebook . Zsolnay, Vienna 1931.
  • Little friend. A twelve-year-old novel . Zsolnay, Hamburg 1931.
  • Children. First experiences . (Revising and increasing: God's garden ). Zsolnay, Berlin 1932.
  • The Mill of Justice or The Right to Death . Zsolnay, Vienna 1933.
  • A woman like many or The right in marriage . Novel. Zsolnay, Vienna 1934.
  • Romance in F major. From the diary of a young girl . Novel. Zsolnay, Vienna 1935.
  • Miss Else . Play based on Arthur Schnitzler 's novel of the same name. Vienna 1936
  • Near and far. (Countries, people, things) . Rohrer, Brno 1937.
  • A woman in witness. A Paris diary . English translation of Barrows Mussey's Witness . Book League of America, Garden City, NY 1941.
  • Beneath another sun . English translation of Under Another Sun by Barrows Mussey. Doubleday, Doran & Co., Garden City, NY 1943.
    • Under a different sun. Novel of the South Tyrolean fate . 1961
  • The Angel with the Trumpet . Elizabeth Reynolds in Romanian. Garden City: Doubleday, 1944
    • The angel with the trumpet. Novel of a house . 1947
    • New edition by Zsolnay 2016, with an afterword by Eva Menasse
  • Heroes' Square. Novel. Schoenhof, Cambridge / Mass. 1945.
  • The return . Novel. Verlag Das Silberboot, Salzburg 1949.
  • The witness. Parisian diary of a Viennese woman . Danubia, Vienna 1951.
  • Transformation through love . Novel. Zsolnay, Vienna 1951.
  • The Christmas present . Narrative. Zsolnay, Vienna 1954.
  • The better world. Speeches and writings . Zsolnay, Vienna 1955.
  • Wants to fly quad . With contributions and a. by Ernst Lothar. Hoeppner, Hamburg 1957.
  • The miracle of survival . Memories and results. Zsolnay, Vienna 1960.
  • Under a different sun. Novel of the South Tyrolean fate . Selected Works. Volume I. Zsolnay, Vienna 1961.
  • Selected works in separate editions . 6 volumes. Zsolnay, Hamburg-Vienna
Under a different sun. Novel of the South Tyrolean fate . (Vol. I; 1961).
Little friend . (Vol. II; 1962).
The mill of justice . (Vol. III; 1962).
The angel with the trumpet . (Vol. IV; 1963).
The miracle of survival . (Vol. V; 1966).
Power and impotence of the theater. Talk, rules, accountability . (Vol. VI; 1968).

Movies

Several works by Ernst Lothar were also filmed:

He directed the television film Anatol (Austria 1961) based on Arthur Schnitzler (together with Erich Neuberg ) and wrote the screenplay.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ernst Lothar: The miracle of survival. Memories and results. Zsolnay, Vienna 1960, p. 44 f.
  2. ↑ "Foreign Home - Ernst Lothar" The Return " By Constanze Matthes, in Zeichen & Zeiten , 23 August 2018. Retrieved on 29 October 2018.
  3. ↑ On the consequences of a fracture of the femoral neck: Ernst Lothar has died . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna October 31, 1974, p. 20 , bottom right ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  4. ↑ Vienna honors its best stage artists In: Rathauskorrespondenz from October 27, 1960. (Accessed July 18, 2012)
  5. ↑ Hedwig Abraham: Adrienne Gessner . In: viennatouristguide.at , accessed on December 30, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Lothar, Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Müller, Ernst Lothar (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian writer, director and theater director
DATE OF BIRTH October 25, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Brno
DATE OF DEATH October 30, 1974
Place of death Vienna