Ernst Schumacher

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Ernst Schumacher in September 2006

Ernst Schumacher (born September 12, 1921 in Urspring , Bavaria ; † June 7, 2012 in Schwerin near Teupitz , Brandenburg ) was a German theater scholar and critic .

Life

After attending the Humanist High School in Kempten , Ernst Schumacher served in the war from 1940 to 1943 and was seriously wounded on the Eastern Front. He then studied German and theater studies at the University of Munich . There he met his first wife Rosa Hillebrand (1919–2013).

For his doctorate , Ernst Schumacher asked Bertolt Brecht in a letter on July 7, 1947 to let him do the exile work, but received no answer. In 1949 Schumacher met Brecht personally in Berlin. Since he found no interest in the topic in Munich, Ernst Schumacher received his doctorate in 1953 at the University of Leipzig with Hans Mayer , Ernst Bloch and Ernst Engelberg on Bertolt Brecht's dramatic attempts 1918–1933 .

Schumacher had been a member of the KPD since 1949 and worked as a South Bavaria correspondent for the German broadcaster of the GDR. Due to a criminal complaint for "intelligence agent activity" he was in custody in March 1953 in the Stadelheim correctional facility ; his Stadelheim diary , which he wrote during this time, was published in 2007. In 1956, during a trip to Asia, Schumacher was the first Western writer to interview Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai and later Hồ Chí Minh in Vietnam .

In 1962, Ernst Schumacher moved to the GDR and completed his habilitation in 1965 at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig. From 1969 to 1986 Schumacher was head of the chair of the theory of the performing arts at the Institute for Theater Studies at Humboldt University . His best-known student is Frank Castorf , long-time director of the Volksbühne in Berlin.

After his retirement in 1987, Schumacher continued to work as a theater critic and wrote for the Berliner Zeitung and Friday , among others .

After the fall of the Wall in the GDR , Ernst Schumacher was selected from the Berlin Academy of the Arts , which he felt was a deep offense. As a gesture of reconciliation, his bequest was added to the holdings of the Academy in 2003. He was a member of the PEN Center Germany .

tomb

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

Fonts

  • Bertolt Brecht's dramatic attempts 1918–1933 . Rütten & Loening, Berlin (East) 1955. (Dissertation University of Leipzig, 1953)
  • Theater of time - time of the theater. Thalia in her fifties . Dobbeck, Munich 1960.
  • The case of Galileo. The drama of science . VEB Dt. Verl. D. Sciences, Berlin (East) 1964. (West German edition Darmstadt: Progress-Verl. Fladung, 1964.)
  • With Renate Schumacher: Life of Brecht in words and pictures . Henschel, Berlin (East) 1978. (The West German edition was published by Suhrkamp.)
  • My Brecht. Memories 1943 to 1956 . Henschel Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-89487-534-3 .
  • Michael Schwartz (Ed.): Ernst Schumacher - A Bavarian Communist in double Germany. Notes by the Brecht researcher and theater critic in the GDR 1945–1991. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58361-8 .

literature

Awards

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Frank Hörnigk: On Brecht's Trail . In: Berliner Zeitung . June 8, 2012.
  2. ↑ a b Commission for Bavarian State History (PDF; 8 kB), accessed on October 7, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Schumacher, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater scholar and theater critic
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Origin
DATE OF DEATH June 7, 2012
Place of death Schwerin (Dahme-Spreewald district)