Ernst Waldau

Ernst Waldau (born April 4, 1904 in Hildesheim , † April 20, 1982 in Bremen ) was a German theater director and actor. The Niederdeutsche Theater Bremen in Walle was renamed the Waldau Theater after him .

biography

Family education and job

Waldau lived in Hildesheim in his youth until he moved to Bremen with his parents in 1919. From 1919 to 1922 he learned the trade of a locksmith at AG Weser . He later worked in the shipyard's design office. At the same time he graduated from the Bremen commercial school. After doing practical work in construction, he studied the building trade at the Technical State Schools in Bremen and became a civil engineer in 1931. He then worked as a construction or senior site manager at Weser-Flugzeugbau . After 1945 he worked for the Oberpostdirektion in Bremen in residential construction.

The theater engagement

At an early age he developed a great commitment to the theater. In the 1920s he organized fairy tale performances at the gymnastics and sports club in Gröpelingen . On February 28, 1928 he founded a theater association with six others. The Bremen folk art community played in the Gröpelingen coffee house , from 1931 in the Café zur Post in Walle and then in the Café Lehmkuhl . It became Waller Speeldeel and in 1939 the Niederdeutsche Bühne Bremen , which now played entirely in Low German .

In 1946 the theater received a license to play and played in schools, gyms and in the Decla cinema theater. In 1947 the now Low German Theater was able to inaugurate its own venue with 550 spectators. After Walter Ernst (1923–2012) was temporarily director of the theater in 1946/47, Waldau took over again in 1947 as director of the theater. In 1947/48 973 performances were given to over 400,000 spectators. The Waldau Theater  - as it was now often called, officially only in 1984 - grew steadily, through special and late performances, through a children's theater and through the inclusion of television. Around 1953, 1966 and 1972/73 renovations and extensions were necessary.

Waldau also worked as an actor on stage and in radio plays on Radio Bremen and thus became a crowd favorite. In 1959 he founded a theater school. He directed the theater until 1979. His successor was Walter Ernst again for seven years.

Honors

• Waldau was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class in 1968 .
• The theater was renamed the Ernst-Waldau-Theater in 1984 .
• The Ernst-Waldau-Straße in Bremen - Gröpelingen was named in 1996 after him.

literature

• Monika Porsch: Bremer Straßenlexikon , complete edition. Schünemann, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-7961-1850-X .
• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .

Web links

• Homepage of the Waldau Theater