Friedrich Arndt (puppeteer)

Friedrich Arndt (born November 9, 1905 in Hamburg ; † February 4, 1985 there ) was a German puppeteer . He was one of the first to immortalize the German-speaking Kasper on the record in the 1960s and was involved in the successful television productions of the WDR, Lemmi and the Schmöker and Robbi, Tobbi and the Fliewatüüt .

Private

Friedrich Arndt had a happy childhood and took an early interest in theaters and museums . He completed a business apprenticeship and married Anni Stender in 1932 .

Puppet show

Since 1922 Friedrich Arndt has played Low German plays in schools and people's homes with his amateur play group "Hamborger Poppenspäler" .

In 1928 he saw Max Jacob with his Hohnsteiner dolls for the first time, later taught puppetry at the Navy and in 1945 joined Max Jacob's Hohnsteiner puppet theater as a professional puppeteer. Four years later he founded his own Hohnstein stage. His father Karl supported his son, for example carving figural heads for him in the style typical of the Hohnsteiners.

Irmgard Wesemann , Arndt's long-time employee, outlined the beginnings in the post-war period as follows: “When the room was heated, we were happy. Often there were also ice-cold halls in which our fingers died in our dolls' heads. The audience came anyway. Because it was cold at home too, so it was easier to freeze with conversation. "

After the difficult beginnings came success. With Hanseatic cosmopolitanism, Arndt played his Kasper in productions for adults, for example in Rubin and Höllenspuk at the highest level , in the saga of Freischütz or in the Historia by Dr. Johann Faust , in Eichendorff's Incognito , in the Undine or in the Schildbürgern . The musical pantomime The Sounding Carpet , which Friedrich Arndt worked with the Osnabrück professor of music Kurt Sydow for the puppet show, attracted particular attention .

Radio plays

Friedrich Arndt was one of the first to immortalize the German-speaking Kasper on the record in the 1960s. The pieces The Bear Goes for a Walk , Kasper and Seppel with the Indians or The Mysterious Coffee Mill are still popular radio plays today. Sydow particularly highlighted The Flying House as a masterpiece of the elementary for the children's world, in which language, music and play fantasy are addressed in the same way. In addition to Arndt, Irmgard Waßmann , Rudolf Fischer and Wolfgang Buresch were also involved in the radio plays . Today ten radio play cassettes summarizing the recordings originally produced as vinyl singles are available from Deutsche Grammophon .

Television films

There were also television films. The puppet was first recorded in 1964 by the television camera in Cologne in black and white. Gert K. Müntefering , the responsible editor at WDR, saw this Kasper as master of the stage and gave him his own series. That became Kasper and René : Kasper in the car on the bridge in Prague, Kasper in the carriage in Rome, Kasper in the water race in Norway, Kasper skiing in Finland, Kasper on slippers in Japan. Kasper's human partner was the actor, presenter and singer Peter René Körner , who had been active in the media since the second half of the 1940s and who became a permanent “star” of children's television through this role. The visual tensions between parts of the stage set or “props” for actors and hand puppets, the tension between the actor and the puppet character himself have inspired him. Last but not least, with this series, Arndt made a special contribution to the fundamentals of the interaction between man and figure in film and television.

After Kasper and René , other Arndt-Körner series followed, such as Märchenrates with Kasper and René , Ratereise with Kasper and René and Hoftheater with Kasper and René .

Friedrich Arndt was involved in other successful television productions of the WDR, for example Lemmi und die Schmöker and Robbi, Tobbi and the Fliewatüüt . Arndt's wife was also the creator of the famous character " Caesar the rabbit ".

additional

Beyond his active stage time, Arndt passed on his knowledge and experience in many courses, lectures and writings. He directed and did television work. Joachim Tode ( NDR Sesamstraße ) praised the collaboration with Friedrich Arndt.

The employees and colleagues described Arndt as a responsible man who had a firm stance. Even in the most difficult situations, he has always remained an optimist. Claus Gräwe - Arndt's long-time employee - described the relationship with his stage manager as follows: With great energy, Friedrich Arndt understood how to hold out the big bow from the first idea to the premiere despite many difficulties and to pull his staff along with him. Not as a dictator and great doer. He never saw his employees as subordinates, employees. Everyone on stage felt responsible, it was a real partnership, almost a life community. Armin Maiwald ( Sendung mit der Maus ), at that time still a very young assistant director at WDR, was particularly impressed by Arndt's iron work discipline. The “condition package” Arndt did not know the word “tired”.

He gave up his play business around 1970 for reasons of age and concentrated entirely on the circle of friends of the Hohnsteiner Puppet Shows and publications for educators on the one hand, and above all on seminars and directing work. Thanks to the confrontation with the admirer, pupil, critic and ultimately artistic counterpart PK Steinmann , who was 30 years younger than him , Arndt took an active part in the developments of puppet / puppet theater in the Federal Republic as a critic and director. The younger generation, who were trained in seminars by Arndt at the Freie Bildungsstätte Kiel , later Idstedt, were able to learn from his precise craft in hand puppetry , from his explanations on dramaturgy and childlike reception, without being committed to the Hohnstein aesthetic. He was able to support new impulses and demands on puppet theater with his specialist knowledge. Steinmann described him in 1980 as follows: “There was a theater man whose theatrical means are the puppets, regardless of who they are and in what style ... Friedrich Arndt is an artist whose successes, as with others, the result of hard work, great doubts , exuberant enthusiasm, agonizing assignment and outstanding leadership qualities. "

Web links

Private website about the Hohnstein puppet shows with information about Friedrich Arndt

personal data
SURNAME	Arndt, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German puppeteer
DATE OF BIRTH	November 9, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH	Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH	4th February 1985
Place of death	Hamburg