Fritz Böhme (Author)

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Fritz Böhme (born May 10, 1881 in Berlin , † March 19, 1952 in Berlin) was a German dance journalist and cultural journalist.

Live and act

Empire and Weimar Republic

From 1902 to 1905 Böhme studied history, art history and education at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin. For a while he earned his living with journalistic work for various newspapers and then studied from 1910 on Medieval Studies and Literary History, a. a. with Erich Schmidt . This gave him his first permanent job as a " scientific assistant " (a kind of assistant) and archivist at the "Society for German Educational and School History". In 1913 Böhme was able to publish a supplement to the work by Theodor Storm . In 1915 a biographical study of Ferdinand Röse , classmate and friend Emanuel Geibels and Storms followed.

From 1916 Böhme was the column head of the Deutsche Warschauer Zeitung . When he became aware of new developments in dance through the youth movement and the Mensendieck students, he began to report on dance that had nothing to do with ballet and variety theater. After the First World War he tried to establish the genre of serious dance criticism in the press: first in the Berlin Börsen-Courier and in the Libelle , the only German magazine at the time with its own dance section. In 1919, Böhme became the features editor of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung . Here he was able to finally establish the serious art-critical consideration of stage dance and publish hundreds of articles on dance topics over the years. By the time he gave up his permanent position in 1928 in favor of freelance work, he had also published seven books on dance. Böhme founded various associations (such as the Berlin Dance Critics Association in 1927) or played a key role in them, participated in the organization of the three German dancer congresses in 1927, 1928 and 1930 and gave a large number of lectures on dance topics. He strived for the scientific examination of dance ( dance studies ) and published related articles such as materials for a sociological investigation of artistic dance . In the conflict between the supporters of Rudolf von Laban and Mary Wigman , which culminated at the second German dancers' congress in Essen in 1928, Böhme sided with Laban. Fritz Böhme published mainly about dance and dancers, but also repeatedly on literary or educational topics and also wrote film reviews.

time of the nationalsocialism

His versatile work in dance also took him into the field of folk dance, where he became the first chairman of the "Association of German Folk Dance Circles". “In this capacity he believed that he had to join the NSDAP and the Kampfbund für Deutsche Kultur in 1933. According to his own statement, with his active commitment he wanted to prevent the destruction of expressive dance and the ideological questioning of folk dance circles by the National Socialists. ”From the mid-1930s, Böhme built up a dance archive at the German Masters for Dance in Berlin and taught dance history there. His work during the National Socialist era has not yet been thoroughly researched. What is certain is that at the beginning he tried to win over the new politics for the actually highly endangered modern dance of the Weimar Republic, for which he had continuously campaigned since 1919. On November 8, 1933, he wrote a letter to the Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels . The specific aim of the letter is the attempt to suggest to Goebbels and the Reich Chamber of Culture the creation of a "single chamber for movement art and dance". In order to achieve these two goals, Böhme made use of a National Socialist vocabulary which was very compromising today and which has not been proven with him before or afterwards (according to the current state of research) - which was obvious for this letter recipient. It is noticeable that, in order to save the “new German artistic dance (es)”, Böhme tried to discredit its competition on the dance stage, ballet, by using formulations such as “ballet style grown on a liberalist conception of art”. Since a “liberalist conception of art” is much more applicable to expressive dance, this letter is based on a corresponding intention to deceive Bohmes towards politics and his above mentioned. own justification of his intentions quite plausible. At least one thing is certain that Böhme did not represent a National Socialist conception of art on modern artistic dance in his reviews, despite occasional formulations that were typical of the time. He continued to write factually and positively about modern dancers such as Dore Hoyer , whose dance style was judged negatively by the National Socialist critics. - In the 1930s Böhme no longer published books on dance, but took part in the new editions of Theodor Storm's works.

post war period

Böhme was severely restricted in his previous professional activities due to the war-related total destruction of the dance archive he directed and a writing ban that lasted several years until his denazification in 1949. In the last years of his life he taught dance history at the private dance school of Marianne Vogelsang and at the State Ballet School in Berlin .

Part of Böhmes' bequests are to be found in the Leipzig Dance Archive and the German Dance Archive in Cologne.

Works

  • (Arr. :) Olga Desmond Rhythmographik , Leipzig 1919
  • On musicless dance , Leipzig 1921
  • with Curt Moreck: The dance in art , Heilbronn 1924
  • Dance art , Dessau 1926
  • The dance of the future , Munich 1926
  • Unsealing of the secrets. Sign of the soul. On the Metaphysics of Movement , Berlin 1928
  • (Ed. :) The dancer Hilde Strinz. A book of remembrance , Berlin 1928
  • Rudolf von Laban and the emergence of modern dance drama . Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1996

literature

  • Horst Koegler , Helmut Günther : Reclams Ballettlexikon. Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 1984, p. 67.
  • Frank-Manuel Peter : pioneer of modern dance. The dance journalist Fritz Böhme. In: dance drama. Magazine. No. 9, 4th quarter 1989, p. 23.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The dragonfly. Voices on the stage culture of art song and dance art . Leipzig 1917/18 ff.
  2. ^ Fritz Böhme: Materials for a sociological investigation of artistic dance. In: ethos. Quarterly journal for sociology, history and cultural philosophy , vol. 1, 1925/26, pp. 274–292; Reprint of the first part of it in: Tanzdrama. Magazin , No. 9, 4th quarter 1989, pp. 23-26.
  3. ↑ Andresen 2012, download August 9, 2014
  4. ↑ Printed by Lilian Karina, Marion Kant: Tanz unterm Hakenkreuz. A documentation . Henschel Verlag, Berlin 1996, p. 210f.
  5. ^ Collection overview of the Leipzig Dance Archive
  6. ↑ Overview of the holdings and collections in the German Dance Archive Cologne
personal data
SURNAME Boehme, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German dance journalist
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1952
Place of death Berlin