Fritz Wisten

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Fritz Wisten in 1946
Awarded the Goethe Prize in 1957 to Otto Nagel , Gerhard Busse and Fritz Wisten
Berlin memorial plaque on the house, Waldsängerpfad 3, in Berlin-Nikolassee

Fritz Wisten (born March 25, 1890 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary as Moritz Weinstein ; died December 12, 1962 in Berlin-Schlachtensee ) was an Austrian- Jewish actor and theater director.

Life

His career began in Eisenach . In this city he staged 22 plays and played no fewer than 216 roles.

In 1919 he made his way to Stuttgart. There he got an engagement at the Deutsches Theater. He also played at the Volksbühne in Stuttgart. He then came to the Württemberg State Theater, where he soon became a crowd favorite. He not only shone in numerous character roles that classical drama offered him, but also helped pieces that were part of modernity at the time, to their breakthrough with the audience, for example The green cockatoo by Arthur Schnitzler , Six people are looking for an author by Luigi Pirandello and The Captain of Köpenick by Carl Zuckmayer . He was given a special honor in 1928 when he was named state actor.

After the Nazis seized power, his merits were quickly forgotten. In the spring of 1933 his director wrote to him: "We sincerely inform you that with the intended reorganization of the situation at the Landestheater there is no longer any intention of renewing your contract." So driven out of Stuttgart, so to speak, he now hoped to start his career in Berlin to be able to continue. The Jewish Cultural Association had just been founded there. This hired him as artistic director and director.

In 1938 he suffered the same fate as many of his fellow believers: he was deported to a concentration camp. But Wisten was very lucky; because soon he was released again and was able to prevent him from being deported again later. He owed this fact not least to his "mixed marriage" with the non-Jewish actress Gertrud Widmann from Stuttgart.

Immediately after the end of the Second World War he came to the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. In 1946 he took over the management of the theater on Schiffbauerdamm . From 1953 to 1961 he headed the Volksbühne Berlin . Wisten received the National Prize of the GDR 2nd class in 1952 and was awarded the Goethe Prize of the City of Berlin in 1957. In 1960, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, he received the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver.

A season in the Stuttgart-West district has been named after him since December 2007.

On June 24, 2014 , a Berlin memorial plaque was placed at his former residence, Berlin-Nikolassee , Waldsängerpfad 3 .

It rests in the Zehlendorf forest cemetery .

Filmography

Theater (direction)

Radio plays

literature

  • Comedic theater. Fritz Wisten and his ensemble. Edited by Heinrich Goertz and Roman Weyl. Henschel Verlag 1957
  • Fritz Wisten. Three lives for the theater. Stuttgart 1919–1933, Jüdischer Kulturbund, Berlin 1945–1962. Edited by the Berlin Academy of the Arts. Ed. Hentrich, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-926175-69-9 .
  • Stephan Dörschel: Fritz Wisten. Until the last moment - a Jewish theater life. Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-938485-85-9
  • Kay Less : Between the stage and the barracks. Lexicon of persecuted theater, film and music artists from 1933 to 1945 . With a foreword by Paul Spiegel . Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-10-9 , p. 374.
  • Aune Renk:  Wisten, Fritz . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Moritz von Bredow: rebellious pianist. The life of Grete Sultan between Berlin and New York . (Biography, 368 pp., 60 figs. - Many references to Fritz Wisten and the Jüdischer Kulturbund or the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden) Schott Music , Mainz, 2012. ISBN 978-3-7957-0800-9 .
  • Ingrid Bauz, Sigrid Brüggemann, Roland Maier: "You don't need to come any more!" The displacement of artists of Jewish faith and of Jewish descent from the Stuttgart theater and music scene by the National Socialists. Stuttgart 2008.

Web links

Commons : Fritz Wisten  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Wisten, Fritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weinstein, Moritz (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-Jewish actor and theater director
DATE OF BIRTH March 25, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH December 12, 1962
Place of death Berlin-Schlachtensee