Gustav Lindemann

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Gustav Lindemann (drawn by Werner Schramm , 1952)

Gustav Lindemann (born August 24, 1872 in Danzig ; † May 5, 1960 in Stephanskirchen -Sonnenholz) was a German theater director, director and co-founder of the Düsseldorf theater .

Live and act

Gustav Lindemann was born in Gdansk in 1872 as the son of a Jewish businessman. The father died at the age of 36 and the mother a few years later. As an orphan at the age of 13, the boy attended boarding school near Braunschweig . At the age of 17 relatives brought him to Berlin , where he completed a business apprenticeship. Lindemann showed an early interest in the theater. He decided to complete an apprenticeship as an actor at the Berlin stage school. This was followed by an internship with Oscar Blumenthal and for the next nine years engagements as an actor in Tilsit , Oldenburg , Braunschweig and Berlin.

At the age of 28, Lindemann became the youngest German theater director in Graudenz and Marienwerder . But after two years at the helm of a provincial theater, Lindemann realized that this activity did not meet his artistic standards. In 1900 he founded the "Internationale Tournée Gustav Lindemann". In 1903 he was able to win the Berlin actress Louise Dumont for his touring theater. It soon became apparent that Lindemann and Dumont were pursuing similar reformist ideas for the theater, which they would like to implement on their own stage. Initially, the two considered Weimar , later Darmstadt, as a location , but finally decided on Düsseldorf .

On October 28, 1905, the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf opened on Kasernenstrasse and the corner of Karl-Theodor-Strasse after just one year of construction. The theater was state-of-the-art in terms of theater technology and offered space for 950 spectators. Attached was a drama school, the "Theater Academy", from 1914 "University of the Arts". In 1907 Gustav Lindemann and Louise Dumont married and moved into the house Kaiser-Wilhelm-Ring 6 in Düsseldorf-Oberkassel , which the architect Hermann vom Endt had built in 1904-1905. The first years of the theater were artistically successful and attracted a young audience from the region. The competition of the city theaters with more pleasing programs and the difficult 1920s threatened the existence of the privately operated stage again and again, which after a forced break from 1922 to 1924 could be secured with the help of the "Association of Friends of the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus", a private sponsoring association .

The general theater crisis at the beginning of the 1930s forced Louise Dumont and Gustav Lindemann to consider collaborations with local theaters in the area. After Louise Dumont's sudden death in 1932, Gustav Lindemann, with the participation of Cologne's Lord Mayor Konrad Adenauer , sought to collaborate with the Städtisches Schauspiel Köln, which initially came about for a season in 1932/33 under the joint title Deutsches Theater am Rhein . With the change of power in 1933 the project lost all support and had to give up. The orphaned theater was leased to the Städtische Bühnen, Düsseldorf under Walter Bruno Iltz as an additional venue for the theater area.

Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus on Kasernenstrasse 1905

Almost at the same time, in early 1933, the Berlin public on Gustav Lindemann became aware, as this at the Berlin State Theater to Faust II successfully staged. The stage technology and the set designed by Teo Otto set new standards. Even the National Socialist press celebrated the production by the director of Jewish origin. Lindemann was even offered the orphaned director of the Berlin State Theater, which he refused.

Due to the pressure of the regime on the "Jew" Lindemann, the latter withdrew from theater life. From 1936 he lived in seclusion on his estate in Sonnenholz, where he survived the Nazi era with the help of influential friends such as Ernst Poensgen and Gustaf Gründgens . He quietly devoted himself to documentary securing of the joint life's work with Louise Dumont, for which he was able to erect a first memorial in the Stahlhof in Düsseldorf from 1940 by order of the general director of the United Steelworks, Ernst Poensgen.

After the war, Lindemann returned to Düsseldorf at the age of 73, where he took part in the rebuilding of the city's cultural life. In 1947 he bequeathed his archive to the city of Düsseldorf. The Dumont-Lindemann Archive is now part of the Düsseldorf Theater Museum . In memory of his deceased wife, Lindemann donated the Louise Dumont Topas . Gustav Lindemann died on May 5, 1960 at the age of 87 on his estate in Sonnenholz near Rosenheim.

Honors

  • 1947: Professor title, awarded by the North Rhine-Westphalian state government on the occasion of the foundation of the Dumont-Lindemann-Archive
  • 1948: Doctor honoris causa from the Medical Faculty of the University of Düsseldorf
  • 1952: Honorary citizenship of the city of Düsseldorf
  • 1952: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

In the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus there are bronze busts of Gustav Lindemann and Louise Dumont.

literature

  • Rolf Badenhausen :  Lindemann, Gustav. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 586 ( digitized version ).
  • Louise Dumont: Holiday of Life. Letters to Gustav Lindemann. Edited by Otto Brües. Karl Alber, Munich 1948.
  • Manfred Linke: Gustav Lindemann. Directed at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. Michael Triltsch, Düsseldorf 1969.
  • Alain Schupp: Via Talenti, the street of talent. Concept, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-921224-19-6 .
  • Theater Museum of the State Capital Düsseldorf, Winrich Meiszies (Hrsg.): Century of the drama. From the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf to the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. Droste, Düsseldorf 2006, ISBN 3-7700-1242-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.duesseldorf.de/theatermuseum/th_daten_download/lindemann_l_biogr.pdf p. 13
  2. ↑ Michael Matzigkeit: Gustav Lindemann - A Theater Man in Inner Exile? Theatermuseum Düsseldorf, Dumont-Lindemann-Archiv, speech type on October 19, 1990, requested on December 31, 2008 (PDF; 123 kB)
  3. ^ Website of the city of Düsseldorf, donation agreement , requested on December 31, 2008.
personal data
SURNAME Lindemann, Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater director
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Danzig
DATE OF DEATH May 5th 1960
Place of death Stephanskirchen -Sunwood