Gustav Sabac el Cher

Gustav Sabac el Cher (1908)

Postcard with the regimental band and the conductor Gustav Sabac el Cher

Prussian love happiness, painting by Emil Doerstling (1890)

Gustav Sabac el Cher (born March 10, 1868 in Berlin , † October 4, 1934 in Senzig ) was a military musician in the Kingdom of Prussia .

Life

Gustav's parents were August Sabac el Cher and his wife Anna, née Jung. Up to the age of 14 he attended the higher middle school. At the age of eight he began taking violin lessons . At the age of 17 he joined the Prussian Army in Brandenburg an der Havel as a military musician with the band of the Brandenburg Fusilier Regiment No. 35 . In 1893 he moved to the Kgl. University of Music in Charlottenburg . In 1895 he was appointed conductor of the Grenadier Regiment "King Friedrich III." (1st East Prussian) No. 1 in Königsberg. There he soon became a well-known personality, which is reflected in numerous newspaper articles. Sabac el Cher composed himself music and arranged various Mozart - Overtures for military music.

In 1901 he married the teacher's daughter Gertrude Perling. Eight years later he resigned from the army and moved back to Berlin with his wife and two sons Horst and Herbert. He worked as a civil conductor and took on engagements in various German cities. During the Weimar Republic he appeared repeatedly in the new radio medium as the conductor of large orchestras.

At the end of the 1920s, the family opened a garden restaurant near Königs Wusterhausen . As a result of the takeover of power by the National Socialists , the guests stayed away, so that the El Chers had to close their excursion restaurant, which had been going well for years. They moved back to Berlin and opened a coffee house at Oranienburger Strasse 39 . However, they had to give up this a few months later under pressure from the authorities.

When Sabac el Cher died in Berlin, his widow received a condolence telegram from the exiled Emperor Wilhelm and the Crown Prince Wilhelm , in whose Königsberg regiment her husband had once served. When she too died six months later, she was buried next to her husband in Berlin. They were later transferred there by their sons, who had settled again in Königs Wusterhausen. The son Horst (1908–1943) died in the Second World War on the Eastern Front as a medic for the Wehrmacht in the Caucasus , the son Herbert (1903–1963) survived the war.

literature

• Klaus-Peter Merta: Gustav Albrecht Sabac el Cher and the badges of rank of the military musicians. in: Zeitschrift für Heereskunde . March 2006; printed in: With sounding game. Military music - then and now. 4/06, pp. 4-10.
• Gorch Pieken , Cornelia Kruse: Prussian love luck. A German family from Africa. Propylaea, Berlin 2007.

Web links

• German Historical Museum
• Prussian love luck. Documentary, arte 2007 ( Memento from January 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
• Gustav, the conductor. in: Der Tagesspiegel. from January 18, 2009