Hanns Brodnitz
Hanns Gerhard Brodnitz (born May 20, 1902 in Berlin ; died in September 1944 in Auschwitz concentration camp ) was a German cinema operator and writer .
Live and act
The son of a textile merchant was enthusiastic about film criticism at the beginning of the Weimar Republic and began his career as a cinema operator in Berlin in the early 1920s. At the age of only 21, he took over the Mozart Hall on Nollendorfplatz, two years later the Capitol and the Marble House were added. In 1925 Brodnitz was appointed head of the Berlin movie theater of Phoebus-Film , and in 1928 he took over the management of Berlin's UFA premiere theaters. In 1930, the anti-war drama listed in the Mozart Hall at Nollendorfplatz was on the Western Front by Lewis Milestone in its third performance of massive disturbances rampaging Nazis accompanied: " ... a riot was getting wild, shouting at every corner of the theater popular speaker, and filled the wüstesten insults and abuse die Luft ”, as Brodnitz recalled in his memoirs, which were only published in 2005 and which were already available as proofs in 1933, but could no longer be published due to the Nazis' seizure of power. The riot was a deliberately staged provocation of the then Berlin Gau and Reich Propaganda Leader of the NSDAP , Joseph Goebbels, and led to the fact that, in order to restore public order, the previously approved US strip was banned again by the responsible authorities of the Weimar Republic.
Since the National Socialists seized power in early 1933, Brodnitz itself has come under the crosshairs of Goebbels, who later became Nazi propaganda minister. As a Jew, the native of Berlin was soon forced out of all his offices, but continued to live in his hometown. When the hunt for the remaining Jews became increasingly violent and dangerous during the Second World War, Hanns Brodnitz went underground in December 1942. Picked up in 1944, Hanns Brodnitz was deported to Auschwitz in September of the same year, where he was probably murdered immediately upon arrival. After the war, according to the film historian Gero Gandert, the “ only important cinema manager of the pre-Hitler era ” was completely forgotten, from which the memoirs published by Gandert and Wolfgang Jacobsen brought him out again.
Fonts
- Cinema intimate: a forgotten biography . With contributions from Gero Gandert and Wolfgang Jacobsen. Hentrich and Hentrich, Teetz 2005, ISBN 3-938485-06-X .
- Flic Flac . Articles, reviews, glosses on theater, film and everyday life. Edited by Wolfgang Jacobsen, Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-95565-019-3 .
literature
- 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. 384.
Web links
- Hanns Brodnitz in “Kino intim” on faz.net
- Hanns Brodnitz in “War of the Mice” on tagesspiegel.de
- Literature by and about Hanns Brodnitz in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ^ Birth register StA Berlin I / II, No. 686/1902
- ↑ Cinema intimate. A forgotten biography. Publishing house Hentrich & Hentrich, Teetz. 252 pages
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Brodnitz, Hanns |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Brodnitz, Hanns Gerhard (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German cinema operator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 20, 1902 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | uncertain: September 1944 |
| Place of death | Auschwitz concentration camp |