Hans Linder (General Manager)

Hans Linder , also Johann Linder , (born June 23, 1930 in Valea Viilor ( German  Wurmloch ), Transylvania , Kingdom of Romania ; † October 31, 2004 in Fürth , Germany ) was a German German studies scholar , theater scholar and artistic director at the German State Theater Timisoara .

Live and act

The Transylvanian Saxon Linder studied German at the West University of Timișoara . He wrote his diploma thesis “The German-speaking theater in Romania between the two world wars” with Rudolf Hollinger . In the late 1970s he began studying theater studies at the “Hans Otto” theater school in Leipzig , which he finished in 1983.

In 1967 Linder began working as a production manager at the German State Theater Timişoara. When Johann Székler retired in 1972 and Bruno Würtz took over the management of the theater, Hans Linder was promoted to deputy theater director. Just two years later, Bruno Würz resigned from his position and Hans Linder took over the management. He held this office until 1983.

From 1976, the social conditions of the German population in the Banat changed as a result of the progressive evacuation of Romanian Germans, as a result of which the German State Theater Timişoara (DSTT) had to record a steady decline in theater audiences. In addition, there were financial difficulties, as the state subsidies were cut for the theater, which led to a reduction in theater operations and employee incomes.

In Linder's time there were staging successes such as Goethe's Urfaust , Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm , both under the direction of Otto Lang (Weimar), The Music Box by Georg Kaiser under the direction of Emmerich Schäffer , Bernarda Albas Haus by Federico García Lorca , and Niky Wolcz , the director Cassette by Carl Sternheim , director Peter Förster , What you want from Shakespeare , director Cristian Hadji-Culea . Linder found that the pieces by local authors such as Ludwig Schwarz , Peter Rieß and Stefan Heinz-Kehrer as well as the musical and humorous evenings supervised by Josef Jochum were well received by the audience and financially rather successful. It was the same with the fairy tale pieces by Grete Groß , Johann Szekler, Raimund Binder and Karin Decker .

Under Linder's direction, the German State Theater Timisoara had connections to the theaters of the GDR for the first time. A number of directors from the GDR staged in Timișoara, among them Otto Lang (Weimar) and Rudolf Penka . Linder organized three DSTT tours to the GDR and brought the Gera Theater to Timișoara in 1974 and 1975 . The contacts with actors and directors from abroad were a great benefit for everyone and gave the DSTT a boost in performance. The first GDR tour took place in January 1974. Goethe's Urfaust was played in Gera , Jena and Leipzig . The two following guest performances led to Thuringia (1979, 1981), especially in the partner district of Gera. The guest performances of the theater from Gera in Timișoara were just as successful. It is thanks to the efforts of Hans Linder that a guest performance also took place in Germany. The Ulmer Theater visited Timişoara 1978th

In 1978 a studio in the Lenau Lyceum was set up as a so-called cellar theater. Friedrich Schilha presented 18 performances with the monodrama by Peter Hack's “Conversation in the Stein house about the absent Herr von Goethe”. Linder also managed to bring a director from the Federal Republic of Ernst Seiltgen to Timișoara. He also sponsored the publication of the theater's own magazine Gong, which appeared for the first time on November 19, 1976. This magazine was published by Franz Csiky , Hilde Schleich , Johann Lippet and Hans Lengenfelder until the late 1980s.

Linder's tenure ended in 1983 when he did not return to the Banat and stayed in Germany on the occasion of a stay in the Vienna archives , where he was looking for documents on the Timișoara theater history. He found a new field of activity in the Evangelical Church in Fürth near Nuremberg. After retiring, he devoted himself to theater and literature with renewed energy. He has written articles on the history of Romanian German theater, published in various publications, participated in exhibitions and wrote poems and short prose that appeared in magazines and anthologies. In 1996 he founded the book publishing company Säulenverlag in Fürth together with Harald Siegmund and Erhard Linder. Here he did most of the administrative and organizational work and acted as co-editor of several volumes of poetry, including the volume of poetry “Hours Without End”, the prose anthology “Limitless” and the magazine “Faszination Wort” of the Franconian group of authors, of which he was a co-founder. In 2001 he began his work on the history of the Wurmloch community in Transylvania; a project that he could no longer complete.

Awards

• 1978 "Friedrich Schiller" plaque, Jena University
• 1979 “Badge of Honor in Silver” of the stages of the city of Gera

Publications

• "The German theater between the world wars in Romania" (diploma thesis, 1972)
• "The German theater at the beginning of the 20th century in the Banat" (in "History of the Germans in Romania", 1985)
• "The German Theater in Transylvania" (in "Siebenbürgische Semesterblätter", Munich, 1988)
• "The Romanian-German theater in the first half of the 20th century in the Banat" (in "Contributions to German Culture", Freiburg, 1988)
• Poetry volume "From roses to ice flowers", Säulenverlag Fürth 1997
• Poems and short prose in magazines and anthologies
• Co-editor of the prose anthology "Grenzlos", 1997

Exhibitions

• "250 years of German theater in the Banat" in Nuremberg and Würzburg

Memberships

• "Lyrical October Bayreuth"
• "Franconian Author Group" (co-founder)

literature

• Horst Fassel : The German State Theater Timisoara (1953-2003). From national identity bearer to experimental theater. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3643114136
• Anton Peter Petri : Biographical Lexicon of the Banat Germans. Th. Breit Verlag, Marquartstein 1992, ISBN 3-922046-76-2

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Horst Fassel: The German State Theater Timisoara (1953-2003). From national identity bearer to experimental theater. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3643114136
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Hans Linder , obituary