Herbert Selpin

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Herbert Selpin (born May 29, 1902 in Berlin ; † August 1, 1942 there ) was a German film director and screenwriter .

Life

After abandoning his medical studies in Berlin , Herbert Selpin initially worked in a wide variety of professions (as an art antiquarian, bookseller, stock market agent, boxer, professional dancer) before he came to Ufa as a volunteer in the mid-1920s , where he worked on the production of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's Faust, among other things - a German folk tale (1925/26) contributed. Selpin then worked in changing positions - u. a. as assistant director  - for four years for the Berlin film production company Fox-Europa. In 1927 he worked on Walther Ruttmann's staff on the production of Berlin - The Symphony of the Big City . After another brief episode as an editor at various production companies, Selpin directed himself for the first time in 1931 (“ Chauffeur Antoinette ”, Excelsior-Film GmbH Berlin).

Thanks to the unusually diverse influences that he had experienced in the 1920s, is Selpin became one of the artistic directors interessantesten that after the takeover of the Nazis remained in Germany. From 1934 he belonged to the NSDAP . Selpin's trademark was the production of films of various genres. Selpin was an eclectic who always wanted to try new things and a perfectionist who designed every film down to the last detail. After spending many years in London - there he had a. a. worked with Alexander Korda - Selpin was England-friendly , a tendency that occasionally brought him into conflict with National Socialist film policy , as he often failed to make the English unappealing.

Hans Albers appeared in the lead role in many of Herbert Selpin's late films .

After he had only made isolated and little noticed propaganda films in the 1930s -  Black Shirts (1933), The Riders of German East Africa (1934) - Herbert Selpin directed the successful anti-British propaganda film Carl Peters in 1940 . The propaganda film Secret Files WB 1 followed in 1941 . Today it is controversial whether Selpin got involved in the production of propaganda films under political pressure or because he was attracted by the earnings.

During the filming of Titanic in 1942, Selpin expressed himself critical of the Wehrmacht and the war in private circles over dinner. Thereupon his friend, the screenwriter Walter Zerlett-Olfenius denounced him . Selpin had obviously underestimated his loyalty to the Nazi state. Since he was not prepared to retract his words even before the Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels , he was arrested on July 31. One day later he was found hanged in his cell at the Alexanderplatz police headquarters with his suspenders tied around his neck. The official cause of death is suicide, but there are suspicions that Selpin was murdered by the Gestapo. According to the film scholar Hans Schmid, this would not have been the Gestapo's first murder in prison. Selpin had previously been informed in writing of his exclusion from the Reich Chamber of Culture . Goebbels noted in his diary on August 1st: “Selpin killed himself in his cell. He came to the decision that would have precipitated the court. "On his instruction, the film was Titanic by Werner Klingler finished.

Herbert Selpin was married to actress Annie Markart from 1933 to 1937 .

Filmography

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 567.
  2. ↑ The film scholar Hans Schmid in his series of articles "The Third Reich in Self-Experiment" - Part 6: "The Russians are coming! But where?" on the telepolis homepage on April 25, 2010 (viewed on November 27, 2014), also Felix Möller in The Film Minister , Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-932565-10-X , p. 170.
personal data
SURNAME Selpin, Herbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German film director and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH May 29, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH August 1, 1942
Place of death Berlin