Hermann Braun (actor)

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Hermann Braun (born November 1, 1917 in New York ; † January 18, 1945 near Litzmannstadt ) was a German actor .

Life

Hermann, who was born in New York as the son of the Kammersänger Carl Braun, who was engaged there at the time, returned home with his father to Germany ( Berlin ) immediately after the end of the First World War . Hermann Braun was discovered for the film at the age of fifteen when they were looking for a young actor for the title role in the Nazi propaganda production Hitlerjunge Quex . Braun fell seriously ill, however, and the role went to the slightly older Jürgen Ohlsen . However, Braun took on a supporting role as the Hitler Youth in the film.

After recovering, Braun attended drama school in Berlin and then went to the Bochum City Theater. Later he found employment at the Small House of the State Theater Berlin , among others under the direction of Gustaf Gründgens . As a handsome, blonde actor, Braun corresponded to the ideal of an Aryan in the National Socialist cinema . It was therefore mainly used in tendentious subjects with roles of purposeful, sometimes stormy young men in uniform.

At first he played mostly small parts, since 1937 almost only leading roles. Braun was a Polish ensign in Ritt in die Freiheit , a Lance Corporal in D III 88 and a non-commissioned officer and pilot in the Lützow Combat Squadron - all films with a völkisch, nationalist or Nazi tendency. Despite this apparently pro-regime attitude, Hermann Braun lost his UK position during the Second World War . Affected by growing doubts about the Nazi regime, he had allowed himself to be carried away to make statements critical of the regime.

The 24-year-old was drafted and sent to the front - initially as an ensemble member of the Berlin soldiers' stage to entertain Wehrmacht soldiers . Most recently, Braun had to take up arms himself and received a marching order to the Eastern Front . Braun fell in heavy fighting near Litzmannstadt (Łódź) in January 1945.

Braun came from an artistic family. His father Carl Braun was a famous opera singer, his mother Gertrude Botz was a stage actress at the Lübeck Theater, and his sister Anne-Mary Braun was also an actress.

Filmography

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. 429.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ The year of birth 1918, which is often read, is wrong. 1917 is confirmed by Braun's Reich film chamber file.
personal data
SURNAME Braun, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH new York
DATE OF DEATH January 18, 1945
Place of death at Litzmannstadt