Julius Kaftanski

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Julius Kaftanski (born 1866 ; died in October 1931 ) was a German businessman , film pioneer and silent film producer .

Live and act

Little is known about Kaftanski's life and career. Initially he worked as a businessman in the Rhine-Ruhr area. In the import and export business, he traded in such fundamentally different things as dental supplies, weapons, gas burners and refrigeration systems. Julius Kaftanski married his wife Juliane, née Kehr, in Worms, who gave birth to their son Fritz Kaftanski on November 10, 1899 in Essen . There and in Düsseldorf, where the Kaftanski lived between 1902 and 1912, Julius Kaftanski ran his own trading agency. It was here that he probably met Harry Piel , who was born in Düsseldorf, around 1912 , and he was in charge of his early works as production manager in 1912. Later, the Kaftanski family and Piel moved to Berlin.

There, during the First World War , the producer began producing several films for the production company Apollo-Film, most of which were directed by Franz Hofer . Kaftanski also produced the tragic romance, Heidenröschen , which is considered Hofer's artistically most important early work. The Jewish film producer Julius Kaftanski said goodbye to film production as early as 1917. In November 1927 Julius supported his son Fritz financially in setting up a factory for the construction of certain cameras, the so-called FOTOFEX. Fritz Kaftanski made a name for himself in later years with miniature cameras (so-called MINI-FEX), which were often used for espionage purposes. After the autumn of 1927, his father Julius Kaftanski disappeared from the public eye. He died, presumably in Germany, in October 1931. His son Fritz died on March 9, 1988 in his adopted French home, where he had fled in 1939 from Prague, his previous exile.

Filmography (selection)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Julius Kaftanski on ancestry.com
  2. ↑ a b biography of Fritz Kaftanski ( memento from January 1, 2014 in the web archive archive.today )
  3. ↑ Düsseldorf address book from 1907
  4. ↑ Fritz Kaftanski Biography ( Memento from September 14, 2017 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kaftanski, Julius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German businessman and silent film producer
DATE OF BIRTH 1866
DATE OF DEATH October 1931