Karl Meier (actor)

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Karl Meier (born March 16, 1897 in St. Gallen ; † March 29, 1974 in Zurich ; actually Rudolf Carl Rheiner ) was a Swiss actor in the Cabaret Cornichon and editor of the magazine Der Kreis under the pseudonym "Rolf".

Life

Karl Meier was born in St. Gallen in 1897 as the illegitimate son of the straightener Elisabeth Rheiner and was christened Rudolf Carl Rheiner. As a toddler he was taken care of by the childless couple Thomas and Wilhelmina Meier-Götsch in Kradolf and adopted by them in 1912 . The trace of his birth mother is lost in 1907.

From 1912 Meier completed a commercial apprenticeship in the Schönenberg silk weaving mill . However, his desire was acting. On the mediation of his understanding boss, he was transferred to the company's headquarters in Zurich. Here he took acting lessons and at the same time appeared on traveling stages. After years of traveling in Switzerland, he switched to German stages from 1924. From 1935 to 1947 Meier worked for the Cabaret Cornichon . Then he played in radio plays for the radio and in a film.

Meier became known internationally as "Rolf". Under this pseudonym he worked from 1943 to 1967 as publisher and editor of the world-famous gay magazine Der Kreis . He wrote political articles, reviewed literature, and maintained the subscription list. Several times a year he organized the masked balls and other festivals of the district subscribers.

In 1970 he suffered a stroke during a rehearsal in the Zurich Theater on Hechtplatz. Maintained by his partner, Meier died in Zurich in 1974 and was buried in Sulgen at his request . The Thurgau State Archives are keeping a few abandoned papers .

Performance as an actor and director

The years of traveling in Switzerland in the early 1920s took him to the Stadttheater Solothurn and the Städtebundtheater Winterthur - Schaffhausen . In the summer breaks he played in open-air performances. For the 1924/25 season, Meier moved to Germany, namely to Bielefeld . After that he was involved in Münster , Glogau and Zwickau . He stayed in Berlin repeatedly . In 1932 he returned to Switzerland, where he first appeared at the Städtebundtheater Biel-Solothurn and then at the Stadttheater Schaffhausen .

From 1935 Meier was engaged at Cabaret Cornichon , where until 1947 he appeared in around 4,000 performances alongside Emil Hegetschweiler , Elsie Attenhofer , Alfred Rasser , Heinrich Gretler and Zarli Carigiet , while Nico Kaufmann sat at the piano . Meier was overshadowed by his more popular colleagues, but with his constant performance he made a significant contribution to the artistic quality of the ensemble. After the end of the Second World War, this type of political cabaret was no longer in great demand, so that from 1947 Meier began to work on radio plays and school radio programs at Zurich Radio . His programs together with Schaggi Streuli , including in the play Polizischt Wäckerli, were street sweeps . He was also on various stages in Zurich, but mostly only in supporting roles. After all, he also got roles in the film Behind the Seven Gleisen by Kurt Früh (1959) and a television play directed by Ettore Cella (1958).

Meier was not only active as an actor, but also as a director . In his youthful place of residence, he worked for the Schönenberg-Kradolf stenographers' association for almost fifty years. In this environment he used to celebrate his stage anniversaries. For the festival marking the five hundred years that the canton of Thurgau belonged to the Swiss Confederation in 1960, he arranged the production, which received great praise. "Without a doubt he was one of the most important sponsors of an independent Swiss folk theater in the 20th century."

Achievement as editor of the circle

Meier first came into contact with the homosexual subculture in Berlin in the 1920s. He was acquainted with Adolf Brand and published some articles in his magazine Der Eigen . Back in Switzerland, from 1934 onwards he wrote individual texts for the Czech magazine Hlas on a regular basis for the journals Schweizerisches Freunds-Banner (1933–1936) and Menschenrecht (1937–1942), mostly under the pseudonym “Rolf”. There he increasingly assumed a more central role, after the retirement of the original founders Laura Thoma and Anna Vock in 1943, the magazine appeared with "Rolf" as the sole publisher and with a changed profile under the name Der Kreis .

However, "Rolf" was not only the editor of the magazine, but also the editor of the German-language section, the author of literary texts, poems and reviews, and a commentator on political events and court judgments. At its peak in 1959, around 2,000 copies of the circle were sent around the world. «Rolf» also published four volumes with photographs and one with drawings from the circle .

"Rolf" also organized weekly gatherings for Zurich members and held carnival balls, summer and autumn festivals and Christmas parties every year, for which several hundred men from all over Europe came. As the de facto center of Swiss homosexuals, “Rolf” was also an advisor and helper for his troubled subscribers and the initiator of local groups in Basel (“Isola-Klub”) and Bern. His work served as a model for homosexual groups in Germany (e.g., Kameradschaft “die Runde”), France ( Arcadie magazine ), the Netherlands (“Cultuures Ontspannings Centrum” COC), Denmark (“Kredsen af ​​1948”) and the USA . Between 1951 and 1958 "Rolf" took part in five scientific congresses of the International Committee for Sexual Equality (ICSE).

As a result of his position as district editor, «Rolf» had a decisive influence on the homophile movement after the Second World War. He always demanded a discreet demeanor and did not tolerate any revealing pictures in a circle . In this sense, he determined "what should be expected of a homosexual". From the 1960s, thanks to liberal legislation in Scandinavia, magazines with more revealing visual material came onto the market. As a result, the demand for the circle collapsed , whereupon its publication had to be discontinued in 1967. «Rolf» felt cheated of his life's work, withdrew from the homophile movement and was not involved in the new gay movement .

see also: Homosexuality in Switzerland

Works

  • «Rolf» (Ed.): Der Kreis - Le Cercle - The Circle . Journal, vol. 11 to vol. 35. Der Kreis, Zurich 1943–1967.
  • «Rolf» (Ed.): The man in photography . 4 volumes. Der Kreis, Zurich 1952–1962.
  • «Rolf» (Ed.): The man in the drawing . The Circle, Zurich 1960.
  • Karl Meier: Dozmol: a half-dozen inner youth. Boretti, Kradolf 1969. [In the Thurgau dialect]

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Salathé (1995) p. 203; Erroneously Kradolf in Hergemöller (1998) p. 504
  2. ↑ Salathé (1995) p. 213.
  3. ↑ Kennedy (1999) p. 46.
  4. ↑ Inaccurate in details.
  5. ^ Special print under the title Rolf as a supplement to: AK Jg. 13, No. 1 (1997). ISSN  0259-5419
personal data
SURNAME Meier, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rheiner, Rudolf Carl (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss actor and publisher "Der Kreis"
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Gallen
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 1974
Place of death Zurich