Karl Wolffsohn

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Karl Wolffsohn (born May 16, 1881 in Wollstein , Province of Posen ; died December 6, 1957 in Berlin ) was a German publisher and cinema operator .

Life

In 1908 Wolffsohn founded the publishing house Lichtbild-Bühne (specialist body for the field of interest of cinematographic theater practice) in Berlin. The magazine was forcibly merged with the Illustrierte Filmkurier in 1940 .

Memorial plaque at the Lichtburg cinema in Essen , unveiled in 2006 by his grandson Michael Wolffsohn

In 1919 Wolffsohn became co-founder and co-owner (10 percent) of the Scala and Plaza variety theaters in Berlin. From 1928 he ran the Lichtburg cinema in Essen , which he had to sell to the then semi-state film company Ufa to Aryanise under pressure from the NSDAP in 1934 at a tenth of its value . From 1931 he ran the Lichtburg cinema in Berlin, which was also Aryanized in 1939.

In 1937, with the help of American investors, Wolffsohn acquired the Berlin residential complex Gartenstadt Atlantic, including the cinema, which was extensively restored from 2001 to 2005 by his grandson, the historian and publicist Michael Wolffsohn .

Wolffsohn was in protective custody from August 1938 to March 1939 . Immediately after his release, he and his wife Recha (1886–1972) fled to Palestine , where their son Willy (later Seew) had lived and farmed since 1936 . Michael was born in Tel-Aviv (soon afterwards in Israel ) in 1947 .

In December 1949 Wolffsohn returned to Germany to fight back what had been stolen by the National Socialists . That was only partially successful. He was not compensated for the Essen Lichtburg, which was sold under duress . The trials dragged on until 1962, so that Karl Wolffsohn did not live to see the end of them. They were completed by his son Max (1919-2000).

literature

  • Ulrich Döge: "He has a hot heart": the publisher and film entrepreneur Karl Wolffsohn. Tredition Verlag, Hamburg 2016, ISBN 978-3734553103
  • GUBK eV (editor), Jens Schnauber (author), Michael Wolffsohn (preface): The Aryanization of the Scala and Plaza. Varieté and Dresdner Bank during the Nazi era . Weidler Buchverlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89693-199-7
  • Fabian Riedel: And in the evening at Scala! Karl Wolffsohn and the variety company SCALA and PLAZA 1919 to 1961. Rise, »Aryanization«, »reparation«. Bebra Verlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-95410-232-7
  • Michael Wolffsohn: German Jewish lucky children. A world story of my family. Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, Munich 2017 ISBN 978-3-423-28126-3

Web links

Commons : Karl Wolffsohn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fabian Riedel: And in the evening at Scala !: Karl Wolffsohn and the variety company SCALA and PLAZA 1919 to 1961. Rise, "Aryanization", "reparation" . Ed .: be.bra Wissenschaft. Edition: 1 (January 14, 2019). be.bra Wissenschaft, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-95410-232-7 , p. 370 .
personal data
SURNAME Wolffsohn, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publisher and cinema operator
DATE OF BIRTH May 16, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Wollstein near Posen
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 1957
Place of death Berlin