Konrad Wolf
Konrad Wolf (born October 20, 1925 in Hechingen , Hohenzollernsche Lande , † March 7, 1982 in East Berlin ) was a German film director in the GDR .
Life
Konrad Wolf is the second son of the doctor and writer Friedrich Wolf with his wife Else Wolf. His older brother is Markus Wolf , who has been the head of the GDR's foreign intelligence service for many years . In 1933 the family first emigrated to France and from there later to Moscow . There he attended the German Karl Liebknecht School and acquired Soviet citizenship. During this time Konrad Wolf came into close contact with Soviet film . At the age of ten he played a supporting role in the exile film Borzy (Fighters) by director Gustav von Wangenheim in 1936 .
At seventeen he joined the Red Army and in 1945 at the age of nineteen belonged to the troops that took Berlin. For a short time in April 1945 he was the first Soviet city commandant of Bernau near Berlin . From 1945 to 1947 he was responsible for the performing arts for the SMAD (Soviet Military Administration) in Wittenberg and Halle (Saale) . From 1949 to 1954 he studied at the Moscow Film School, founded in 1919 .
He then worked as a director at DEFA , where he mainly shot challenging and critical contemporary films. He later described his war experiences in the film I was nineteen (1968). The relationship between Germans and Russians occupied him throughout his life. In his late work, more and more critical tones against the influence of the authorities on art are loud - for example in his Goya epic or in the quiet film The naked man on the sports field . His feature film Solo Sunny , which he directed together with his long-time screenwriter Wolfgang Kohlhaase , shows the life of an outsider of GDR society in Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin.
Most recently, he worked as artistic director on a 6-part documentary film project Busch singt , which, based on the biography of the communist actor and singer Ernst Busch , was intended to provide a cross-section of the political and artistic development of the first half of the 20th century in Germany.
From 1965 to 1982 he was President of the Academy of the Arts in the GDR . Wolf supported the expatriation of Wolf Biermann , while over 100 cultural workers in the GDR signed a protest note against the expatriation. Biermann was going "another political path", he was serving the counterrevolution.
Konrad Wolf was married to the costume designer Annegret Reuter from 1955 to 1960, and to the actress Christel Bodenstein from 1960 to 1978 . His son Mirko, born in 1961, is an animator and illustrator trained as an animator from this relationship. The brothers Konrad and Markus Wolf have several half-siblings from relationships between their father and various women, including the physicist Thomas Naumann .
Konrad Wolf died of cancer in Berlin at the age of 56 . His urn was in a on 12 March 1982 state funeral in the grave conditioning Pergolenweg the Memorial of the Socialists in the Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde in Berlin-Lichtenberg buried. His extensive written estate is in the archive of the Academy of Arts in Berlin.
Filmography
- 1936: fighter
- 1955: Once is never
- 1956: Lissy
- 1956: recovery
- 1958: Sun seeker
- 1959: stars
- 1960: people with wings
- 1961: Professor Mamlock
- 1964: The divided sky
- 1966: The Little Prince
- 1966: The Investigation (theater recording)
- 1968: I was nineteen
- 1971: Goya - or the terrible path to knowledge
- 1974: The naked man on the sports field
- 1976: Mom, I'm alive
- 1979: Addio, piccola mia (actor)
- 1980: Solo Sunny
- 1981/82: Busch sings (6-part documentary, completed by others; directors: Reiner Bredemeyer , Erwin Burkert , Ludwig Hoffmann , Peter Voigt , Konrad Wolf)
- Individual consequences:
- 1935 or The Barrel of Pandora
- Aurora - dawn
- Only the minute matters
- In Spain
- A dead man on vacation
- And because man is a man
Awards
- 1956: Bronze medal of the Damascus International Fair for Convalescence Film Festival
- 1957: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival : main prize for Lissy
- 1957: International Film Festival of the World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow: Bronze medal for Lissy
- 1959: Cannes International Film Festival 1959 : Special Jury Prize for Stars
- 1959: National Prize of the GDR 2nd class for stars with Werner Bergmann
- 1961: New Delhi International Film Festival : Silver Lotus Flower for Professor Mamlock
- 1961: Moscow International Film Festival : Gold medal for Professor Mamlock
- 1965: Erich Weinert Medal for The Divided Sky with Eberhard Esche
- 1965: Patriotic Order of Merit in silver
- 1968: National Prize of the GDR 1st class for I was nineteen with Werner Bergmann and Wolfgang Kohlhaase
- 1969: Johannes R. Becher Medal in gold
- 1971: National Prize of the GDR 1st class for Goya in a collective
- 1971: GDR Art Prize for Goya in a collective
- 1971: Moscow International Film Festival : Special Jury Prize for Goya
- 1974: Karl Marx Order
- 1975: Art Prize of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship for Sun Seekers and I was nineteen
- 1977: Art Prize of the FDGB for Mama I Live
- 1977: International Film Festival of Neorealist Films Avellino: Silver Medal for Mama I Live
- 1979: National Prize of the GDR 1st class for art and literature for many years of exemplary film art and cultural policy work
- 1980: 1st National Feature Film Festival of the GDR : Director's Prize for Solo Sunny
- 1980: Berlin International Film Festival : FIPRESCI Prize for Solo Sunny
- 2010: Star on the Boulevard of Stars in Berlin
Konrad Wolf is an honorary citizen of the city of Bernau near Berlin . Since 1985 the University of Film and Television Potsdam (today the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf ) and a street in the Lichtenberg district and a street in Potsdam-Drewitz have been named after him. The Konrad Wolf Prize is named after him.
Own publications
- Konrad Wolf in dialogue. Arts and politics. Edited by Dieter Heinze. Dietz, Berlin 1985
- Right in the head and heart. Records, speeches, interviews. by or with KW- Henschel, Berlin 1989 ISBN 3-362-00415-6
- Encounters with directors: Kurt Maetzig , Günter Reisch , Joachim Hasler , Konrad Wolf. Henschel, Berlin 1974 (KW = pp. 129–186)
- But I saw for myself, that was the war: War diary and letters 1942–1945 , Edition Die Möwe, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3000505478
literature
- Carmen Blazejewski : Konrad Wolf. New perspectives on his films. A contribution to the cultural history of the GDR . University of Film and Television, Berlin 1990. OCLC 705346831
- Jakob Hayner: Art in the service of humanity. The German filmmaker Konrad Wolf would have turned 90 on October 20th. In: Dschungel , supplement to jungle world , 43, October 22, 2015, pp. 1–5 (with 2 stills ; photo portrait of KW from 1977)
- Wolfgang Jacobsen , Rolf Aurich: The sun seeker. Konrad Wolf (biography). Structure, Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-351-02589-2 .
- Jürgen Klauß : Between the masters in the ages. From Heiner Müller to Konrad Wolf. Frankfurt-Oder-Edition, Frankfurt (Oder) 1996, ISBN 3-930842-13-0 .
- Aune Renk: Wolf, Konrad . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
- Ingar Solty : To make it home , Junge Welt , October 20, 2015, biographical essay on the occasion of his 90th birthday
- Antje Vollmer / Hans-Eckardt Wenzel : Konrad Wolf. Chronicler in the century of extremes. The Other Library, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-8477-0416-4 .
Web links
- Konrad Wolf in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Literature by and about Konrad Wolf in the catalog of the German National Library
- Short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center
- Bio- and filmography on defa-stiftung.de
- Konrad Wolf Archive in the Archive of the Academy of Arts, Berlin
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heinz Kersten, article from March 1, 2002 from Der Freitag , the East-West weekly newspaper , title: Thinking as a life need online
- ↑ Junge Welt , November 22, 1976, p. 3 f.
- ^ "A picture of a man", Berliner Zeitung from March 29, 2005 online
- ↑ Konrad Wolf Archive Inventory overview on the website of the Academy of the Arts in Berlin.
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Wolf, Konrad |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German film director |
DATE OF BIRTH | October 20, 1925 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Hechingen |
DATE OF DEATH | March 7, 1982 |
Place of death | East Berlin |