Lothar Müthel

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Lothar Müthel (born February 18, 1896 in Berlin , † September 4, 1964 in Frankfurt am Main ; real name Lothar Max Lütcke ) was a German actor and director .

Life

After training at Max Reinhardt's drama school in Berlin, Müthel first worked at the theater. He received an engagement at the Deutsches Theater Berlin , where he worked until 1917.

At the same time, he played smaller roles in films such as Paul von Woringen's short film Paragraph 14 BGB from 1915. In Der Golem, how he came into the world , a German horror film by Carl Boese and Paul Wegener from 1920, he played the role of Junker Florian . Müthel took on other roles in Fritz Lang's Der müde Tod 1921 and as a monk in Faust - a German folk tale in 1926. Müthel only appeared once in a sound film , in 1931 in Gustav Ucicky's Yorck , in which he played Carl von Clausewitz .

In 1933 Müthel played Albert Leo Schlageter in Hanns Johst 's play of the same name , which was premiered on the occasion of Hitler's birthday. Since May 1933, Müthel was a member of the NSDAP .

During the Nazi era , the theater increasingly formed the focus of Müthel's work . He worked as a director at the Staatstheater Berlin in the 1930s. There he staged the Struensee drama Der Sturz des Ministers for the Nazi playwright Eberhard Wolfgang Möller in 1938 , which, according to the Neuer Zürcher Zeitung, was “thoroughly appreciated”. In addition, Müthel was a member of the Presidential Council of the Reich Theater Chamber . From 1939 to 1945 Müthel was director of the Vienna Burgtheater . Here he gave eighteen-year-old Oskar Werner a chance as a theater actor. In 1943, at the request of the Reich Governor and Gauleiter of Vienna, Baldur von Schirach , Müthel staged the play The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare with Werner Krauss in the role of the Jew Shylock , whereby, according to author Oliver Rathkolb, “ideological (ie anti-Semitic) rape of the original text could hardly be 'surpassed' ” .

After the war, Müthel became director of theater at the Städtische Bühnen in Frankfurt am Main in 1951 . Here Müthel staged Don Carlos , Faust and Wallenstein, among others . From 1955 to 1958 he was a director at the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna, where he performed, for example, Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts , Federico García Lorc’s Bernarda Alb’s House , Shakespeare’s Hamlet with Oskar Werner and Ibsen’s Die Wildente .

Lothar Müthel was married to the singer Marga Reuter. Müthel's daughter Lola Müthel also became an actress.

Grave in the Vienna Central Cemetery

He was buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery (33E-3-22) in an honorary grave .

Filmography

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 425.
  2. ^ Berlin theater. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of February 21, 1938, evening edition, No. 320
  3. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 (= Fischer , 16048.) Updated edition, Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 424.
  4. Oliver Rathkolb : Loyal to the Führer and God-Grace. Artist elite in the Third Reich. Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-215-07490-7 , p. 162. (with reference to the dissertation by Christl Carmann, see footnote 449, p. 282.) - Müthel's sympathy for National Socialism, however, was expressed by Heinz Moog in Doubt was drawn, which in a radio interview Müthel described as being critical of the system.