Max Berges

Max Ludwig Berges (born November 19, 1899 in Hamburg , † January 4, 1973 in North Hollywood ) was a German actor , dramaturge , journalist and writer .

Live and act

Max Berges was the son of the mineral water manufacturer Nathan Berges and his wife Johanna, nee Goldstein. He had two older siblings and grew up in Hamburg. From 1909 to 1915 he went to the upper secondary school on Bogenstrasse. The actor Arthur Wehrlin gave him speech lessons from 1916 to 1917. During the First World War , Berges fought at the front from 1917 to 1918 and received the Iron Cross for his service . In 1924 he took the Aachen actress and teacher Anna Josephine Milde as his wife. The couple had no children.

In the early 1920s, Berges appeared as an actor in theaters in Neumünster , Kiel , Lübeck , Stolberg , Allenstein and Liegnitz . Until 1935 he also worked as senior director and dramaturge. Since he did not receive any engagements for a longer period from 1929, he wrote articles as a freelance journalist for the Hamburger Echo and the Magdeburger Volksstimme , which were considered social democratic. He also spoke repeatedly for Nordische Rundfunk AG . Berges belonged to the Nordwestgau of the Association of German Writers .

Since he was of Jewish faith and a Social Democrat, Berges lost all career prospects after he came to power . He could only appear at events organized by Jewish organizations. Together with his fellow actor Will Kruszynski, he set up the Artists' Student Council , which later merged with the Association of Jewish Artists . He worked as an actor and director at a number of theaters and in August 1935 he last took on a role in a one-act play that was shown at an event organized by the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden in Hamburg.

Since they were threatened with imprisonment, Max and Anna Josephine Berges left the German Reich in October 1935. They traveled via Berlin to Russia and Siberia to the Chinese Dairen . There they crossed over to Shanghai by ship. Here Max Berges wrote the novel "Cold Pogrom", which is about a well-off, assimilated Jewish family whose life in Germany was broken up by the National Socialists. The couple later moved to Hong Kong and Manila. Max Berges wrote several articles for the newspaper Aufbau , in which he reported on the unpleasant and unknown climatic and social conditions of this time and life in the Philippines.

With the help of Albert Einstein , the Berges were able to enter the USA in 1938. The Jewish Publication Society published Berges “Cold Pogrom” here in 1939. In 1940 Max and Anna Josephine Berges moved to California, and in 1953 to North Hollywood. Max Berges occasionally worked as a journalist here, but was no longer able to work artistically, which made him suffer a lot. Since Anna Josephine Berges was unable to work, her husband had to work hard physically as a packer and warehouse manager. Anna Josephine Berges died in 1971. Max Berges, who was seriously ill, committed suicide on January 4, 1973.

literature

• Wilfried Weinke: Berges, Max . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 6 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8353-1025-4 , p. 26-27 .