Max Wittmann

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Max Wittmann (born July 1, 1895 in Vienna ; died probably in Berlin in August 1971 ) was an Austrian stage , film and television actor.

Live and act

Wittmann joined the theater shortly after the end of the First World War and began his artistic activities in 1920 on the touring stage of the Austrian National Education Office. In the 1924/25 season he can be proven at the Neue Wiener Bühne, in the following season 1925/26 he was a member of the ensemble of the Modern Theater Vienna. Another season later (1926/27) Max Wittmann joined the Kammerspiele Vienna. At that time he could also be seen in the Austrian capital at the Theater in der Josefstadt, the Raimund Theater and the Theater an der Wien. Born in Vienna, he first worked in Berlin in 1927/28, where he was able to demonstrate his versatility. Here Max Wittmann appeared, for example, in Erik Charell's production of the operetta Madame Pompadour by Leo Fall (at the Großes Schauspielhaus) as well as under Erwin Piscator's direction, for example in his and Bertolt Brecht's adaptation of Alexej Tolstoy's Rasputin (at the Theater am Nollendorfplatz ). In 1928/29 Wittmann made a detour back to the Carl Theater in Vienna before he was brought to the New Theater in Frankfurt am Main for six years in 1929.

In Nazi Germany , more and more struggling with difficulties, the Jew Max Wittmann finally returned to Austria home where he, in February 1938, immediately prior to the connection was left by Hitler's Germany, the concession for the artistic direction of the newly founded People's Stage. The invasion of the Wehrmacht shortly thereafter prevented the beginning of a season. In the following period, Wittmann stayed afloat with appearances at the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden Rhein-Main and Berlin and appeared in June 1939 in the play fairy tale of justice under the direction of Fritz Wisten . In December 1939 Wittmann managed to escape from Germany. He first went to Oslo and from there to the United States. Here he trained as a designer in New York and appeared as part of the “Austrian Stage” in New York in April 1940 in Ernst Lothar's production of Bruno Frank's Sturm im Wasserglas . In June of the same year Wittmann, who Americanized his name to “Wittman” in the USA, briefly (June 1940) received the title role in Marcel Pagnol's Topaze in a performance of The Refugee Actors Guild. After that, his track is temporarily lost. Wittman (n) later took on US citizenship, but can no longer be proven as a stage actor in the United States.

Wittmann returned to Germany in the early 1950s and continued his work as an actor there, now also in front of the camera. In 1951/52 he was with a small theater troupe in the Marburg district, and in the following years Max Wittmann hardly joined a permanent ensemble, but worked as a guest artist at renowned theaters such as the Zürcher Schauspielhaus, the Hamburger Kammerspiele and the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. Since 1959, Wittmann, who had settled in Berlin-Charlottenburg , was seen with small roles in a number of film and television productions. His batches included a shopkeeper, a court jeweler, a bishop and a brush dealer. Max Wittmann died completely forgotten in August 1971, probably in his new adopted home Berlin.

Movies

literature

  • Trapp, Frithjof; Mittenzwei, Werner; Rischbieter, Henning; Schneider, Hansjörg: Handbook of the German-speaking Exile Theater 1933–1945 / Biographical Lexicon of Theater Artists. Volume 2, p. 1026. Munich 1999

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Max Wittman on deathfigures.com

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wittmann, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wittman, Max (US American)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian stage actor
DATE OF BIRTH July 1, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH August 1971
Place of death unsure: Berlin