Minnie Maria Dronke

Minnie Maria Dronke , stage name Minnie Korten , (born July 17, 1904 in Berlin , † August 28, 1987 in Eastbourne , Lower Hutt , New Zealand ) was a German actress . In her exile in New Zealand , she also worked as a theater teacher and director .

Life

Maria Dronke was born as Minnie Kronfeld and only daughter of the lawyer Salomon or Sally Kronfeld from Thorn , lawyer in Berlin since 1894, royal judicial advisor and notary , and his wife Laura, daughter of Cologne's commercial council and city ​​councilor Benjamin Liebmann; one of her three older brothers was the later psychotherapist and psychiatrist Arthur Kronfeld .

She finished her school days at Dorotheen-Gymnasium as a “ class leader ”. Shortly before, at the age of seventeen, she began her artistic training with Oskar Daniel , director of the Berlin University of Music, where she also worked as an assistant for voice training and recitation. At the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität she heard lectures in philosophy and literary studies . According to autobiographical information, she was known "with Einstein" and Paul Tillich , as well as Bert Brecht , Erich Engel , Edwin Fischer , Fritz Kreisler , Joseph Schwarz and Sigrid Onegin - through her brother who worked as a theater doctor and was perhaps also well-known in Berlin's art and culture scene with the actress Gertrud Eysoldt and other cultural workers of the time.

In December 1924 she made her debut in the Meistersaal in Berlin with an evening of recitation. She then worked as an actress in the ensembles of the following theaters:

• 1925 Stadttheater München-Gladbach , according to autobiographical information in 18 leading roles in nine months
• 1926 - 1928 Burgtheater Vienna with roles in the Akademietheater and Schönbrunner Schloßtheater as well as in the State Opera in plays by Arthur Schnitzler , Friedrich Hebbel , William Shakespeare , Oscar Wilde , Jean Racine , Jules Romains , Heinrich von Kleist , Henrik Ibsen , Bernhard Shaw and others . a. - At the memorial event for the death of Rainer Maria Rilke in December 1926, she was invited to recite Rilke texts at the Wiener Kammerspiele .

• 1928 /29 Neues Theater am Zoo Berlin
• 1929 /30 Theater Münster
• 1930 /31 Reußisches Theater Gera
• 1931 /32 City Theater Altona
• 1932 /33 playhouse Bochum

According to her own statements, she played a. a .: Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in a production by Max Reinhardt , Ophelia in Hamlet , Portia in The Merchant of Venice , Olivia in Was ihr wollt , Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream , Gretchen and Helena in Faust I and II , Minna in Minna von Barnhelm and Elisabeth in Don Karlos .

When she converted to Catholicism in Vienna in 1928, she changed her first name to Maria Magdalena. In 1931, during her engagement in Hamburg, she married the judge and musician Adolf Dronke, who worked in Altona .

In 1933 she had to end her career abruptly when the National Socialists immediately banned all public activity by Jews after Hitler came to power . She moved with her husband to Cologne and gave birth to their son Peter in 1934, who later became a literary scholar at Cambridge University , and in 1935 their daughter Maria. In addition, she was involved in Catholic youth organizations and gave readings by modern Catholic authors such as Gertrud von le Fort , Paul Claudel , Rainer Maria Rilke , Theodor Haecker and Romano Guardini .

In 1938, she went her family ahead in the emigration to England and with this later to New Zealand , arriving in Wellington began to work soon as a drama teacher and in 1940 in the own production of The Kingdom of God by Gregorio Martínez Sierra her first English-speaking role as Sister Gracia played. Recitation evenings to convey European literature and other productions (25 in total) followed, through which she became generally known. In 1951 she used the compensation payment as a victim of National Socialist persecution to found an acting school in Eastbourne, Lower Hutt , from which leading New Zealand professional actors emerged until the end of her educational work in 1957. - At the Victoria University of Wellington in Wellington she then began again to study and dealt with Heinrich von Kleist in particular in a dissertation .

In 1980 Minnie Maria Dronke was awarded the OBE ( Order of the British Empire ) for her achievements .

literature

• Peter Vere-Jones: Maria Dronke. In: James N. Bade (Ed.): Out of the War. The German Connection with New Zealand in the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press, Melbourne et al. 1998, ISBN 0-19-558363-9 , pp. 113-117.

Web links

• Ann Beaglehole : Dronke, Minnie Maria. In: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography . Ministry for Culture & Heritage , September 1, 2010, accessed August 24, 2012 . 
• Maria Dronke. In: Walter A. Berendsohn Research Center for German Exile Literature. University of Hamburg, accessed on August 24, 2012 (Exiled and persecuted theater artists 1933–1945).