New Theater (Frankfurt am Main)

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New Theater Frankfurt

The New Theater was a privately funded theater on Mainzer Landstrasse in Frankfurt am Main . It existed from 1911 to 1944.

story

The theater, founded by Arthur Hellmer and Max Reimann , opened on September 11, 1911 with a production of Heinrich von Kleist 's The Broken Jug . The Art Nouveau building by the architects Vietze & Helfrich , financed by donations from Frankfurt citizens, offered 770 seats, which were almost always sold out.

In the 1920s, the theater developed into one of the most innovative and successful German stages, where numerous world premieres took place. The ensemble consisted primarily of young actors at the beginning of their careers, such as Hans Albers , Käthe Dorsch , Lucie Englisch , Heinrich George , Trude Hesterberg , Marianne Hoppe , Victor de Kowa , Theo Lingen , Günther Lüders and Helene Weigel . In all, the curtain rose on more than 900 premieres, including the premieres and first performances of Leo Tolstoy's The Living Corpse (1913),Arthur Schnitzler 's Comedy of Words (1915) and Georg Kaiser's The Burghers of Calais (1917).

From 1920 Hellmer was the sole director. The sponsor of the New Theater was a private joint- stock company . The theater got by without any subsidies, which is why it was initially able to maintain its independence even after the National Socialists seized power in 1933. While the municipal theaters , after being brought into line under the new director Hans Meissner , experienced a slump in the number of viewers and subscribers and were dependent on high municipal subsidies, the Neues Theater remained successful with a capacity utilization of 90 percent. Even plays banned on German stages were performed: In December 1933, the ensemble of the Berlin theater of the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden gave a guest performance with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan the Wise , directed by Karl Löwenberg and with Kurt Katsch as Nathan.

Hans Meissner then demanded the dissolution of the theater in expert reports, and later the incorporation into the municipal theaters. In May 1934, the new theater law provided the means to revoke the non- profit status of the Neues Theater . However, despite the associated financial burdens, the theater continued to remain independent. Intensified personal pressure on the theater director Arthur Hellmer prompted the supervisory board of the New Theater in 1935 to appoint his confidant Lucie Strassfeld-Kaiser as the sole representative of the theatre. She negotiated a lease with the city of Frankfurt, which transferred the operation of the New Theater to the Municipal Theater for five years on August 1, 1935.

The theater, now known as the Little House , then saw a 20 percent drop in occupancy. Hellmer left Frankfurt and took over the management of the Theater an der Wien . After the November pogroms of 1938 , he sold his shares in the New Theater to the city of Frankfurt and emigrated to Great Britain.

Commemorative plaque at the New Theater in Frankfurt am Main

The New Theater was destroyed by air raids in 1944. After the war, the city of Frankfurt compensated Arthur Hellmer. The ruins of the theater were demolished. An administration building was built on the property at the corner of Mainzer Landstrasse and Karlstrasse. The headquarters of the Chemical Industry Association is located here today .

literature

  • Thomas Siedhoff: The New Theater in Frankfurt am Main 1911-1935. Attempt at the systematic appreciation of a theater company. Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1985. (= Studies in Frankfurt History , Volume 19.)

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Coordinates: 50° 6′ 37.3″  N , 8° 39′ 48.4″  E