Nicholas Kaufmann

Nicholas Kaufmann (born December 1, 1892 in Berlin ; † May 5, 1970 in Wiesbaden ) was a German doctor and film director .

Life

After studying medicine and natural sciences, Nicholas Kaufmann practiced at the Berlin Charité . He was an employee of Ernst von Bergmann , professor of surgery, who had one of the first medical films made, lower leg amputation , around 1900 . In 1929, Kaufmann moved to the UFA's cultural department and specialized in making medical and scientific films. In addition, he initially headed the Medical Film Archive , which was under the UFA's cultural department.

Kaufmann's films are considered to be a style-defining factor for cultural films , information films lasting around 15 minutes that were shown in the cinema before the actual main film. In 1920, his four-part educational film The venereal diseases and their consequences came into the cinemas, which, however, was re-censored in 1921 and could only be shown with an accompanying lecture and in front of young people separated by sex.

The 100-minute long film Paths to Strength and Beauty (in nine parts), which Kaufmann wrote together with Wilhelm Prager in 1925 and for which he worked as a scientific advisor, was internationally successful . The film promoted a healthy lifestyle with exercise; he attracted particular attention because of some scenes with naked bodies.

In 1927 Nicholas Kaufmann took over the management of the UFA cultural department. After the National Socialists came to power, he became head of his own manufacturing group; In 1938 he took over the overall management of the department again. In this function he was at the service of the Nazi rulers: "War educational films and cultural films are subject to the totality claim of the German struggle for freedom [...] the generally understandable explanation of numerous measures to protect our people's life and, above all, the exemplary and careful care of our armed forces, these films represent a great abundance of tasks, ”he wrote around 1943 in a pamphlet for the 25th anniversary of the UFA. Even before 1933, his films propagated a Nazi-related ideology, such as Nature and Love (1927), which thematized the development of human life and the "emergence of human races". In the final sequences of the film "different races of humans with the prospect of a higher development of humanity" were shown.

In 1944, Kaufmann left for Switzerland with the help of his professional colleague Martin Rikli ; his ancestors came from there and he was also a Swiss citizen. He settled in Ticino and made several films for Swiss companies. After 1949 he came back regularly to Germany, then moved to Wiesbaden and later back to Berlin. Professionally, however, he could no longer gain a foothold, as interest in his type of "cultural films" had declined sharply.

Nicholas Kaufmann was the son of the then world-famous artistic cyclist Nick Kaufmann , who can also be seen in a short sequence in the film Paths to Strength and Beauty .

Filmography (selection)

(Activity as a director, screenwriter or producer)

• 1919–1921: The effect of the hunger blockade on public health
• 1920: The sexually transmitted diseases and their consequences
• 1920: Cripple distress and cripple assistance
• 1920: Smallpox, its dangers and how to combat it
• 1921: The white plague. Origin, dangers and control of tuberculosis. (1921)
• The paradise of Europe. Image of the Swiss people and their mountains (1924/1925)
• Paths to strength and beauty (1925)
• Dances from all over the world (1927)
• Wonders of the Wildlife in Water (1931)
• Goethe (1932)
• Skyscrapers in South Arabia (1933)
• Roads without obstacles! A film about the Reichsautobahn (1934/1935)
• X-rays (1937)
• Post to the Halligen (1944)
• People among Sharks (1947) - with Hans Hass
• Demonic Africa (1952)
• Gold and Hormones (1953)
• German homeland in the east (1961)

Publications

• Film technology and culture. Stuttgart / Berlin 1931
• The film as a document. In: Catalog of UFA's cultural films. Berlin, UFA, foreign edition, 1941/42. Pp. 7-8
• New cultural films. In: Der Deutsche Film , Issue 2/3, 6th year, Aug./Sept. 1941, p. 45
• Film and medicine. In: Ciba magazine. No. 108, November 1947
• The film in the service of public health. German Health Museum, Central Inst. f. Health education e. V., Cologne 1954.

literature

• Hans Hirnsperger: "Horrible and frightening". The venereal diseases and their consequences (1920): An educational film in the fight against venereal diseases . In: Filmblatt , Volume 17, No. 49, Summer 2012, pp. 39–48.

Web links

• Nicholas Kaufmann in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Nicholas Kaufmann at filmportal.de
• Nicholas Kaufmann at the German Film Institute

Individual evidence

1. ^ Body spaces in the early film.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 5.6 MB) on: charite.de  
2. ↑ Nicholas Kaufmann: About Ufa's cultural filmmaking. In: Hans Traub: Twenty-five years of Ufa. Berlin 1943, p. 165, quoted from: Hilmar Hoffmann: 100 years of film from Lumière to Spielberg 1894–1994. German film in the field of tension between international trends. Düsseldorf 1995, p. 196.
3. ↑ Ulf Schmidt: Social hygiene films and propaganda in the Weimar Republic. ( Memento of the original from March 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 274 kB) at: polsoz.fu-berlin 
4. ↑ Martin Rikli. ( Memento of the original from April 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. to: deutsches-filminstitut.de