Otto Falckenberg

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Otto Falckenberg (born October 5, 1873 in Koblenz , † December 25, 1947 in Munich ) was a German director , theater director and writer .

Memorial plaque for Otto Falckenberg on his house at Viktoriastraße 11 in Munich

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Falckenberg was the son of the court music dealer Otto Falckenberg and his wife Auguste, née Nedelmann. In 1891 he began an apprenticeship in his father's music shop, which he continued in Berlin. From 1894 in Berlin and from 1896 in Munich Falckenberg studied philosophy and history as well as literary and art history.

During this time he wrote several plays, including the drama Redemption , which was premiered in 1899 by the Academic-Dramatic Association in the Munich Schauspielhaus. In the same year a volume of poetry morning songs was published by Eugen Diederichs in Leipzig. He was co-founder and secretary of the Goethe Association and emerged in 1900 as a culture-critical editor with Das Buch von der Lex Heinze . As a dramaturge and director of the Academic-Dramatic Society, he staged several world premieres.

In 1901 he was co-founder of the literary cabaret Die Elf Scharfrichter , to which he belonged until 1903 as a writer, actor and director. In 1903 he became a freelance writer and director in the Neuer Verein and retired to Emmering to do writing .

In 1908 his play Doctor Eisenbart was premiered in Mannheim. In 1909 he published his edition of Schiller's Dramaturgie. In 1915, Erich Ziegel signed him to the Münchner Kammerspiele as senior director and dramaturge . From 1917 to 1944 he was its director and artistic director, and from 1939 city director.

Falckenberg had a lasting impact on Munich theater life. Especially his Shakespeare and Strindberg performances were considered to be trend-setting. In 1922 he premiered Brecht's piece Drums in der Nacht . Falckenberg is considered the discoverer or sponsor of numerous actors such as Berta Drews , Elisabeth Flickenschildt , Maria Nicklisch , Käthe Gold , Therese Giehse , Will Dohm , Heinz Rühmann , OE Hasse , Axel von Ambesser , Carl Wery and Horst Caspar .

During the Nazi era , Falckenberg was briefly arrested in 1933, but was released again and had Eberhard Wolfgang Möller's anti-Semitic play Rothschild siegt bei Waterloo performed in Munich in 1936 . A year earlier he had hired Rolf Badenhausen as a dramaturge and assistant director for the Münchner Kammerspiele. Falckenberg received the title of State Theater Director and the Goethe Medal for Art and Science in 1939 . In 1943 he was appointed professor despite the title ban. In 1944 Hitler included him in the special lists of the God-gifted list of irreplaceable artists and named him among the four most important theater actors.

After the end of the Second World War , Falckenberg was banned from working and living in 1945. He was denazified by a German ruling chamber on May 30, 1947 , but the US occupation authorities still refused to allow him to return to his position. Most recently he gave private acting lessons in Starnberg.

Falckenberg was married three times. His first marriage was in 1903 with Wanda Kick, in 1920 he married the actress Sybille Binder and in 1924 the sculptor and medal artist Gerda Mädler. His daughter from his first marriage, Regina Gina Falckenberg (1907–1996), became an actress and writer. His daughter from third marriage is the actress and pantomime Bettina Falckenberg . The drama school attached to the Kammerspiele was named Otto Falckenberg School after his death .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Munich Theater History Symposium 2000 , ed. by Hans-Michael Körner and Jürgen Schläder, Munich 2000, p. 171.
  2. ↑ Information according to Ernst Klee : Das Kulturlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , pp. 145–146.
  3. ^ Günther Rühle : Theater in Germany 1946–1966. Its events - its people . S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt 2014
personal data
SURNAME Falckenberg, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German director, theater director and writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 5, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Koblenz
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1947
Place of death Munich