Paul O'Montis

Paul O'Montis (born April 3, 1894 in Budapest , Austria-Hungary as Paul Wendel ; † July 17, 1940 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp ) was a German singer, parodist and cabaret artist.

Live and act

Having grown up in Hanover , O'Montis, then still Paul Wendel, came to Berlin in 1924 , where he gained his first theater experience on various cabaret stages. When he appeared in Friedrich Hollaender's revue Laterna Magica in 1926 , he was first noticed by the press. His first record was released by Odeon in 1927 and he was accompanied by the violinist Dajos Béla and his dance orchestra. In total, he made 70 recordings with Odeon, but not all of them were published. In 1929 he switched to Deutsche Grammophon , where Paul Godwin accompanied him with his orchestra. Also Mischa Spoliansky accompanied him on the wing.

He used the sophisticated caricature couplet and his specialty were joke and nonsense hits, the texts of which are characterized by their play on words and ambiguities. His openly lived homosexuality was also incorporated into some of the plays and interpretations.

How do you feel, Moritz	1927	Richard Fall / Fritz Löhner-Beda	Odeon O-2351a
In the bar to the crocodile	1928	Text: Fritz Löhner-Beda , music: Willy Engel-Berger	Odeon O-2655
I'm crazy about Hilde	1929	Otto Stransky / Rebner	Odeon O-11072
What can Sigismund do for that?	1930	Ralph Benatzky	Odeon O-11303a
weekend and sunshine	1930	Text: Charles Amberg , music: Milton Ager , grand piano: Hans Bund	Odeon O-11303b
Ramona ignition hole	1930	Erwin Reich / Frank Günther	Odeon O-11330a
My brother makes the noises in the sound film	1930	Fred Raymond , Luigi Bernauer / Charles Amberg	Odeon O-11330b

The cabaret critic Max Herrmann-Neiße wrote: "Paul O'Montis has the technique to bring the most banal fashion chansons in such a way that they are also fun for a more discerning person because, standing above them, he satirizes them in the same mood." He appeared many famous Berlin cabaret stages such as the Café Meran, Boulevard Theater, Florida, Simpl, Scala and the Wintergarten , but he also appeared in the Corso cabaret in Hanover and in Hamburg's Trichter. He also appeared on the radio.

After the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 he fled the end of the year, first to Vienna, denied appearances in Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In 1935 he was banned from performing in Germany. After the annexation of Austria in 1938 he fled to Prague. He was arrested there in 1939 and deported first to Zagreb and later to Łódź . The reasons for the arrest and the long journey are unknown. On May 30, 1940, he was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp as a Rosa-Winkel prisoner and died there six weeks later at the age of 46. The report of the camp management, which speaks of "suicide", is contradicted by testimony to the contrary, according to which Paul O'Montis was murdered by the block elder .

His grave is in the Altglienicke municipal cemetery , in a collective grave site.

literature

• Kay Less : Between the stage and the barracks. Lexicon of persecuted theater, film and music artists from 1933 to 1945 . With a foreword by Paul Spiegel . Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-10-9 , p. 266.
• O'Montis, Paul , in: Frithjof Trapp , Bärbel Schrader, Dieter Wenk, Ingrid Maaß: Handbook of the German-speaking Exile Theater 1933 - 1945. Volume 2. Biographical Lexicon of Theater Artists . Munich: Saur, 1999, ISBN 3-598-11375-7 , p. 709

Web links

• Biography on rosa-winkel.de
• Paul O'Montis in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• In memory of Paul O'Montis
• Extensive discography at www.schellacks.at

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Berliner Tageblatt, June 15, 1926
2. ^ Homosexuals in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp ; Retrieved December 29, 2012
3. ↑ Biography on rosa-winkel.de , accessed on April 5, 2017
4. ^ Rima Gutte: List of graves for publicly tended graves, Altglienicke cemetery, war graves . Ed .: District Office Treptow-Köpenick of Berlin. 3rd July 2019.