Philipp Hamber

Philipp Hamber (born March 1, 1887 in Vienna ; died November 5, 1940 in Buchenwald concentration camp ) was an Austrian film salesman, film distributor , film theater operator and film producer .

Acting in film

Hamber aspired to a civil service career before he turned to the film industry (initially the film trade) in 1917. In the following year he founded his first company, the "Philipp Hamber Kino-Einrichtungs- und Filmgesellschaft" (from 1920: "Philipp Hamber GmbH"). From 1921 he concentrated on setting up a cinema chain. Four years later, in the summer of 1925, he and his brother Edmund took over the "Allianz-Filmfabrikations- und Vertriebsgesellschaft" from the Austrian film pioneer Arthur Stern . Hambers core business was to be the expansion of cinema operations and the rental of films.

In addition, from 1926 Philipp Hamber was also sporadically involved in film production. With the musician's biography " Beethoven ", which featured prominently in the title role with Fritz Kortner , he made an ambitious debut as a producer. Hamber's later productions caused far less sensation. After brother Edmund left "Allianz" in 1929 and began to concentrate on the management of the Kiba cinema chain, Philipp Hamber continued the production business on his own and, as "Kiba" distribution manager, also took care of the distribution affairs of "Kinobetriebsanstalt GmbH".

Immediately after the start of the talky-film era, the entire corporate empire of the Hamber brothers began to falter, and after a series of financial slumps, Hambers “Allianz-Film” had to file for bankruptcy in the spring of 1935. Hamber tried briefly to gain a foothold in London in the winter of 1936/37 and to sound out the possibilities for the production of film program booklets. This venture also failed.

Isolation and persecution in the Nazi state

After the " Anschluss of Austria " to the National Socialist German Reich in March 1938, both Jewish brothers came under massive pressure. In the same year, on June 17, 1938 Philipp Hamber was in the Dachau concentration camp deported . There the so-called “ protective prisoner ” No. 16519 met his brother Edmund again a month later. Neither Hambers stayed long in this camp. Philipp Hamber, like Edmund, was transferred a little later to the Buchenwald concentration camp , where he was murdered in the autumn of 1940, a good three weeks before his younger brother: According to an eyewitness report from fellow prisoner Herbert Mindus, an SS man brutally knocked him down, then into one Pushed puddle of water and then kicked him until Hamber died. Brother Edmund's testimony of this crime to the deputy camp commandant also led to his violent death.

Filmography (as producer)

• 1926: Beethoven
• 1927: The rough shirt (Used: The man without a job)
• 1928: Up from the Dachstein
• 1928: Franz Schubert and his laughing Vienna
• 1930: The Adventures of Mr. Antimarx (short commercial)
• 1931: The great love
• 1932: The one from Haus 17

Commemoration

In Köstlergasse 1 in Vienna- Mariahilf a plaque commemorates Philipp Hamber.

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. 158.
• Werner Michael Schwarz , The Hamber Brothers and Kiba. On the politicization of pleasure in Vienna between the wars. In: Christian Dewald (ed.), Arbeiterkino. Left film culture in the first republic, Vienna 2007, p. 118.

Web links

• Philipp Hamber in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ David A. Hackett: The Buchenwald Report , CH Beck 1996/2002, ISBN 3-406-47598-1 online