Robert Gilbert

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Robert Gilbert (born September 29, 1899 in Berlin ; † March 20, 1978 in Minusio , Switzerland ; actually David Robert Winterfeld ; pseudonym: including David Weber ) was a German-American lyricist , lyricist, composer and cabaret artist.

Life

His father was the Kapellmeister and operetta composer Max Winterfeld, who called himself Jean Gilbert by the stage name, his mother worked as a milliner , and his brother was the children's and youth author Henry Winterfeld .

Both parents are listed on the birth certificate as "Mosaic Faith" . Robert Gilbert attends a blessing in 1913, which is believed to be the Bar Mitzvah . When studying in Freiburg, Gilbert claims to be Protestant. He resigned from the Jewish community in Berlin on November 21, 1929. According to his daughter Marianne, Gilbert and his wife saw themselves as atheists.

Robert Gilbert became a soldier in the last year of the First World War in 1918 and came into contact with the Spartakists ( Spartakusbund ), who awakened the 19-year-old's political awareness. From 1919 to 1921 Robert Gilbert a. a. Philosophy and art history in Berlin and Freiburg im Breisgau and was actively involved in political demonstrations and election campaigns at that time.

But his career path was determined by his talent. At first he wrote operettas , Schwänke, revues and hits together with his father . In the course of his life he wrote the libretti for around 60 operettas, the song texts for around 100 sound films and, as a musical self-taught artist, composed numerous hits with his own texts. When he got married at the age of 24, he wrote his first hit text Kathrin, you have the most beautiful legs in Berlin , for the composer who later became known as Frederick Loewe . Gilbert soon also became one of the most sought-after copywriters for the music films and composers of his time. Whether for the directors and composers Frederick Loewe, Nico Dostal , Hermann Leopoldi , Friedrich Hollaender , Werner Richard Heymann , Robert Stolz , Ralph Benatzky and Erik Charell or for the actors Lilian Harvey , Willy Fritsch , Heinz Rühmann , Paul Hörbiger , Zarah Leander and Willi Forst , his songs have always been extremely successful.

He also wrote political couplets such as Die Ballade vom Nigger Jim for Hanns Eisler . Together with Hanns Eisler, he worked under the pseudonym David Weber on workers' fight songs ( To sing on the streets , stamp song , ballad from the Krüppelgarde , Das Lied einer Arbeitslosen ), which Ernst Busch also included in his repertoire, as well as on an opera about unemployment 150 Mark . In 1929 Gilbert and Eisler were represented at the music festival of the International Society for New Music (IGNM) in Baden-Baden with the radio cantata Tempo der Zeit . Gilbert was at least close to the KPD, but in the internal party disputes sided with the opposition KPD-O or the "Compromisers", which he also supported financially. In 1931 his daughter Marianne was born in Berlin. Gilbert had always told his wife before the birth that he would leave her if she had a child. About a year after the birth, he disappeared from the shared apartment to fetch cigarettes and did not return. Only four years later did he return to his wife Elisabeth, called Elke, and his daughter. By then they were already in exile.

In the period of his greatest successes, after the " seizure of power " he was ostracized as a Jew in the sense of the National Socialist laws and had to emigrate because of Germany's racist policy. The first stop in his exile was Vienna, where he still wrote texts for Robert Stolz and others under a pseudonym . He therefore called himself "Tarner Brother". In the exile papers "Neue Deutsche Blätter" and "Neue Weltbühne" he wrote poems under the pseudonym Ohle , some of which had agitprop character. After the “ Anschluss ” of Austria in 1938, he had to continue and went to Paris . On March 25, 1939, he left France with his family in Cherbourg to flee to the USA . The life of the family in exile in New York is described in a book by Marianne (Gilbert Finnegan). In particular, the portrayals of Robert Gilbert's time in Berlin, Vienna, and Paris in this book by the daughter are based, according to her own portrayal, on the family stories heard in her childhood. They have proven to be rather unreliable. In the United States, Gilbert also wrote a volume of political poetry entitled “My rhymes your rhymes. Berliners, Viennese and other poems ”. A number of these poems were republished in the poetry volumes appearing in Germany. Gilbert took American citizenship in 1944 .

Gilbert returned to Europe in 1949, initially living in Zurich and Munich . Professionally, he was able to build on his successes before emigration almost seamlessly, for example with lyrics for the piece "Fireworks" and in it the successful title "Oh my Papa". At the same time he composed and wrote for the Munich cabaret Die Kleine Freiheit , for which Erich Kästner also worked. The Stalinist KPD did not see Gilbert in his texts as a desirable opposition. From the end of the 1950s, Gilbert made use of his English language skills and earned a large part of his living as a translator of a total of 20 American musicals , including My Fair Lady , Oklahoma! , Hello, Dolly! , Cabaret and Annie Get Your Gun . In 1961 Gilbert's hit came out on Sunday, my sweetheart wants to go sailing with me - 30 years after its creation - as music in a hit film in the hit parades. In the meantime he had also left his wife Elke for good. However, even after the separation, both of them worked together on translations for a while. In 1954 Gilbert became a German citizen again and moved to the Swiss canton of Ticino . In the same year he married his second wife Gisela Scholz, with whom he has a son: Stephan, born on September 14, 1955, died on August 31, 1989. Gilbert was with Heinrich Blücher since his youth and since 1938 with his later wife , the philosopher Hannah Arendt . He died at the age of 78 in his home in Minusio near Locarno .

Robert Gilbert's grave in Minusio

Works (selection)

Hit texts, libretti and compositions (selection)

Book publications (selection)

  • My rhymes your rhymes. Berliners, Viennese and other poems. Poems. Peter Thomas Fisher, New York 1946
  • The voice of the murderer. The story of a crime. Detective novel. Ibis Verlag ua, Linz 1947. (filmed as The Voice of the Other , 1952)
  • Complaining is important - anyone can be nice. Blanvalet, Berlin 1950. (New edition: arani, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-7605-8560-4 )
  • Attention! Poems. Four lyric sectors. Blanvalet, Berlin 1951.
  • In the Weisses Rössl - a novel by lovers and other strange people. Blanvalet, Berlin 1953.
  • Fresh wind from the moth box. Blanvalet, Berlin 1960.
  • Odyssey from the Spree. 1967.
  • The Spree still flows through Berlin. Blanvalet, Berlin-Wannsee 1971, ISBN 3-7645-2555-X .
  • No donkey has lost me at a gallop - poems from the times and times. With e. Afterword Hannah Arendt. Piper, Munich 1972.

literature

Memoirs:

  • Marianne Gilbert Finnegan: That only happened once: lost between Berlin and New York . From the American. by Renate Orth-Guttmann. Diogenes, Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-257-06580-0 . (Memoirs of Robert Gilbert's daughter)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christian Walther: A friend, a good friend. Robert Gilbert - song writer between Schlager and world revolution. Links, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-96289-056-8 , p. 313.
  2. ↑ a b biography
  3. ↑ Christian Walther: A friend, a good friend. Robert Gilbert - song writer between Schlager and world revolution. Berlin 2019, p. 36.
  4. ↑ Christian Walther: A friend, a good friend. Robert Gilbert - song writer between Schlager and world revolution. Berlin 2019, p. 28.
  5. ↑ Christian Walther: A friend, a good friend. Robert Gilbert - song writer between Schlager and world revolution. Berlin 2019, p. 107.
  6. ^ Marianne Gilbert Finnegan "Memories of a Mischling" and "That was only once. Lost between Berlin and New York "
  7. ↑ Christian Walther: A friend, a good friend. Robert Gilbert - song writer between Schlager and world revolution. Links, Berlin 2019.
  8. ↑ Christian Walther: A friend, a good friend. Robert Gilbert - song writer between Schlager and world revolution. Berlin 2019, p. 250.
  9. ^ Marie Luise Knott: Deutschland im Dreck, eia weia weg. In: Der Tagesspiegel. June 2, 2007.
  10. ^ Letter from Robert Gilbert to Hannah Arendt of October 8, 1974 ( Memento of July 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Also mentioned in the Arendt biography: Elisabeth Young-Bruehl: HA - Leben, Werk und Zeit. Fischer, Frankfurt 1986.
  11. ↑ In the best song list of the German-speaking Music Association, 2011: Robert Gilbert: Grumbling is important - everyone can be nice ( Memento from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Gilbert, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Winterfeld, Robert David (real name); Weber, David (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer, lyricist, singer and actor
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1978
Place of death Minusio , Switzerland