Rudolf Kommer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rudolf K. Kommer (born August 8, 1886 in Czernowitz ; † March 28, 1943 in Manhattan ) was a journalist and impresario who worked for Max Reinhardt for a long time .

Life

Kommer's parents were Adolf Kommer and Caecilia Kornblum. Kommer usually added the abbreviation “a. Cz. ”(For“ from Czernowitz ”) and thus clearly indicated his Judaism. Kommer allegedly completed a doctorate in Vienna and then worked as a newspaper correspondent in Berlin , London and New York City . After the outbreak of the First World War he was interned in the United States, met in the detention center on Hanns Heinz Ewers and Ernst Hanfstaengl and was on May 4, 1917, together with the German Ambassador Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff , and Eugen Kühnemann , Kuno Meyer and Heinrich Albert deported on the SS Ryndam. In the United States he worked for the pro-German newspaper "The vital issue". He was employed by the Austrian secret service as a diplomat in Stockholm and Bern . After the war he became head of the Geneva branch of the United Press Bureau for Central Europe. He translated a work by George D. Herron criticizing Woodrow Wilson's policies for publication by Rowohlt. During this time he already had connections to Stephanie von Hohenlohe .

From 1922 he was Reinhardt's representative for guest performances in English-speaking countries, for example in the 1920s for the performance of Karl Vollmoeller's Das Mirakel in the USA. In his autobiography, The Turning Point, Klaus Mann reported on the mysterious owl with the full moon face , who introduced him to Kommer's patron, the New York banker Otto Hermann Kahn . In 1928/29 he was in charge of a guest performance by the German Theater in the USA. Lea Singer later described how Kommer, as impresario , steered the "Reinhardt Company" in Salzburg through the financial crises after 1933 and took care of the American connections and orders.

Kommer translated American plays into German and wrote articles on literary works. Among other things, he dealt with the reception of Eugene O'Neill in Europe. Kommer, known by the nickname “Kätchen”, apparently supported numerous exiles from the cultural scene who had emigrated to England and the USA during the Third Reich , for example Alfred Kerr and Hermann Sinsheimer in England. For Sinsheimer he was "the most selfless person" he had ever known. (Note by Hermann Sinsheimer, Lived in Paradise, Berlin 2013 pp. 336–340) His last place of residence in Austria was Schloss Leopoldskron . From September 20, 1933, Kommer was resident in the USA, but his applications for naturalization were repeatedly rejected. For a time Kommer managed the assets of the American Ava Alice Muriel Astor, the only daughter of John Jacob Astor IV and, from 1933, briefly the wife of Raimund von Hofmannsthal. Kommer lived for eighteen years in one of Manhattan's most expensive hotels in the Ambassador on Park Avenue .

Kommer was suspected by the FBI of acting as an agent for the Axis Powers and was monitored from 1940 until his death. The FBI's final report after his death failed to confirm that Kommer had colluded to harm the United States in the 1930s or 1940s.

Kommer's funeral was organized by William S. Paley , the editor of Vogue and Vanity Fair , who gave an English funeral speech, and Gottfried Reinhardt , among the many mourners were Max Reinhardt and his family, Hermann Borchardt and Tilly Losch , and Erika Mann spoke Kaddisch in German. Alfred Kerr wrote an obituary in the form of a poem, which was published under construction on July 2, 1943 .

Fonts

  • Stories from the Vienna cafe or Hungary and the New York Times , New York: Vital issue company, 1915, 2nd ed.

literature

  • Deborah Vietor-Engländer : The Mysteries of Rudolfo '- Rudolf Kommer from Czernowitz -' That Spherical, Remorselessly Shaved, Enigmatic “Dearest Friend” '- A Puller of Strings on the Exile Scene , in: German Life and Letters 51, 2, April 1998, pp. 165-184
  • Karlheinz Wendler: Alfred Kerr in exile. (Diss.). Berlin 1981. In it: His friend Rudolf Kommer , pp. 172–295
  • Alexander Woollcott , While Rome Burns , New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1937, therein: The Mysteries of Rudolfo , p. 153-161. First in: The New Yorker, March 18, 1933.
  • Gottfried Reinhardt , The lover / memories of his son Gottfried Reinhardt to Max Reinhardt Munich: Droemer Knaur, 1973 ISBN 3-426-05576-7

Deborah Vietor-Englishman, Alfred Kerr. The biography. Reinbek: Rowohlt 2016 His correspondence with Diana Cooper is in an archive in England.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Date from the FBI files at: Karlheinz Wendler: Alfred Kerr in Exile p. 261, u. P. 345
  2. ^ Date from Gottfried Reinhardt, The lover / memories of his son Gottfried Reinhardt to Max Reinhardt p. 332
  3. ↑ "Kommer, Adolf, Handelsagentur and Kommis, Schulgasse 14, house owners" Chernivtsi: residents and house owners as of October 1, 1913. at Chernivtsi
  4. ↑ Wendler cannot verify the doctorate. Karlheinz Wendler: Alfred Kerr in Exile p. 269
  5. ^ Karlheinz Wendler: Alfred Kerr in Exile, p. 263
  6. ↑ Archive The vital issue upenn
  7. ↑ Klaus Mann: The turning point Frankfurt am Main [u. a.]: Gutenberg Book Guild, 1994, p. 213
  8. ↑ Lea Singer, Four Colors of Loyalty. Novel . Dtv, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-423-21154-3 passim
  9. ↑ http://www.eoneill.com/library/newsletter/ix_1/ix-1h.htm
  10. ^ Karlheinz Wendler: Alfred Kerr in Exile, p. 295
  11. ↑ Gottfried Reinhardt, The Lover / Memories of His Son Gottfried Reinhardt to Max Reinhardt , p. 333
  12. ↑ http://deposit.d-nb.de/cgi-bin/exilframe.pl?ansicht=3&zeitung=aufbau&jahrgang=09&ausgabe=27&seite=07930017
personal data
SURNAME Kommer, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kommer, Rudolf K.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Impresario Max Reinhardts
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Chernivtsi
DATE OF DEATH March 28, 1943
Place of death Manhattan