Rudolf Meinert
Rudolf Meinert , born in Rudolf Bürstein , (born September 28, 1882 in Vienna ; † March 1943 in the Majdanek concentration camp ) was an Austrian actor , film director and film producer .
Life
He left secondary school prematurely and got a job at the Technisches Gewerbemuseum in Vienna. He then became an employee of the Swadlos-Söhne machine factory, and in 1901 he became an authorized signatory . In 1903 he completed his military training.
In 1904 he made his debut as an actor in Vienna and played on provincial theaters until 1907. In the 1907/08 season he appeared at the Deutsches Theater in New York . From 1908 to 1911 he was engaged at the Budweis City Theater, where he made his directorial debut in May 1909. Further stage positions as an actor and director were the German Theater in Pilsen (1910/11), the Jena City Theater (1911/12) and again Vienna (1912).
From 1913 he worked as a film director in Berlin and usually took over production with his company Prometheus-Film at the same time. Also in 1913 he married the screenwriter Erna Thurk. He had considerable success with his sensational and detective films until he was drafted into the war in Galicia on August 2, 1914 . As a sergeant, he was seriously wounded in September 1915, which resulted in his dismissal as a war disabled in October 1915.
He then founded the Meinert-Film Gesellschaft in Berlin, which he expanded to include a subsidiary in Vienna at the beginning of 1916. From 1916 to 1919 he directed and produced 19 films about the master detective Harry Higgs with Hans Mierendorff as Higgs.
From 1916 to 1920 he was a board member of the Berliner Filmclub e. V., in May 1919 he was co-founder of the first board of directors of the employers' association of the German film industry. In November 1919 Meinert-Film merged with Erich Pommers Decla-Film-Gesellschaft Holz & Co. Meinert became production manager and in this role played a major role in the creation of the silent film classic Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari .
After the merger of Decla with Bioscop AG in 1920, he took over a seat on the supervisory board of the new Uco-Film-Gesellschaft, but left the group in 1921. On May 16, 1922, he founded a new Meinert Film Society. At the same time, starting with a biography of Queen Marie Antoinette , he resumed his directorial work. He staged ambitious melodramas and dramas and shot Die Vorbestrafen, a socially committed film supported by the Berlin penal authorities. In 1927 he founded the German-Russian Film Alliance (Derussa), for which he made films with international cast.
After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Meinert, who was of Jewish origin, emigrated to Prague . In April 1934 he went to Vienna. In the Netherlands he prepared Het meisje met den blauwen hoed that same year . Due to a royal decree to restrict foreign workers, which came into force on January 1, 1935, he returned to Vienna. Here he shot the comedy Alles für die Firma, his last film, of which a Dutch version was made under the title De vier mullers .
In May 1937 he emigrated from Vienna to Paris . Various sources, including CineGraph - Lexikon zum Deutschsprachigen Film, state that he moved to London in 1938 and probably died there in 1945.
Kay Less writes: "That Meinert went to Great Britain after the 'Anschluss' of Austria and allegedly died in London in 1945 or afterwards, as numerous sources claim, can be seen as a duck." As a result, he was in the camp when the Second World War broke out Interned at Camp de Gurs in southern France and later taken to the Drancy assembly camp. From there, on March 6, 1943, he was abducted by Transport 51 from Drancy to the Majdanek concentration camp, where he perished.
Filmography (selection)
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literature
- Kay Less : 'In life, more is taken from you than given ...'. Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. P. 342 ff., ACABUS-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8
Remarks
- ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 5: L - N. Rudolf Lettinger - Lloyd Nolan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 374.
- ↑ Rudolf Meinert-Bürstein in the Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database
Web links
- Rudolf Meinert in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Rudolf Meinert at filmportal.de
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Meinert, Rudolf |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bürstein, Rudolf (birth name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian actor, film director and film producer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 28, 1882 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vienna |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 1943 |
| Place of death | Majdanek concentration camp |