Thea of ​​Harbou

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Thea von Harbou (1928)

Thea Gabriele von Harbou (born December 27, 1888 in Tauperlitz , today in Döhlau , † July 1, 1954 in Berlin ) was a German theater actress , screenwriter , director and writer . She wrote the scripts for some of the most famous German silent films - for example the classic Metropolis by Fritz Lang , with which she was also privately related for several years. She also directed twice . Along with Leni Riefenstahl, Harbou is one of the formative but also controversial women of early German film because of her work during the Nazi era .

Life

Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou in their Berlin apartment, photograph by Waldemar Titzenthaler , 1923 or 1924
Memorial stone in the place of birth Tauperlitz

Thea von Harbou, who made her first literary and acting attempts at an early age in the Luisenstift in Niederlößnitz near Dresden , became one of the most famous entertaining writers of the late Empire and the Weimar Republic . Her acting career took her to theaters in Aachen , Chemnitz , Düsseldorf and Munich, among others .

She began working in film as a screenwriter after the First World War and quickly developed into the most important representative in her branch. She wrote for Joe May , Carl Theodor Dreyer , Arthur von Gerlach , Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and Fritz Lang. From 1914 to 1921 she was married to the actor Rudolf Klein-Rogge . She separated from him in 1918, but continued to support him by getting engagements in her films. Klein-Rogge took on the leading role in the two-part drama Dr. Mabuse, the player (1921) Harbou wrote the script for. On August 26, 1922, Harbou married Fritz Lang, the director of this film, whom she had met in 1919 through her screenwriting work, and from then on wrote all of his scripts until he emigrated in 1933. Another joint film project that is still known today is the two-part series The Nibelungen (1924) or M (1931) should be mentioned. Thea von Harbou is remembered primarily for the film Metropolis , for which she wrote the screenplay parallel to her novel of the same name.

The Fritz Lang - Thea von Harbou consortium lasted until 1933, but the marriage broke up much earlier. A trigger for the breakup was Fritz Lang's liaison with actress Gerda Maurus . In addition, Thea von Harbou learned about the editing of the film The Testament of Dr. Mabuse know the Indian Ayi Tendulkar, with whom she lived in the following years. Lang and Harbou divorced in April 1933. Harbou directed two films in 1933 and 1934 (adaptation of Gerhart Hauptmann's drama Hanneles Himmelfahrt and the film Elisabeth and the Fool ), but returned to her real profession. During the Nazi era she was a very busy author. At the beginning of 1933, after the transfer of power to the NSDAP, she became chair of the official, harmonized Association of German Sound Film Authors . In 1940 she became a member of the NSDAP . After brief internment in 1945 in the Staumühle camp (where she is said to have directed theatrical performances for the inmates) in the course of denazification , she returned to Germany in 1948 for the dubbing of foreign films.

Her writings Gold im Feuer (1916), Adrian Drost und seine Land (1937) and Aufblühender Lotos (1941) were placed on the list of literature to be sorted out in the Soviet occupation zone . The lotus novel aimed to support the National Socialist India policy against Great Britain .

Honorary grave of Thea von Harbou in the Heerstrasse cemetery in Berlin-Westend

On June 26, 1954, Thea von Harbou took part in a nightly screening of the film The Weary Death (1921), which was based on one of her scripts and was shown at the Berlinale , and spoke about the work there. On leaving the movie theater, she fell and suffered such severe internal injuries that she died five days later at the age of 65 in a Berlin hospital. The already planned award of the Federal Cross of Merit to her did not come about.

The burial took place in the state-owned cemetery Heerstraße in today's Berlin-Westend district . By resolution of the Berlin Senate , Thea von Harbou's final resting place (grave location: 6-H-10) has been dedicated to the State of Berlin as an honorary grave since 1980 . The dedication was extended in 2001 by the usual period of twenty years.

Works (selection)

Director

Scripts

Fiction

  • That come after us. Novel. Cotta, Stuttgart et al. 1910.
  • The war and the women. Novellas. Cotta, Stuttgart et al. 1913.
  • Of angels and devils. Fairy tale. Cotta, Stuttgart et al. 1913.
  • The immortal field. A war novel. Cotta, Stuttgart et al. 1915.
  • The masks of death. Seven stories in one. Cotta, Stuttgart et al. 1915.
  • You young watch on the Rhine! Cotta et al. 1915.
  • German women. Images of silent heroism. Stories, Leipzig 1915
  • A new day of evening and morning. Stories. Salzer, Heilbronn 1916.
  • The German woman in the world war. Insights and views. Hesse & Becker, Leipzig 1916.
  • The moonlight princess. Levy & Müller, Stuttgart 1916.
  • The escape of Beate Hoyermann. Novel. Cotta, Stuttgart et al. 1916.
  • The besieged temple. Novel. (= Ullstein books. Vol. 88, ZDB -ID 2591030-9 ). Ullstein, Berlin et al. 1917.
  • Adrian Drost and his country. Novel. (= Ullstein 3 M. novels. Vol. 61). Ullstein, Berlin et al. 1918
  • The Indian tomb . Novel. (= Ullstein 3 M. novels. Vol. 54). Ullstein, Berlin et al. 1918 ( en )
    • The Indian tomb. Roman (= Fischer 2705 Library of Fantastic Adventures ). Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-596-22705-4 .
  • Legends. Ullstein, Berlin 1919.
  • Strange Saints - ten short stories. Scherl, Berlin 1919.
  • The unholy trinity. Salzer, Heilbronn 1920.
  • Gold in the fire. Levy & Müller, Stuttgart approx. 1920.
  • The house without a door or window. Novel. Ullstein, Berlin 1920.
  • The Nibelung Book. With 24 picture supplements from the Decla Ufa film “The Nibelungs”. Three masks, Munich 1923.
  • The island of the immortals. Novel. Scherl, Berlin 1926.
  • Metropolis. Novel. Scherl, Berlin 1926.
  • Man between women. Novellas. Eichblatt, Leipzig 1927.
  • Woman in the moon. Novel. Scherl, Berlin 1928.
    • Woman in the moon. Roman (= Heyne books 06, Heyne science fiction & fantasy 4676). New edition, paperback edition. With a picture and an afterword on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the 1st moon landing on July 20, 1969. Heyne, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-453-03620-4 .
  • Spies. Novel. With 16 pictures from the film of the same name. Scherl, Berlin 1928.
  • Love letters from St. Florin. Novella . JJ Weber, Leipzig 1935 ( shuttle-library 6)
  • Blooming lotus. Novel. German publisher, Berlin 1941
  • The thief of Baghdad. Capricorn, Holzminden 1949.
  • Gartenstrasse 64. Ullstein, Berlin 1952.

literature

Monographs
  • Karin Bruns : Kinomythen 1920–1945. The film drafts of Thea von Harbou. Metzler, Stuttgart et al. 1995, ISBN 3-476-01278-6 (At the same time: Essen, University, dissertation, 1993: Thea von Harbou. ).
  • Karin Bruns: Talking Film. Writing Skills and Film Aesthetics in the Work of Thea by Harbou. In: Christiane Schönfeld, Carmel Finnan (Ed.): Practicing Modernity. Female Creativity in the Weimar Republic. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2006, ISBN 3-8260-3241-1 , pp. 139–152.
  • Ernst Gortner: shadow mouth. The cinematographic visions of Thea Gabriele von Harbou. In: Bernd Flessner (Ed.): Visionaries from Franconia. Six fantastic biographies. Schmidt, Neustadt an der Aisch 2000, ISBN 3-87707-542-8 , pp. 65-99.
  • Andre Kagelmann: The war and the woman. Thea von Harbou's short story about the First World War. Media Net-Edition, Kassel 2009, ISBN 978-3-939988-04-5 (also: Cologne, University, Dissertation, 2008).
  • Andre Kagelmann: Thea von Harbou's story “Der stumme Teich” from the anthology 'German women. Pictures of silent heroism '. An exemplary narrative text analysis. On: www.thea-von-harbou.de from September 21, 2006.
  • Reinhold Keiner: “Lady Kitschener” and her author. Walter Reimann's film manuscripts. In: Hans-Peter Reichmann (Red.): Walter Reimann - painter and film architect (= cinematograph. No. 11). German Filmmuseum, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-88799-055-2 , pp. 134-143.
  • Reinhold Keiner: Thea von Harbou and German film up to 1933 (= studies on film history. Vol. 2). Olms, Hildesheim et al. 1984, ISBN 3-487-07467-2 .
  • Reinhold Keiner: Forgotten script works (1944): Life goes on. On: http://thea-von-harbou.de/ from April 5, 2007.
  • Anna Maria Sigmund : Thea von Harbou. The queen of the Nazi scripts. December 27, 1888 - July 2, 1954. In: Anna Maria Sigmund: The women of the Nazis. The three bestsellers fully updated in one volume Updated full paperback edition. Heyne, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-453-60016-9 , pp. 865-924.
Lexicons

Web links

Commons : Thea von Harbou  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Thea von Harbou  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thea von Harbou in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  2. ^ A "Niederlößnitzer Perle!" ( Memento from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
  3. ^ Filmportal.de: Hanneles Himmelfahrt
  4. ^ Filmportal.de: Elisabeth and the fool
  5. ^ Ernst Klee: The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 215–216.
  6. ↑ Walter Steinecke: On the island of Staumühle. Abraxas-Verlag, Lemgo 1955, p. 74 f .
  7. ^ German administration for popular education in the Soviet zone of occupation: List of the literature to be sorted out. 2., addendum. Deutscher Zentralverlag, Berlin 1948, pp. 104-134, no. 2881 .
  8. ↑ Thea von Harbou died . In: Hamburger Abendblatt . Friday July 2, 1954, p. 6. Retrieved November 11, 2019.
  9. ^ Mourning in the "Dreimäderlhaus" . In: Hamburger Abendblatt . Saturday / Sunday, 3rd / 4th July 1954, p. 16. Retrieved November 11, 2019.
  10. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 487.
  11. ↑ Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection: Honorary Graves of the State of Berlin (as of November 2018) (PDF, 413 kB), p. 30. Accessed on November 11, 2019. Submission - for information - on the recognition and further preservation of graves Well-known and deserving personalities as honorary graves in Berlin (PDF, 158 kB). Berlin House of Representatives, printed matter 14/1607 of November 1, 2001, p. 3. Accessed November 11, 2019.
  12. ^ A novel-like support for the Nazi India policy targeted at that time, against British colonialism. At that time the Germans were of the opinion that not only Persia, because of the "Aryans", belonged to their sphere of influence, but also the subsequent India. Only behind this should the Japanese sphere of power begin with the redivision of the world
personal data
SURNAME Harbou, Thea of
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Harbou, Thea Gabriele von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Tauperlitz , today in Döhlau
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1954
Place of death Berlin