Therese Fläxl
Therese Fläxl (born September 20, 1920 in Rohrdorf ; † August 2, 2012 in Freising ; née Steiner ) was a German cinema entrepreneur. As the owner and managing director of the Fläxl film theater company, she shaped the cinema culture of the Upper Bavarian district town of Freising for over 40 years.
Life
Therese Steiner was born on a farm that also had a bakery in Rohrdorf near Rosenheim. She attended elementary school and then a household school, where she also acquired skills in shorthand and typing. First she worked as an accountant in the office of a cement works, later at a bank in Munich.
She came to Freising by chance. When she was supposed to deliver a package to Magdalena Fläxl, the wife of the cinema operator Georg Fläxl, she spontaneously offered to help in view of the large number of visitors in front of the city cinema . From then on she regularly helped out as an usher. It wasn't long before Paul Fläxl, the oldest son of the cinema founder, became aware of her. Both married in 1949.
Her father-in-law Georg Fläxl founded the city cinema in 1912 on Bahnhofstrasse next to the “Zur Gred” inn . It was the second cinema in town. With the arrival of talkies and the support of the National Socialists, who had recognized the usefulness of cinemas for their propaganda, the company expanded. Shortly before the end of the Second World War , Fläxl opened another cinema on New Year's Eve 1944, the Bavaria on Untere Hauptstrasse. After the end of the war, the US military government confiscated the Bavaria and it took until 1956 for the family to get their cinema back - also because Georg Fläxl had been classified as a “fellow traveler” in front of the Spruchkammer. Therese Fläxl even wrote to the US President Dwight D. Eisenhower .
Three years earlier, Paul and Therese Fläxl founded the cinema in the Colosseum in a shopping mall in 1952 . In the 1950s, the company attracted a large number of visitors. With the spread of television, cinemas experienced a sharp decline in viewers from the 1960s onwards. In 1963 Paul Fläxl died after a ruptured heart muscle and Therese Fläxl ran the three cinemas on her own in addition to raising her three sons. In 1969 the Colosseum was demolished.
Only the film companies of the Fläxl family and the central cinema in Stieglbräugasse, which Therese Fläxl bought in 1974 and renamed Camera , survived the decline of the cinemas in Freising . In 1977 she carried out massive renovations in the cinemas, the large halls were divided into several smaller ones in order to be able to show a wider range of films. After this construction work, the number of visitors increased again. In 1986 a fourth room was added in the Camera , in which equipment with comfortable seats with wide armrests was tested for the first time, as the family had met on visits to Belgium and as it later became standard in multiplex cinemas . In addition to family, homeland and adventure films, Therese Fläxl attached great importance to artful arthouse cinema throughout her life. In particular , she showed award-winning films in the Camera . In collaboration with directors, with the Freising adult education center, youth care and the Catholic district education organization, she implemented her concept of “film art”, which brought her nationwide recognition and awards. She and her cinema have received several awards from the Federal Ministry of the Interior . Nevertheless, the camera was closed in September 2013 because the house owner no longer wanted to extend the lease.
In 1987 she handed the company over to her son Paul and daughter-in-law Angela. Today it operates three houses in Freising, Vilsbiburg , Erding and Neufahrn with 32 screens.
Honors
- 1987: Culture Prize of the Freising District
- 1988: Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany
literature
- Grande Dame des Kinos , In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 4th August 2012
- Peter Becker: A family makes the cinema , In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 19, 2012
- Christa Wiesheu: "Film art" established in Freising. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, September 20, 2000
- 100 years of Fläxl film theaters: Always at the forefront , at Blickpunkt: Film, February 6, 2012
- 100 years of cinema in Freising with the city magazine FINK Magazin
Individual evidence
- ^ Obituary notice in the Süddeutsche Zeitung
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Fläxl, Therese |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Steiner, Therese (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German cinema entrepreneur |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 20th September 1920 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rohrdorf |
| DATE OF DEATH | 2nd August 2012 |
| Place of death | Freising |