Waldemar Hecker (director)

Waldemar Hecker (born October 2, 1873 in Görlitz , † September 20, 1958 in Johannisberg , Rheingaukreis ) was a German sculptor , university teacher , cabaret artist and film director .

life and work

Waldemar Hecker was the second child of the couple Ewald Hecker and Henriette Hecker, nee. Leonhardt, born. The father, who practiced in Wiesbaden during the winter months , had acquired the former Bad Johannisberg hydropathic facility (about an hour from Wiesbaden on the southern slope of the Taunus ) in 1881 . He converted this institution into an open sanatorium for people suffering from nerves.

Waldemar Hecker did not follow his father's wish to become a doctor as well, because he decided to study sculpture. From 1893 he studied at the academies for fine arts in Düsseldorf and Karlsruhe . In 1896 he fled to Paris from six months of imprisonment . He became a pupil and studio assistant to Auguste Rodin . Several sculptures were made during this time; The portrait of a dancer from the Paris Opera has survived.

In 1900 he married Grete Rössner, in the same year his son Hanns was born (who married the daughter of the painter Lovis Corinth and the painter Charlotte Berend in 1931 ). In 1902 the second son Heinz was born. During this time the family lived in Munich. Together with Wilhelm Hüsgen , he directed the Hecker-Hüsgen School of Sculpture . With Wassily Kandinsky , he was one of the founders of the Munich artists' association Phalanx in 1903 . As a result of his friendship with Wilhelm Hüsgen and Willy Rath , he joined the eleven executioners for two years in 1901 and became a “hangman's servant”.

Finally, at the beginning of 1912, he made the leap into the still largely undeveloped film industry. At that time he received a directing contract from the Berlin production company Continental-Kunstfilm GmbH ; Hecker took on a film role in the first Titanic film in cinema history, the Continental production In Nacht und Eis from May / June 1912. At the beginning of 1914, Hecker changed employers and produced several film adventures around the detective Charlie Groß for the Berlin producer Karl Werner , but also staged one or the other harmless comedy farce. Hecker only remained loyal to the film for a few years, then suddenly lost interest.

Shortly after the end of the war in 1918, when the basic revolutionary mood allowed great freedom beyond rigid censorship restrictions, Hecker returned to cabaret and took part in the Berlin cabaret Schall und Rauch (under Max Reinhardt's directorship) . Eventually, Hecker turned his back on the theater for good and concentrated on sculpting in the remaining decades of his life. While he was still based in the capital (Berlin W 30, Bayerischer Platz 4) in the 3rd Reich, Waldemar Hecker returned to West Germany after the war and settled in the Rheingau .

Hecker had been married to Irene Figdor since 1912 and had four children with her. He died on September 20, 1958 in Johannisberg am Rhein. One of his last relief works still adorns his parents' grave in Wiesbaden and shows Hecker's children singing and watching the setting sun.

Films (as a director)

• 1912: Schlau-Mayer
• 1912: The man in the bottle
• 1912: In Nacht und Eis (actors only)
• 1913: Factory Marianne
• 1913: Vendetta
• 1914: The impostor trio
• 1914: The rag baron
• 1914: And the moon laughs too
• 1914: The Rondshill bats
• 1914: who is onion tree?
• 1914: The third lieutenant - my wife
• 1915: The ghost seer
• 1915: Mieze Strempel's career
• 1916: The Secret of Venus
• 1917: The Moroccan Germans in the hands of the French (short documentary film)
• 1919: The mysterious sphere
• 1920: your greatest trick

Web links

• Waldemar Hecker in the Internet Movie Database (English)