Walther Flechtheim

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Walther Flechtheim (born July 12, 1881 in Warburg , † March 6, 1949 in London ) was a German variety artist . With his wife he became known nationwide under the stage name "Monroe & Molly".

family

Walther Flechtheim came from the Jewish merchant family Flechtheim from Brakel , who worked there in the agricultural goods trade. His father Salomon "Sally" Flechtheim (1847–1925) was the son of Jacob Flechtheim (1798–1853), who had moved from Brakel to Warburg, where he had inherited a large farm house at 23 Bernhardistraße from his uncle Schaft Ostmann in Warburg , in which he also ran an agricultural goods trade and a private bank. After Jacob's death, the house and business were initially continued by Jacobs' partner and brother-in-law Ruben Sternau and later taken over by Walther's father Sally.

At the same time, Walthers Flechtheim's younger great-uncle Moses Flechtheim expanded the Brakel business and founded the grain trading company M. Flechtheim there , which was relocated to Münster in 1870.

Life

Walther Flechtheim grew up in the old town of Warburg. From there he first moved to Dresden . At the age of 24 he traveled on the liner Grosser Kurfürst on July 18, 1905 from Bremen to the USA in New York City . During the First World War he was drafted and released as a lieutenant . Then he turned to art , like his famous great cousin Alfred Flechtheim . He got to know the dancer Hedwig Jordan, who came from a Protestant working-class family in Vogtland , who was 12 years his junior, and developed a variety program with her, which became known first in Berlin and later throughout Germany under the name "Monroe & Molly". The two loved jazz and delighted with exciting numbers such as the Apache or pajama dance. In 1920 he married his partner and renounced the Jewish faith. After that he was considered the "black sheep" of the family. In the same year, an engagement in the hotel "Vier Jahreszeiten" on Ostkorso 8 led the couple to Bad Oeynhausen . There it took its main residence and during the summer months entertained the spa guests with modern dance performances to jazz music in self-made costumes. In winter they went on tour, appeared in variety shows in Berlin, Halle an der Saale , Gera and Oldenburg . When the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten stopped its entertainment program in 1925, the couple set up their own series of events in the Kurhaus Bad Oynhausen and from 1926 to 1932 directed the “HOZO artist games” in the Hotel Hohenzollernhof.

In 1933 Walther Flechtheim became director of the variety theater “Der Seidenfaden” in Krefeld, which the dye works owner Fritz Kress had set up in a former hotel on Ostwall 103-105 . However, a letter from his deputy there with the content "We do not want to work with a non-Aryan anymore" led to his dismissal a short time later due to the laws of the Reich Chamber of Culture . The couple was banned from working and fled to England in 1935. There it remained true to the art of vaudeville and ran an artist agency with accommodation in London. Walther Flechtheim died in London in 1949.

In the 1950s, Hedwig Flechtheim visited Bad Oeynhausen and Berlin for the first time. She lived on the Isle of Man since 1960 , where she died in 1972. The couple were buried in the cemetery on Schwarzen Weg in Bad Oeynhausen.

Culture of remembrance

  • 2001 Traveling exhibition and accompanying publication of the Bad Oeynhausen City Archives in Bad Oeynhausen (Artifact Gallery of the Adult Education Center), Minden (City Library), Schöneck / Vogtland (Citizens' Hall), Detmold (District Government), Berlin-Neukölln (Gallery in the hall), Krefeld (Villa Merländer / NS Documentation center) and Brakel (city museum)

literature

  • Rico Quaschny (Ed.): Monroe & Molly. The variety stars Walther and Hedwig Flechtheim between success and persecution. Bielefeld 2001, ISBN 3-89534-401-X .
  • Rico Quaschny: "... a lovely stay after the day's stress and worries". On the history of the modern theater as part of the entertainment life in Halle before the Second World War. In: Jahrbuch für Halle Stadtgeschichte 2004, pp. 51–76.
  • Martina Schäfer: Two Variétestars between success and persecution. In: Welt am Sonntag . Hamburg, November 16, 2003.
  • Anna Pia Möller: Conversation with contemporary witnesses: Remembering the Roaring Twenties, Gerda Piasta (103) reports on the artist couple »Monroe & Molly«. In: Westfalenblatt . Bielefeld, August 8, 2017.
  • Rei Gesing with Flechtheim's niece Gerda Piasta: "The wisdom of 100-year-olds - 7 questions to the oldest people in Germany - With a foreword by Simone Rethel-Heesters", Solibro Verlag 2018, ISBN 978-3-96079-061-7 , interview with Flechtheim's niece, Gerda Piasta (April 2, 1914 - June 28, 2019) from page 112 in the book

Individual evidence

  1. MyHeritage passenger list of arrivals in New York
  2. Martina Schäfer: Two Variétestars between success and persecution. In: Welt am Sonntag . Hamburg, November 16, 2003.