Werner Finck

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Werner Finck (photography by Alexander Binder )
Finck in 1937 in the comedian cabaret

Werner Paul Walther Finck (born May 2, 1902 in Görlitz , † July 31, 1978 in Munich ) was a German cabaret artist , actor and writer .

Life

Werner Finck was born as the son of the pharmacist Botho Finck and attended the art school in Dresden after high school . He made his first theater experiences in various amateur theater groups. He had his first engagement as an actor at the Theater von Bunzlau , where he could not get beyond minor supporting roles, but at the same time his comic talent was discovered.

At the age of 27 Werner Finck came to Berlin in 1929 , where he founded and directed the cabaret Die Katakombe with Hans Deppe . His programs were full of (dangerous) puns, for example about the Hitler oak he supposedly planted : “A few months ago it was very small, just up to my ankles, then it came down to my knees, and now it's standing they're up to my neck. "

In 1935 he was arrested and taken to the Esterwegen concentration camp , where he met Carl von Ossietzky and Julius Leber, among others . "On July 1, 1935, we were released from the concentration camp from one day to the next by order of Göring , who apparently wanted to wipe out Goebbels with it ." He was banned from working for one year . Already at the 1936 Olympics but he wrote again to the Berliner Tageblatt one studded with puns column. In the last edition, on August 16, 1936, one could read about the achievements of Jesse Owens : “How will Leni have received everything? (...) And suddenly she sees it negative, how positive the Negro was. In the negative we are avenged: Right in front, meters ahead, the white man runs, behind the blacks come! "

From 1937 he was allowed to appear again in the cabaret of comedians , whose director Willy Schaeffers, however, had to personally explain to Goebbels in 1939 that he would not use political jokes in order to keep the theater going. On January 31, 1939, Finck was expelled from the Reich Chamber of Culture . To avoid being arrested again, he volunteered for military service in 1939 and was trained as a radio operator. As a soldier in the 23rd Infantry Division , he was in France, the Soviet Union and Italy and received the Iron Cross 2nd Class (EK II) and the Winter Battle Medal in the East 1941/42 , referred to by Finck as the "Order of Frozen Meat". Werner Finck, as a soldier, enjoyed the protection of officers critical of the regime who prevented Goebbels' desired dismissal from the Wehrmacht and transfer to the Gestapo , and appeared as head of the Italian front stage to look after the troops in entertainment programs.

In 1945 he became an American prisoner of war. He founded the magazine Die Fieberkurve (for injured German prisoners of war) and appeared in front of prisoners of war in the Aibling camp in Upper Bavaria . From 1945 to 1949 he published Das Wespennest , the first German satirical magazine after the Second World War , together with Hans Bayer in Stuttgart . In 1946 Werner Finck appeared in the Schmunzelkolleg (Munich) and founded “Die Schmunzelpartei”. He founded and directed the cabarets Nebelhorn in Zurich (1947) and Mausefalle in Stuttgart (1948), where he put his memories into a program for the first time (Critique of Pure Unreason) .

In 1950, the radical center party was founded in Berlin's Taberna academica , with slogans such as “Against uncompromising”, “For arming tolerance”, a safety pin as a party badge and a white tablecloth as a flag against the “seriousness of time” (Adenauer) of German post-war politics. In 1962 he became a full member of the German Academy of Performing Arts. In 1964 Finck's program, Coped with Contradiction, followed in the Munich laughing and shooting society . He has played supporting roles in numerous feature films. In 1972 he published his autobiography Old Fool - What Now? In the same year he appeared in the role of Gregor in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's five-part family series Eight Hours Are Not a Day .

His body was buried in the forest cemetery in Munich / Neuer Teil in grave no. 475-UW-8.

meaning

Star in the Walk of Fame of the cabaret in Mainz

Werner Finck was originally not a political cabaret artist. “I am a die-hard individualist. That's the whole problem. ”It wasn't until the catacomb “ something came into my life that I hadn't known before: politics. [...] You distributed your jokes from left to right. [...] You got scared. […] If I had known then what is known today: that all of these were just followers. [...] Some camouflaged themselves so well that they became Gau leaders. [...] So there are people today who claim that I was against the Nazis. I would like to emphasize right away: these are slanders. I think further. [...] What I have to admit, of course, is something else: The Nazis were against me. "

Ultimately, through the political situation during the time of National Socialism, Werner Finck became the important cabaret artist he is still known as today. During this time he perfected his technique of never-ending sentences ( anacoluthe ) and ambiguities and of unmasking verbatim taking, with the desire not to let his head be forbidden, but also not to lose it. "Come with me? Or do I have to come with you? ”He asked the Gestapo officers, who were making notes in his programs.

Bertolt Brecht dedicated the poem Eulenspiegel survived the war to him in 1947 .

In the Federal Republic of Germany, too, he caused indignation, for example among the CSU (“Christian Bavaria can only be outraged”).

Werner Finck is dedicated to a star in the Cabaret Walk of Fame .

Awards (selection)

Filmography

Radio plays

Book publications

  • The rubber brevier . Herbig, Berlin 1938/1947 (?)
  • Cavaliers, owls, guys: a cabaret book . Siegel, Frankfurt a. M. 1947.
  • Out of the drawer: familiar and less familiar . Herbig, Berlin 1948.
  • Orpheus in the Underworld (with Wilhelm Meissner-Ruland). Steegemann, Berlin 1949.
  • Finck strikes . Herbig, Berlin 1953; Rastatt 1981, ISBN 3-8118-4804-6 ; Reinbek 1978, ISBN 3-499-11832-7 .
  • Joke as fate, fate as joke: A German picture book on useful and pious, period (with Klaus Budzinski ). v. Schröder, Hamburg 1966.
  • Werner Finck in America . Scherz, Bern, Munich, Vienna 1966.
  • Old fool - now what? The story of my time . Herbig, Munich, Berlin 1972. ISBN 3-7766-0589-8 ; Munich 1975, ISBN 3-423-01044-4 ; Frankfurt / M., Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-548-22997-2 .
  • Between the "chairs" . Hyperion, Freiburg im Breisgau 1973.
  • By the way, have fun. Satires from all over the world (preface). Torch bearer, Hanover 1973, ISBN 3-7716-1353-1 .
  • The good soldier Finck . Herbig, Munich, Berlin 1975, ISBN 3-7766-0723-8 .
  • Occasionally. Serious attempts with the cheerful . Herbig, Munich, Berlin 1975, ISBN 3-7766-0734-3 ; Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-596-21845-4 .
  • Key words: for forward, forward and strike . Herbig, Munich, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-7766-1199-5 .
  • Joker - bird free . Ullstein, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-548-22923-9 .

Sound carrier

  • The sounding horoscope - Sagittarius . Polydor 24122 (1959, record)
  • Werner Finck speaks Werner Finck . DECCA DSF 13507 "Word and Voice" (record)
  • Imagination in doll and other finck blows . Teldec, Hamburg (1960, record)
  • Finck strikes . Telefunken / Decca C-119 Dt. Record Club (196 ?, 10 ″ record, B-side: Robert T. Odemann)
  • The good soldier is silent . Polydor HI-FI 46595 (1963, record)
  • His struggle - coped with bias . Polydor Literary Cabaret 47803 (1964, record)
  • USA, USA etc., etc. Polydor Literary Cabaret 237822 (1966, record)
  • Preferably nothing new: Live recording of a Werner Finck solo evening on Austrian television . Metronomes 201,002; OE: Amadeo AVRS 9240, Vienna (1967, record)
  • Old fool - now what? . (Live recording) Ariola 87095 IW (1972, record)
  • Sire, grant thoughts ... . (Live recording) Fontana 6434 152 (197 ?, record)
  • The second slice of Schütten Oesterwind bread . (1974, commercial record)
  • Strength through friends . Euromaster 786 (1976, record)
  • Werner Finck: a portrait (by Karin Köbernick). hrMedia, Frankfurt am Main 2001, 1 CD, ISBN 3-89844-215-2
  • Revoked rights: Cabaret from the Catacomb; from Werner Finck's estate in the Stiftung Deutsches Kabarettarchiv eV Patmos, Düsseldorf 2002, 1 CD, ISBN 3-491-91114-1
  • Old fool - now what? . Herbig, Munich 2002, 1 CD, ISBN 3-7844-4008-8

Film documentaries

  • Genius and fool: Werner Finck . German television documentary by Jürgen Miermeister. First broadcast: May 2, 2002, approx. 45 minutes
  • Heil Hitler, the pig is dead! - Humor under the swastika . German television documentary by Rudolph Herzog. 2006, approx. 45 minutes

Literature about Werner Finck

  • Helmut Heiber : The catacomb is closed (= Archive of Contemporary History. ISSN  0570-6688 , Vol. 4). Scherz, Munich 1966.
  • Swantje Greve: Werner Finck and the catacomb. A cabaret artist targeted by the Gestapo. Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-95565-055-1 .
  • Ulrich Wickert : Freedom. The life motto of the cabaret artist in the concentration camp . In: Curiosity and arrogance. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-455-50277-0 . Republished in: Ulrich Wickert: Never lose sight of lust. Life issues. Hamburg 2017.

Web links

Commons : Werner Finck  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Werner Finck  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Walter Habel (Ed.): Who is who? XV. Edition of Degeners who is it? Berlin 1967, p. 440.
  2. ↑ Joseph Goebbels: Diaries. Volume 3. Munich 2003, ISBN 3-492-21413-4 , pp. 1304 f. on February 1st and 3rd, 1939.
  3. ↑ Lothar Schäffner : The cabaret, the mirror of political events. Dissertation, University of Kiel 1969, p. 68.
  4. ↑ Werner Finck: Der brave Soldat Finck , Berlin, Munich 1975, p. 40.
  5. ↑ Werner Finck: Witz als Schicksal, Schicksal als Jitz , p. 76, 117 f.
  6. ↑ Werner Finck: Witz als Schicksal, Schicksal als Jitz , p. 76 ff .; Alfons Schweiggert : Humor in Poetry - Episode 28: Werner Finck (1902–1978): "At the point where the fun ends, the humor begins!" In: Das Gedicht , February 25, 2017.
  7. ↑ Werner Finck. In: Der Spiegel No. 41, 1949.
  8. ^ Werner Finck: joke as fate, fate as joke ; P. 95 ff.
  9. ↑ Klaus Nerger: The grave of Werner Finck at Knerger.de (private website).
  10. ↑ Werner Finck: Critique of pure unreason , 1947
  11. ↑ Werner Finck: Witz als Schicksal, Schicksal als Jitz , p. 112.
  12. ↑ Announcement of awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Federal Gazette . Vol. 25, No. 43, March 9, 1973.
  13. ↑ CD review. In: Literaturkritik.de .
  14. ↑ CD review. In: Flensburg-Online.de .
personal data
SURNAME Finck, Werner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Finck, Werner Paul Walther (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer, actor and cabaret artist
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Goerlitz , Germany
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 1978
Place of death Munich , Bavaria, Germany