Werner Kortwich

Adolf Johann Werner Kortwich (born May 14, 1898 in Berlin ; † March 28, 1966 there ) was a German writer , journalist , translator , screenwriter , film producer , dramaturge and film director .

Live and act

Kortwich had worked as a journalist during the Weimar Republic and stood out above all as a film critic . At the beginning of the Third Reich, his career experienced a considerable boost. In 1934 he edited the screenplay of the Nazi-critical fellow writer and later emigrant Ludwig von Wohl zu Reinhold Schünzel's popular and critical hit The English Marriage , before he was allowed to work as a script (co) author for the first time at the end of the same year. In the following year he served himself to the brown rulers and produced the manuscript for the aggressively anti-communist peasant and country drama Friesennot for the Reich Propaganda Management of the NSDAP, main office for film. Directed by the largely inexperienced Reichsfilmdramaturg von Goebbels' grace, Willi Krause (under the pseudonym Peter Hagen). “Perhaps a better film would have been made out of Friesennot if Krause alias Hagen and his author didn't have to work through so many propaganda points” , the author Hans Schmid sums up in 2010. Friesennot also appeared in book form (as a novella).

As a result of the benevolent acceptance of this work by Goebbels and Hitler, Kortwich, who had found another field of work as an employee of the Filmkreditbank , remained connected to the film business until 1945. From 1938 he worked for two years as a production and line manager at various companies such as Majestic-Film , for which he produced the popular dance dance on the volcano with Gustaf Gründgens , and Tobis . In 1940, Kortwich and two colleagues produced a strongly propagandistic documentary about the victorious western campaigns of the Wehrmacht . From 1941 to 1944 he worked as a dramaturge for the Prague film in the German-occupied protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia .

Despite at times intensive work for the film, writing remained Kortwich's main field of activity, especially after 1945, when he was hardly active for the film. In addition to Friesennot , Kortwich has published a number of other books - predominantly novels and stories with a reading character for a broad audience: The Battle for Fort Dawson, Men at Forty, Film Territory, Hoofbeats in the Night, Storm Warning and Shark Bay . He also translated a number of books by Anglo-American authors into German. A selection: Saul Cooper's My Geisha , John D. MacDonald's An Hour for the Killer , John Tessitores A Touch of Mink , Marvin H. Alberts A Marriage Bed to Try , Joseph Hiltons The Girl from Paris , Charles Williams' The Diamond Bikini , Anthony Nuttings Lawrence, Hero of Arabia , Bernard Glemsers In Good Company , Jeffrey K. Gardner's Cleopatra, and Chandlers Brossards An American in Rome . Many of these books served as models for American films.

Werner Kortwich, who had lived in Berlin-Neuwestend after the war until his death, was the father of three children. One of them was the sound engineer Gunther Kortwich .

Filmography

• 1934: The English marriage (script adaptation)
• 1934: The sleeping car controller (scriptwriter)
• 1935: Friesennot (screenplay)
• 1938: Tanz auf dem Vulkan (production group leader)
• 1938: Jokers (line producer)
• 1939: Tip on Amalia (production manager)
• 1940: Victory in the West (propaganda documentary, co-directing)
• 1952: The Battle of Tertia (assistant to the screenplay)

literature

• Johann Caspar Glenzdorf: Glenzdorf's international film lexicon. Biographical manual for the entire film industry. Volume 2: Hed – Peis. Prominent-Filmverlag, Bad Münder 1961, DNB 451560744 , p. 886.

Web links

• Werner Kortwich in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Werner Kortwich at filmportal.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ Kortwich and Friesennot