Wilhelm Dettmer (actor)

Wilhelm Dettmer ( January 1, 1860 in Hamburg - July 14, 1925 in Dresden ) was a German theater actor and director .

Life

Dettmer, son of Friedrich Dettmer (and grandson of Wilhelm Georg Dettmer ), was already noticeable in school with his talent for acting when declaiming poems. To become an actor, he had to assert himself against the declared will of his father.

Then Dettmer took lessons from Eduard Winger . In 1879 he received his first engagement at the Meiningen court theater . There he joined the Meiningen family , and with them came to Amsterdam , but was only used in second lover and hero roles.

In doing so, however, he acquired a lot of stage routine and was patronized by the wife of the Duke of Meiningen, the Helene Baroness von Heldburg . He stayed in Meiningen until February 1, 1881, after receiving an application to the Dresden Court Theater immediately after the death of his father (October 24, 1880).

There he had Adalbert Matkowsky in front of him, so that he was prevented from appearing in the first roles of his field. This only changed with Matkowsky's departure to Hamburg in 1866.

He has now gained rich recognition in first heroic and lover roles such as “Fiesko”, “Sigismund”, in The Dream of a Life , Clavigo , Wetter von Strahl etc. Dettmer was considered a very meritorious member of the Dresden court theater.

In the first decade of the 20th century, he temporarily headed the Hamburg drama ensemble as chief director, before he was brought back to the Royal Court Theater in Dresden as a court actor before the outbreak of the First World War . After the war Dettmer was also on the road as a guest artist.

literature

• Ludwig Eisenberg : Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century . Verlag von Paul List , Leipzig 1903, p. 187, ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Wilhelm Kosch : Deutsches Theater-Lexikon, Biographisches und Bibliographisches Handbuch, first volume, Klagenfurt and Vienna 1953, p. 317