Wolfgang Langhoff

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Wolfgang Langhoff, 1962

Wolfgang Langhoff (born October 6, 1901 in Charlottenburg ; † August 25, 1966 in East Berlin ) was a German actor and director . From 1946 to 1963 he directed the Deutsches Theater Berlin. He is the father of Thomas and Matthias Langhoff and the grandfather of the author Anna Langhoff , the actor Tobias Langhoff and the director Lukas Langhoff .

Life

youth

Langhoff was born in Charlottenburg in 1901 as one of four children of the businessman Gustav Langhoff and his wife Martha Maria geb. Kükenthal was born in Uhlandstrasse 171/172, but grew up in Freiburg im Breisgau , where he also attended high school. From 1915 to 1917 he went to sea as a seaman , aiming for an officer career in the merchant navy . After the end of the First World War he had his first engagement as an extra at the Königsberg Theater ; there he soon played his first supporting roles - without ever having completed an acting education.

Political engagement, emigration

In 1923 Langhoff made a stop at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg and Wiesbaden . In 1926 he married the actress Renata Edwina Malacrida , an Italian Jew. The sons Thomas (1938–2012) and Matthias (* 1941) emerged from the marriage. From 1928 to 1932 he played at the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf with Louise Dumont and Gustav Lindemann , from September 1932 to February 28, 1933 at the Städtische Bühnen Düsseldorf under Walter Bruno Iltz . Langhoff was intensely committed to the KPD during this time , was the artistic director of the Agitprop troupe "Nordwest-ran", founded in 1930 . a. performed at trade union events and was a member of the Düsseldorf group Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists , or "ASSO" for short

On February 28, 1933, Langhoff was arrested by the Gestapo and initially imprisoned in the Düsseldorf police prison, where he was subjected to severe torture by the SA. A few days later he was transferred to the Ulmer Höh prison in Düsseldorf . In July 1933 he was taken to the Börgermoor concentration camp in Emsland . There, in August 1933, he revised a text by Johann Esser for the Moorsoldaten-Lied, which later became world-famous . The melody was composed by fellow inmate Rudi Goguel . After being transferred to the Lichtenburg concentration camp , Langhoff was released in 1934 as part of the so-called Easter amnesty. Langhoff was imprisoned and in concentration camps for a total of 13 months. Three months later - in June of the same year - he fled to Switzerland , shortly before the border was closed. He found accommodation and work as a director and actor at the Schauspielhaus Zürich . In 1935 the autobiographical report Die Moorsoldaten. 13 months concentration camp published, which, after being translated into English by Lilo Linke, received worldwide attention as one of the first eyewitness accounts of the brutality in the National Socialist concentration camps . Langhoff was a founding member of the Free Germany Movement in Switzerland.

Directorship

In 1945 Langhoff returned to Germany and became general director of the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus . In 1946 he took over the Deutsches Theater in East Berlin from Gustav von Wangenheim , where he also celebrated success as a director. After moving to the Soviet occupation zone , Langhoff was a member of the 2nd German People's Council for the Kulturbund . In addition, he played an important role in the cultural policy of the GDR and was a member of the Academy of the Arts . In 1959 he became President of the GDR Center of the UNESCO International Theater Institute . But soon there was the first dispute with the culture commission of the Central Committee of the SED . He was accused of failing to implement socialist realism and his game plans were criticized. In 1963 he resigned in connection with the dispute about the play he directed The Worries and Power by Peter Hacks , Wolfgang Heinz was his successor. Langhoff remained connected to the Deutsches Theater until the end of his life and continued to direct there. In 1964 he was made an honorary member of the theater, in 1966 he died of cancer at the age of 64. In 1991 his son Thomas Langhoff took over the post of artistic director.

job

Complete list of roles, stagings and recitations

  • Winrich Meiszies (Ed.): Wolfgang Langhoff - Theater for a good Germany. Düsseldorf - Zurich - Berlin 1901–1966 . Düsseldorf 1992, pp. 176-195.
Wolfgang Langhoff bust in front of the Deutsches Theater Berlin

Important roles

Schauspielhaus Zurich

German Theater Berlin

Langhoff as a director

Grave of Wolfgang Langhoff in the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof in Berlin (2016)

Langhoff's classic productions at the Deutsches Theater established his fame as a director: “The text was always the focus for him, he felt obliged to the original. His work was strongly based on Stanislawski's theory , it was only in his later years that he developed a certain distance from the plays he staged, and approached Brecht - albeit in moderation . "

Milestones in his career were Faust (1949 and 1954), Egmont (1951), Don Carlos (1952), King Lear (1957) and Minna von Barnhelm (1960). The latter production with Käthe Reichel in the leading role must be considered Langhoff's most important from today's perspective, as it influenced many young directors.

Langhoff as director

Not only classics were on the program of the Deutsches Theater, Langhoff also promoted contemporary drama, played Soviet plays such as The Russian Question by Konstantin Simonow - the staging of this play led to the final division of the Berlin theater landscape into East and West in 1947, as he throws it American press to manipulate public opinion. In the sixties Langhoff increasingly protested against one-sided propaganda and refused to put many pieces on the program. However, he repeatedly avoided an open confrontation with the Central Committee Culture Commission, only giving in too often, for example in the case of an invitation from Heinz Hilpert to the GDR, which he did not dare to express personally.

For many years, Langhoff's chief dramaturge was Heinar Kipphardt ; in 1960, Peter Hacks, with the support of Kipphardt, became a dramaturge at Langhoff (up to the scandal surrounding the play Worries and Power in 1963). The ensemble of the German Theater consisted of Ernst Busch , Horst Drinda , Mathilde Danegger , Rudolf Wessely , Karl Paryla , Käthe Reichel , Inge Keller .

After returning from exile , Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel initially worked with their ensemble on Langhoff's house before they could move to the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in 1954 .

Filmography

theatre

Director

actor

Radio plays

Publications

  • The Moorsoldaten - 13 months in a concentration camp. An apolitical factual report. Schweizer Spiegel Verlag, Zurich 1935. (Many other editions)

biography

  • Esther Slevogt: Seeking communism with the soul: Wolfgang Langhoff - a German artist's life in the 20th century. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2011, ISBN 3-462-04079-0

bibliography

  • Winrich Meiszies (Ed.): Wolfgang Langhoff - Theater for a good Germany. Düsseldorf - Zurich - Berlin 1901–1966 . Düsseldorf 1992, pp. 196-202.

literature

King Lear, tragedy by William Shakespeare, production by Wolfgang Langhoff at the Deutsches Theater Berlin
postage stamp of the GDR 1973
  • Wolfgang Langhoff: The moor soldiers . oaO 1995, ISBN 3-88021-226-0 .
  • Deutsches Theater Berlin (ed.): Report over 10 years . Berlin 1957.
  • Anna Beck: Wolfgang Langhoff . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 2, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 1074 f.
  • Deutsches Theater Berlin (Hrsg.): Hundred Years of Deutsches Theater Berlin. 1883-1983 . Berlin 1986.
  • Wolfgang Emmerich:  Langhoff, Wolfgang. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 605 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Christoph Funke, Dieter Kranz: Wolfgang Langhoff - actor, director, director . Berlin 1969. (= Theaterpraxis series, Vol. 3)
  • Edith Krull: Wolfgang Langhoff . Berlin 1962. (= theater and film, vol. 3)
  • Winrich Meiszies (Ed.): Wolfgang Langhoff - Theater for a good Germany. Düsseldorf - Zurich - Berlin 1901–1966 . Düsseldorf: Theatermuseum Düsseldorf, 1992. (= documents on theater history, vol. 5). ISBN 3-929945-05-3
  • Joachim Werner Preuß: Theater in the East / West Political Environment. Berlin interface 1945–1961 . Munich 2004, ISBN 3-89129-689-4 .
  • Esther Slevogt: Seeking communism with the soul: Wolfgang Langhoff - a German artist's life in the 20th century . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2011.
  • Armin Stolper: Another red hundred. Wolfgang Langhoff . Schkeuditz 2001, ISBN 3-935530-11-0 .
  • Short biography for:  Langhoff, Wolfgang . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Documentaries

  • Ullrich H. Kasten: Hope - a German winter star: The Langhoffs . Cinetec Film GmbH and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg rbb, 2004.

Web links

Commons : Wolfgang Langhoff  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Birth certificate StA Charlottenburg I No. 1063/1901 .
  2. ↑ Robert Zagolla: In the Name of Truth - Torture in Germany from the Middle Ages to today. Pp. 136-139.
personal data
SURNAME Langhoff, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor, director and communist, MdV
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin , Germany
DATE OF DEATH August 25, 1966
Place of death East Berlin , German Democratic Republic