.mw-parser-output .hidden-begin{box-sizing:border-box;width:100%;padding:5px;border:none;font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .hidden-title{font-weight:bold;line-height:1.6;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output .hidden-content{text-align:left}You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (August 2010) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 8,946 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Heinrich George]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template ((Translated|de|Heinrich George)) to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.
Heinrich George
Publicity portrait by Hugo Erfurth, 1930
Born
Georg August Friedrich Hermann Schulz

(1893-10-09)9 October 1893
Stettin, Pomerania, German Empire
Died25 September 1946(1946-09-25) (aged 52)
NKVD special camp Nr. 7, Sachsenhausen, Allied-occupied Germany
OccupationActor
Years active1912–1945
SpouseBerta Drews
Children2, including Götz George

Georg August Friedrich Hermann Schulz[1] (9 October 1893 – 25 September 1946), better known as Heinrich George (German: [ˈhaɪnʁɪç ɡeˈ(ʔ)ɔʁɡə] ⓘ), was a German stage and film actor.

Career

Weimar Republic

George is noted for having spooked the young Bertolt Brecht in his first directing job, a production of Arnolt Bronnen's Parricide (1922), when he refused to continue working with the director.[2]

He appeared in Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) and Dreyfus (1930), as well as starring in Berlin Alexanderplatz (1931).

George was an active member of the Communist party during the Weimar Republic.[3] He worked with theatre director Erwin Piscator and playwright Bertolt Brecht, both of whom identified with the political left.

George in front of his house at Bismarckstraße 34 in Wannsee-Berlin with his mastiff Fellow in 1930

On 12 October 1932, he changed his legal name to his stage name George.[1]

Nazi era

After the Nazi takeover, George was classified as a "non-desirable" actor at first because of his earlier political affiliations and was thus barred from working in cinematic productions. However, he was eventually able to reach an accommodation with the Nazi regime. In 1937, George was designated as a Staatsschauspieler (i.e. an actor of national importance) and in 1938 was appointed director of the Schiller Theater in Berlin. George actively collaborated with the Nazis and agreed to star in Nazi propaganda films such as Hitler Youth Quex (1933), Jud Süß (1940), and Kolberg (1945) as well as appearing in numerous newsreels.

George had a stocky build and a Berlin accent which made him readily recognizable to German audiences. George's prestige as a leading actor of the day made him an "extraordinarily valuable catch for the Nazis."[4] Cooke and Silberman describe him as "the actor most closely tied with fascist fantasies of the autocratic and the populist leader".[5]

Postwar

Although Heinrich George had been a member of the Communist Party of Germany before the Nazi takeover, he was nonetheless interned as a Nazi collaborator by Soviet occupying forces at the NKVD special camp Nr. 7 in Sachsenhausen where he died in 1946.[6]

The cause of his death was starvation, even though official reports stated that he died "after an appendix operation".[7]

Personal life

Heinrich George married the German actress Berta Drews. They had two sons: Jan George and actor Götz George.

Filmography

References

  1. ^ a b "Transscription of birth certificate of Georg August Friedrich Hermann Schulz, born 1893-10-09" (in German). Stettin: Civil registry, Stettin (Szczecin), Poland. 5 November 1934 [1893-10-14]. 3600. Retrieved 27 June 2016. (NB. This document documents Georg August Friedrich Hermann Schulzs birthday on 1893-10-09, as well as the change of his legal name from Schulz to George on 12 October 1932.)
  2. ^ Thomson, Peter; Sacks, Glendyr (1994), The Cambridge Companion to Brecht (2 ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 22–39, ISBN 978-0-521-41446-3
  3. ^ Škvorecký, Josef. "JUD SÜSS". Retrieved 30 October 2011.
  4. ^ Fritzsche, Peter (2008). Life and death in the Third Reich. Harvard University Press. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-674-02793-0. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
  5. ^ Cooke, Paul; Silberman, Marc (30 July 2010). Screening war: perspectives on German suffering. Camden House. p. 115. ISBN 978-1-57113-437-0. Retrieved 8 November 2011.
  6. ^ Fuchs, Anne; Cosgrove, Mary; Grote, Georg (2006). German memory contests: the quest for identity in literature, film, and discourse since 1990. Camden House. p. 199. ISBN 978-1-57113-324-3. Retrieved 30 October 2011.
  7. ^ Neimi, Robert (2006), History in the Media: Film and Television, ABC-CLIO, p. 6, ISBN 978-1-57607-952-2

Further reading

External links

Authority control databases
Categories