Traces of a Forgotten

Traces of a Forgotten Man_Wozzeck 12.06.13 10:20 Seite 1 Traces of a Forgotten Man: Biographical Fragments on Director Georg C. Klaren By Ralf Schenk After the curtain came down at the House of Soviet Culture in Berlin on December 17, 1947, the viewers agreed that they had experienced the premiere of an important—possibly even bar-raising—German post- war film. The opening credits read: “Georg Büchner’s Wozzeck.” But Georg C. Klaren, the scriptwriter and director, had not staged the over one-hundred-year-old fragment as a critical reminiscence of a distant past, but rather as a current anti-militaristic parable. The story’s hero, a soldier, is humiliated by his superiors and A DVD Release by the DEFA Film Library maddened by the merciless military machinery—until his insanity drives him to murder his lover and he him- self dies on the execution block. That Klaren drew a connection between the Biedermeier and Nazi periods was reflected in the costume design: the officers wore jackboots and SS riding breeches. And a doctor who • • Wozzeck conducts barbaric experiments on Wozzeck invites comparison with SS doctors in Nazi concentration camps. With Wozzeck, as the film was commonly called, Klaren became part of the elite of German directors. His success had to do with his moral credo, but also with the form he chose. Wozzeck consciously drew on expressionist cinema of the 1920s, with surreal visions and long, threatening shadows, canted camera angles and expressive cuts—more impressive than anyone had seen in German film for a long time. In terms of personnel, Klaren also chose protagonists from that era, which had once had international standing but had been condemned by the Nazis as decadent and volksfremd.1 Hermann Warm, one of the three set designers of Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), was responsible for the production design; Walter Schulze-Mittendorff, who worked on Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, did the costume design; and Paul Wegener, whose Golem marked German expressionist cinema, was Klaren’s artistic advisor. It is this proxi- mity to expressionist filmmaking that makes Wozzeck interesting to this day—not the melodramatic or even pedantic cadences of the dialogue, which feel outdated. In order to direct his first film after the war, Klaren had to request that someone else take over his job. Since early 1946, he had been the chief dramaturg at the DEFA Studio and, as such, the central person responsible for programming. In principle, he was the only member of the DEFA management who had longstanding Traces of a Forgotten Traces Man: Biographical Fragments on Director Georg C. Klaren experience in the film business and knew countless filmmakers. In contrast to Klaren, neither DEFA director Alfred Lindemann, nor his studio co-licensors, Kurt Maetzig and Karl Heinz Bergmann, had a name among German filmmakers. The same was true of actor Hans Klering, who had been in the Soviet Union from the early 1930s until 1945. So it was up to Klaren to contact writers and directors, evaluate filmscripts, and work up dramaturgical concepts for realization. To do this he combed not only the eastern Soviet-occupied zone, but all of Germany, getting in touch with stars like Hans Albers, Marika Rökk, and Heidemarie Hatheyer. “She is very happy to work on a film in Berlin again and confirmed she will play the leading role in Wozzeck,” a contact person in Munich informed Klaren on February 23, 1946 . in other words, three months before the founding of the DEFA Studio and over a year before filming.2 From Writing to Directing Klaren, born Georg Eugen Moritz Alexander Klaric in Vienna on September 10, 1900, started working in film in the early 1920s. His father, an officer, died in WWI; his mother rented out rooms so she could earn enough money for her family’s survival. At the age of fifteen, Klaren started to write for magazines and took acting lessons before studying philosophy and art history. In 1923, while working as a dramaturg for Vita-Film in Vienna, he obtained his doctoral degree with a dissertation on the Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger. His 1 Traces of a Forgotten Man_Wozzeck 12.06.13 10:20 Seite 2 Traces of a Forgotten Man: Biographical Fragments on Director Georg C. Klaren independent scriptwriting started, as far as is known, when he moved to the German capital in 1926. During his first year in Berlin, there were five premieres based on his scripts, including Die Kleine und ihr Kavalier (The Little One and Her Cavalier), Die Warenhausprinzessin (The Department Store’s Princess) and Gern hab’ ich die Frau’n geküsst (Paganini). Klaren and Herbert Juttke, his favorite co-writer, became very busy old hands, whose film scripts were often based on literary works. That Klaren was a leftist—he was a member of the Communist Party of Austria from 1921 until it went under- ground in 1934—is barely noticeable at first. Socially critical themes emerge only gradually in his works— and even then always with a view to popular appeal. This can be seen in films such as Ferne (Distance, 1927, dir. Richard Oswald), based on the murder of Walter Rathenau, or Geschlecht mit Fesseln (Sex in Chains, A DVD Release by the DEFA Film Library 1928, dir. Wilhelm Dieterle), a plea for a prison reform. Other titles come out concurrently, including: Die Dame und Her Chauffeur (The Lady and the Chauffeur); In Werder blühen die Bäume (The Trees Bloom in Werder); Peter, der Matrose (Peter, the Sailor); and Tänzerinnen für Süd-Amerika gesucht (Dancers Wanted • • Wozzeck for South America). In March 1931, Klaren entered the studio for the first time as a director to work, according to Siegfried Kracauer, on a “documentary that tried to educate people about the human and inhuman circumstances in which they find themselves.” Die Sache August Schulze (The August Schulze Case, also known as Kinder vor Gericht) tells the story of a street vendor who is falsely accused of raping his stepdaughter, in the style of contemporary Milieu- and Sittenfilme. Klaren expands his depiction of family relations in the lumpen-pro- letariat to an accusation of the justice system. His hero breaks down and confesses under interrogation, and then commits suicide in his cell. Initially banned, the film was shown in theaters only after the intervention, and under the aegis of the Human Rights League. Klaren’s Ballhaus Goldener Engel (Ballroom Golden Angel)—was no less provocative. Shot in March 1932 at the Ufa Studios in Neu-Babelsberg, with high-profile actors in leading roles, including Lucie Englisch, Adele Sandrock, Hilde Hildebrand and Fritz Kampers, the film shows unemployed youth drifting into the world of crime and brothels. Both productions were banned in the fall of 1933; among other reasons given, Ballhaus Goldener Engel was banned by the Berlin Film- Oberprüfstelle because “based on its contents, the film could be entitled ‘Germany, a Brothel’ and cannot be surpassed for immorality or filth.” It is not known whether these experiences made Klaren think about turning his back on Germany and going into exile, as did some of the directors he worked with, like Conrad Wiene, Lupu Pick, Richard Oswald, of a Forgotten Traces Man: Biographical Fragments on Director Georg C. Klaren Wilhelm Dieterle and others. In a vitae penned in 1946, Klaren described his life after 1933 in the following terms: “Not really persecuted after the so-called ‘takeover’ of the Nazis, but severely neglected. Never joined the party. So not recruited for any prestigious tasks. Mainly worked in Italy, where fascism—at least in terms of culture—did not have quite such a disgusting impact.” And: “Didn’t emigrate because my first wife, who was Jewish, and my mixed-race daughter would have been defenseless. First wife hidden for almost a year. Apart from this: Berlin has always been considered as real home! Too connected to Babelsberg. For this reason—even verifiable—rejected an offer from Hollywood.” Details about Klaren’s first marriage, with Adele Schönauer, and their daughter are still unknown today. Other than a newspaper ad, there is also no information as to whether Klaren agreed to direct the planned movie Schlageter – Über alles das Vaterland (Schlageter: Homeland above All, 1932-33), and why this in - tended National Socialist project was never made. More obvious are the reasons why in 1933 Klaren was not able to make film adaptations of either Kurt Tucholsky’s novella Rheinsberg, or Wozzeck. Instead, Klaren returned to writing and worked primarily in the entertainment industry; he wrote scripts based on plays— Stützen der Gesellschaft (The Pillars of Society), Der Biberpelz (The Beaver Coat)—and novels,—Der Schritt 2 Traces of a Forgotten Man_Wozzeck 12.06.13 10:20 Seite 3 Traces of a Forgotten Man: Biographical Fragments on Director Georg C. Klaren vom Wege (The False Step), based on Effi Briest, directed by Gustaf Gründgens,—as well as crime stories, Mordsache Holm (Murderer Case Holm) and Dr. Crippen an Bord (Dr. Crippen)—and German-Italian music films with Benjamino Gigli. Only occasionally did he deliver drafts for ideological films like Mit versiegelter Order (Under Sealed Orders) or Achtung! Feind hört mit! (Beware! The Enemy Is Listening!) What brought him to affirm his loyalty to the Nazi state, in a 1937 booklet entitled Der deutsche Film und der Autor (The German Film and the Author), was possibly preemptive obedience. Maybe he was in danger of losing jobs? Maybe he hoped to protect his family in this way? No one knows. Between Babelsberg and Vienna A DVD Release by the DEFA Film Library The end of the Third Reich and the Wozzeck film must have represented a huge relief for Klaren.

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