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Carl Zuckmayer | |
|---|---|
 Zuckmayer in 1920 | |
| Born | (1896-12-27)27 December 1896 Nackenheim, Rhenish Hesse, Germany |
| Died | 18 January 1977(1977-01-18) (aged 80) Visp, Valais, Switzerland |
| Resting place | Saas-Fee, Valais, Switzerland |
| Occupation |
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| Language | German |
| Citizenship |
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| Notable awards |
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Carl Zuckmayer (27 December 1896 – 18 January 1977)[1] was a German writer and playwright. His older brother was the pedagogue, composer, conductor, and pianistEduard Zuckmayer.
His first two dramas were failures. In 1929, he wrote the script for the movieDer blaue Engel, for which he received theGeorg Büchner Prize. He also wrote plays, includingThe Captain of Köpenick (1931),Des Teufels General (1946),Barbara Blomberg. Ein Stück in drei Akten (1949), andKranichtanz. Ein Akt (1967).
Zuckmayer was a recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including theKleist Prize, Medal of the city ofGöttingen, theGrand Austrian State Prize for Literature, and the Ring ofSalzburg.
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Born inNackenheim inRhenish Hesse, he was the second son of Amalie (1869–1954), née Goldschmidt, and Carl Zuckmayerde (1864–1947).[2] When he was four years old, his family moved toMainz. With the outbreak ofWorld War I, he (like many other high school students) finishedRabanus-Maurus-Gymnasium with a facilitated "emergency"Abitur and volunteered for military service.
During the war, he served with theGerman Army's field artillery on theWestern Front. In 1917, he published his first poems in thepacifist journalDie Aktion and he was one of the signatures of the "Appeal" published by theAntinational Socialist Party after theGerman Revolution of 9 November 1918. By this time, Zuckmayer held the rank of aLeutnant der Reserve (Reserve Officer).
After the war, he took up studies at theUniversity of Frankfurt, first inhumanities, later inbiology andbotany. In 1920, he married his childhood friend Annemarie Ganz, but they were divorced just one year later, when Zuckmayer had an affair with actress Annemarie Seidel.
Zuckmayer's initial ventures into literature and theatre were complete failures. His first drama,Kreuzweg (1921), fell flat and was delisted after only three performances, and when he was chosen as dramatic adviser at the theatre ofKiel, he lost his new job after his first, controversial staging ofTerence'sThe Eunuch.
In 1924, he became adramaturge at theDeutsches Theater in Berlin, jointly withBertolt Brecht. After another failure with his second drama,Pankraz erwacht oder Die Hinterwäldler, he finally had a public success with the rustic comedyDer fröhliche Weinberg (The Merry Vineyard) in 1925, written in his local Mainz-Frankfurt dialect. This work won him the prestigiousKleist Prize two years after it was awarded to Brecht, and launched his career.[3]
Also in 1925, Zuckmayer married the Austrian actressAlice Herdan [de], and they bought a house inHenndorf, nearSalzburg, in Austria. Zuckmayer's next play,Der Schinderhannes, was again successful.[citation needed]
In 1929, he wrote the script for the movieDer blaue Engel (starringMarlene Dietrich), based on the novelProfessor Unrat byHeinrich Mann. That year, he was also awarded theGeorg Büchner Prize, another prestigious German-language literary award.[citation needed]
In 1931, his playDer Hauptmann von Köpenick premiered and became another success, but his plays were prohibited when theNazis came to power in Germany in 1933 (Zuckmayer's maternal grandfather had been born Jewish and converted toProtestantism).[4]
Zuckmayer and his family moved to their house in Austria, where he published a few more works. After theAnschluss, he was expatriated by theNazi government, and the Zuckmayers fled viaSwitzerland to the United States in 1939, where he first worked as a script writer in Hollywood before renting Backwoods Farm nearBarnard, Vermont in 1941 and working there as a farmer until 1946.[citation needed]
In 1943–44, Zuckmayer wrote "character portraits" of actors, writers, and other artists in Germany for theOffice of Strategic Services, evaluating their involvement with the Nazi regime. This became known only in 2002, when the approximately 150 reports were published in Germany under the titleGeheimreport. The family's Vermont years are narrated in Alice Herdan-Zuckmayer'sDie Farm in den grünen Bergen ("The Farm in the Green Mountains"), a bestseller in Germany upon its 1949 publication.
In January 1946, afterWorld War II, Zuckmayer was granted theUS citizenship he had applied for already in 1943. He returned to Germany and traveled the country for five months as a US cultural attaché. The resulting report to theWar Department was first published in Germany in 2004 (Deutschlandbericht). His playDes Teufels General ("The Devil's General"; the main character is based on the biography ofErnst Udet), which he had written in Vermont, premiered inZürich on 14 December 1946. The play became a major success in post-war Germany; one of the first post-war literary attempts to broach the issue ofNazism. It was filmed in 1955 and starredCurd Jürgens.
Zuckmayer kept writing:Barbara Blomberg premiered inKonstanz in 1949 andDas kalte Licht inHamburg in 1955. He also wrote the screenplay forDie Jungfrau auf dem Dach, the German-language version ofOtto Preminger's 1953 filmThe Moon is Blue. Having shuttled back and forth between the U.S. and Europe for several years, the Zuckmayers left the U.S. in 1958 and settled inSaas Fee in theValais in Switzerland. In 1966, he became a Swiss citizen, and published his memoirs, titledAls wär's ein Stück von mir[5] ("A part of myself"). His last play,Der Rattenfänger, (music byFriedrich Cerha) premiered inZürich in 1975. Zuckmayer died on 18 January 1977 inVisp. His body was interred on 22 January inSaas Fee.
Zuckmayer received numerous awards during his life, such as theGoethe Prize of the city ofFrankfurt in 1952, theBundesverdienstkreuz mit Stern in 1955, the AustrianStaatspreis für Literatur in 1960,Pour le Mérite in 1967, and the AustrianVerdienstkreuz am Band in 1968.
Carl Zuckmayer Goldschmidt.
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