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Heinrich George | |
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 Publicity portrait by Hugo Erfurth, 1930 | |
| Born | Georg August Friedrich Hermann Schulz (1893-10-09)9 October 1893 Stettin, German Empire |
| Died | 25 September 1946(1946-09-25) (aged 52) Sachsenhausen, Germany |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1912–1945 |
| Spouse | Berta Drews |
| Children | 2, includingGötz George |
Georg August Friedrich Hermann Schulz[1] (9 October 1893 – 25 September 1946), better known asHeinrich George (German:[ˈhaɪnʁɪçɡeˈ(ʔ)ɔʁɡə]ⓘ), was a German stage and film actor.
George was born inPomerania to August Friedrich Schulz, a formerDeck Officer in theImperial German Navy, and Anna Auguste Wilhelmine Glander. He had one older brother. He did not complete school, but instead took acting classes inStettin. In 1912, he made his stage debut in a production ofDie keusche Susanne playing a waiter. His acting career was interrupted by the advent ofWorld War I. He volunteered to fight and was seriously wounded in 1915.
After the war, George worked at the Albert Theatre in Dresden and theSchauspiel Frankfurt. He appeared in a production ofOskar Kokoschka'sHiob in Frankfurt which ended up with the audience rioting due to the appearance of a naked woman onstage.In 1921, he moved to Berlin to work at theDeutsches Theater. The same year, he appeared in his first film,Der Roman der Christine von Herre by directorLudwig Berger.
George is noted for having spooked the youngBertolt Brecht in his first directing job, a production ofArnolt Bronnen'sParricide (1922), when he refused to continue working with the director.[2]
In 1923 he founded theSchauspielertheater with fellow actorsElisabeth Bergner andAlexander Granach in order to be able to work more independently as an artist. From 1925 to 1929 he appeared primarily onstage at theVolksbühne. From 1926 to 1938 he also appeared regularly at the Heidelberg Festival.
He appeared inFritz Lang'sMetropolis (1927) andDreyfus (1930), as well as starring inBerlin Alexanderplatz (1931).
In 1929, George organized a memorial service for his friend and colleagueAlbert Steinrück at theStaatstheater inGendarmenmarkt. The purpose of the event was to ensure that Steinrück's descendants made a living through the sale of Steinrück's paintings which were exhibited in the theater.
George was an active member of theCommunist party during the Weimar Republic.[3] He worked with theatre directorErwin Piscator and playwrightBertolt Brecht, both of whom identified with the political left.
On 12 October 1932, he changed his legal name to his stage nameGeorge.[1]
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 aStaatsschauspieler (i.e. an actor of national importance) and in 1938 was appointed director of theSchiller Theater in Berlin. As director, he hired artists who were considered "non-desirable" including the art historianWilhelm Fraenger (a communist), the Catholic actor Robert Müller, and the graphic artist Karl Rössing (a communist who converted to the NSDAP) and his studentGünther Strupp. George actively collaborated with the Nazis and agreed to star in Nazi propaganda films such asHitler Youth Quex (1933),Jud Süß (1940), andKolberg (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]
On the occasion of his 50th birthday,Adolf Hitler awarded George the title ofGeneralintendant.Joseph Goebbels personally presented George with a portrait of Hitler to commemorate the event.
After firebombs severely damaged the Schiller Theater in September 1943, Goebbels presented him with aVerdienstkreuz 2. Klasse (Cross of Merit, 2nd Class) for helping to extinguish the fire.
On 14 May 1945, according to his wife, George was arrested for the first time by Soviet officers with the words "He won't stay long" and was released the next day. He was given meat and wine for his family. A week later he was imprisoned again for one day, and on 26 May for the third time for five days. He is said to have told his interrogators "Please shoot me" and his wife reported in her memoirs (1956/1986) that he said:
"They should take away everything I have, starve me and humiliate me. But if they forbid me to act, I will die".
On 31 May, George received a certificate from the mayor ofCharlottenburg stating that he was not allowed to be involved in clean-up work "as he must be available to the authorities for questioning at any time". In the beginning of June, the Soviet city commander for BerlinNikolai Berzarin issued him a letter of protection which appeared in his KGB file as a "passport" confiscated during his last arrest. George was arrested again, after the death of Berzarin on 16 June, when his motorcycle collided with a truck convoy near his office in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde.
George's KGB file includes an undated report from five informers, three of them with legible signatures. The letter states: "Just 14 days before the Red Army liberated us from the Nazi yoke, he made himself available to the NSDAP and tried to incite Berliners to active resistance in the form of a call in the Berlin press. The entire German people can stand as a witness against George. If George were put on any German stage, in our opinion he would be lynched."
A Lieutenant Bibler reported to his boss Pyrin on 28 July 1945 that George was “one of the most respected fascist artists" who "contributed to the continuation of the war through his pro-fascist agitation in radio and newspapers". The day before, Bibler's Soviet colleague had ordered George's transfer to theNKVD special camp in Hohenschönhausen, citing NKVD Order No. 0016 of 11 January 1945.
George managed to set up a prison theater at the camp and put on a production ofFaust. His wife was allowed to speak to him at the gate once a week for five minutes and also bring him textbooks and music. On 6 December he was allowed to hug his son Götz; it was the last time his wife saw him. In February 1946, communist writerFriedrich Wolf (the father of the laterStasi headMarkus Wolf) tried to facilitate George's release; other attempts by his theater friends to get him released were unsuccessful.
George was transferred to the Soviet special camp No. 7 Sachsenhausen.[6] According to a fellow prisoner, George continued to perform at Sachsenhausen in front of 12,000 prisoners and the Soviet guards.
The once massive man lost weight rapidly - a record from February 1946 documented a weight loss of 80 pounds (40 kilograms) - and was now completely exhausted. On 22 September, during preliminary rehearsals for a dramatization of the balladDeath of Tiberius, George went to the internal medicine outpatient clinic, according to a fellow prisoner. The examining doctor diagnosedappendicitis. The next morning he was taken to the hospital on a stretcher by the paramedics. As a result of the appendix operation, George died on 25 September 1946. The death certificate, signed by Soviet and German doctors, shows the diagnosis as "laparotomy,bronchopneumonia, cardiac atrophy." The cause of death is given as "bronchopneumonia andheart failure". However, his cause of his death was likely starvation, despite official reports.[7]
Through the intercession of one of the camp staff who admired his acting, George was buried in an individual grave at the camp rather than in the customary mass grave. According to a fellow prisoner, his bones were found in an overgrown forest near Sachsenhausen in 1994. The remains were identified using DNA from his two sons and his body was moved to Berlin to theZehlendorf Cemetery. His tombstone is topped by a bronze bust and an inscription commemorating his wife who died in 1987. In 1995, theSenate of Berlin declared the grave anEhrengrab des Landes Berlin (Honorary Grave).
In 1930, George was playing the role ofGötz von Berlichingen in theplay of the same name and needed to find an actress to play Adelheid von Walldorf.Ernst Legal suggested actressBerta Drews for the role based on her work as Adelhaid atReinhardt-Schule. The couple's first child Jan George was born the following year and they were married in 1933. They had a second son in 1938 who was namedGötz George after his father's character. Götz became an actor while Jan George worked as a photographer.
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