Arnolt Bronnen (19 August 1895 – 12 October 1959) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

and director.

Life and career

Bronnen was born in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, Austria, the son of the Austrian-Jewish writer Ferdinand Bronner and his Christian wife Martha Bronner. Bronnen's most famous play is the

Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...

drama ''

Parricide Parricide refers to the deliberate killing of one’s own father and mother, spouse (husband or wife), children, and/or close relative. However, the term is sometimes used more generally to refer to the intentional killing of a near relative. It ...

'' (''Vatermord'', 1922); its première production is notable, among other things, for being that from which Bronnen's friend, the young

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

in an early stage of his directing career, withdrew, after being taken to hospital with malnutrition and the actors of the cast, led by

Heinrich George Georg August Friedrich Hermann Schulz (9 October 1893 – 25 September 1946), better known as Heinrich George (), was a German stage and film actor. Career Weimar Republic George is noted for having spooked the young Bertolt Brecht in his first ...

, walked out on him.Willett and Manheim (1970, viii) and Thomson (1994, 26). According to ''The Cambridge Guide to Theatre'', the "erotic, anti-

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. ...

, black expressionism" of the play "caused a sensation" when it was eventually performed. Bronnen also wrote '' Birth of Youth'' (''Geburt der Jugend'', 1922) and '' Die Excesse'' (1923).Banham (1998, 132). After having collaborated on film treatments and various theatrical projects together, in 1923 Bronnen and Brecht co-directed a condensed version of ''Pastor Ephraim Magnus'' (a

nihilistic Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Iva ...

, Expressionist play, according to ''The Cambridge Guide'', "stuffed with perversities and

sado-masochistic Sadomasochism ( ) is the giving and receiving of pleasure from acts involving the receipt or infliction of pain or humiliation. Practitioners of sadomasochism may seek sexual pleasure from their acts. While the terms sadist and masochist refer ...

motifs") by

Hans Henny Jahnn Hans Henny Jahnn (born Hans Henny August Jahn'';'' 17 December 1894 – 29 November 1959) was a German playwright, novelist, and organ-builder. Personal life Hans Henny Jahn was born in 1894 in Stellingen, one of Hamburg's suburbs, and was the s ...

.Banham (1998, 553), Sacks (1994, xviii), and Willett and Manheim (1970, viii). Later in his life he wrote reportage plays. Bronnen signed the Gelöbnis treuester Gefolgschaft, a "vow of most faithful allegiance" to

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...

in 1933,88 "writers"
from ''Letters of Heinrich and Thomas Mann, 1900-1949'', Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism 12, University of California Press 1998, , pp. 367–68. and was program director for the public TV station

Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow The Fernsehsender "Paul Nipkow" (''TV Station Paul Nipkow'') in Berlin, Germany, was the first public television station in the world. Carrying programming from Deutscher Fernseh-Rundfunk, it was on the air from 22 March 1935, until it was shut ...

, but after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

he became a

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

. Bronnen died of heart failure in

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as West Berlin. From 13 August 1961 u ...

and is buried in the

Dorotheenstadt cemetery The Dorotheenstadt Cemetery, officially the Cemetery of the Dorotheenstadt and Friedrichswerder Parishes, is a landmarked Protestant burial ground located in the Berlin district of Mitte which dates to the late 18th century. The entrance to the ...

.Taylor (1980
65
.

Selected filmography

* ''

The Island of Tears ''The Island of Tears'' (German: ''S.O.S. Die Insel der Tränen'') is a 1923 German silent film directed by Lothar Mendes and starring Lya De Putti, Paul Wegener, and Lyda Salmonova.Bock & Bergfelder p.83 Cast * Lya De Putti as Lilian - Hardin ...

'' (1923)

References

Sources

* Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. ''The Cambridge Guide to Theatre''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. . * Sacks, Glendyr. 1994. "A Brecht Calendar." In ''The Cambridge Companion to Brecht''. Ed. Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . pp. xvii–xxvii. * Taylor, Ronald. 1980. ''Literature and Society in Germany, 1918–1945''. Harvester studies in contemporary literature and culture 3. Brighton, Sussex: Harvester Press / Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes & Noble. . * Thomson, Peter. 1994. "Brecht's Lives." In ''The Cambridge Companion to Brecht''. Ed. Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . p. 22–39. * Willett, John and

Ralph Manheim Ralph Frederick Manheim (April 4, 1907 – September 26, 1992) was an American translator of German and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian. He was one of the most acclaimed translators of the 20th cen ...

. 1970. "Introduction." In ''Collected Plays: One'' by Bertolt Brecht. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry and Prose Ser. London: Methuen. . pp. vii–xvii. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bronnen, Arnolt 1895 births 1959 deaths Austrian male dramatists and playwrights Expressionist dramatists and playwrights Austrian male writers Modernist theatre Austrian theatre directors Austrian communists People from Krnov Writers from Vienna 20th-century Austrian dramatists and playwrights Austrian emigrants to East Germany Austrian people of Jewish descent