Fritz Böhme (10 May 1881 – 19 March 1952) was a German dance publicist and cultural journalist.

Life and career

Empire and Weimar Republic

Born in Berlin, Böhme studied history, art history and education at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin from 1902 to 1905. He earned his living for a while with journalistic work for various newspapers and then studied medieval studies and literary history there from 1910 onwards, among others with Erich Schmidt. Schmidt found him his first permanent position as a "scientific assistant" (a kind of assistant) and archivist at the "Gesellschaft für deutsche Erziehungs- und Schulgeschichte" (Society for German Education and School History). In 1913, Böhme was able to publish a supplementary volume to the edition of

Theodor Storm Hans Theodor Woldsen Storm (; 14 September 18174 July 1888), commonly known as Theodor Storm, was a German-Frisian writer and poet. He is considered to be one of the most important figures of German realism. Life Storm was born in the small t ...

's works. This was followed in 1915 by a biographical study on , the fellow pupil and friend of

Emanuel Geibel Emanuel von Geibel (17 October 18156 April 1884) was a German poet and playwright. Life Geibel was born at Lübeck, the son of a pastor. He was originally intended for his father's profession and studied at Bonn and Berlin, but his real interests ...

and Storm. From 1916, Böhme was head of the feature section of the ''Deutsche Warschauer Zeitung''. Having become aware of new developments in dance through the

German Youth Movement The German Youth Movement () is a collective term for a cultural and educational movement that started in 1896. It consists of numerous associations of young people that focus on outdoor activities. The movement included German Scouting and the ...

and Mensendieck students, he began reporting on dance that had nothing to do with

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

and

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

. After the First World War, he endeavoured to establish the genre of serious dance criticism in the press: first in the ''

Berliner Börsen-Courier The ''Berliner Börsen-Courier'' (Berlin stock exchange courier, BBC) was a German left-liberal daily newspaper published from 1868 to 1933. It focused primarily on prices of securities traded on the stock exchanges and securities information abo ...

'' and in the ''Libelle'', at the time the only German magazine with its own dance section. In 1919, Böhme became feuilleton editor of the ''

Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung ''Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung'' (often abbreviated to DAZ) was a German newspaper that appeared between 1861 and 1945. Until 1918 the title of the paper was ''Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung''. Although Wilhelm Liebknecht, one of the founder ...

''. There, he was able to definitively establish the serious art-critical consideration of stage dance, publishing hundreds of articles on dance topics over the years. By the time he gave up permanent employment in favour of freelance work in 1928, he had also published seven books on dance. Böhme founded or played a leading role in various associations (such as the Berlin Dance Critics Association in 1927), participated in the organisation of the three German dancers' congresses in 1927, 1928 and 1930 and gave a large number of lectures on dance topics. He strove for the scientific study of

dance research Dance research is the study of dance, including dance history, ethnochoreology, dance theory, dance anthropology, and dance science. Dance research as an academic discipline is relatively new. In 1967, the first volume of the ''CORD Dance Re ...

and published related essays such as ''Materialien zu einer soziologischen Untersuchung des künstlerischen Tanzes''. In the dispute between the followers of

Rudolf von Laban Rudolf (von) Laban, also known as Rudolph von Laban (; 15 December 1879 – 1 July 1958), was an Austro-Hungarian dance artist, choreographer, and movement theorist. He is considered a "founding father of expressionist dance" and a pioneer of ...

and

Mary Wigman Mary Wigman (born Karoline Sophie Marie Wiegmann; 13 November 1886 – 18 September 1973) was a German dancer and choreographer who pioneered expressionist dance, dance therapy, and movement training without pointe shoes. She is considered on ...

, which culminated at the second German dancers' congress in Essen in 1928, Böhme took Laban's side. Böhme published mainly about dance and dancers, but also repeatedly on literary or pedagogical topics and wrote film reviews.

Time of National Socialism

His versatile work in dance also led him into the fields of folk dance, where he became 1st chairman of the "Verband Deutscher Volkstanzkreise". In this capacity, he believed he had to join the

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers ...

and the

Kampfbund für Deutsche Kultur The Militant League for German Culture (German: ''Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur'', ''KfdK''), was a nationalistic Antisemitism, anti-Semitic political society during the Weimar Republic and the Nazi era. It was founded in 1928 as the ''Nationalsoz ...

in 1933. According to his own statement, he wanted to use his active involvement to prevent the destruction of

Ausdruckstanz ''Expressive dance'' from German ''Ausdruckstanz'', is a form of artistic dance in which the individual and artistic presentation (and sometimes also processing) of feelings is an essential part. It emerged as a counter-movement to classic ...

and the ideological capture of the folk dance circles by the National Socialists." Böhme built up a dance archive at the Deutsche Meisterstätten für Tanz in Berlin from the mid-1930s and taught dance history there. His work during the National Socialist era has not yet been thoroughly researched. What is certain is that he initially tried to win over the new politicians for the modern dance of the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

, which was in fact under great threat and for which he had continuously campaigned since 1919. To this end, on 8 November 1933, he wrote a letter to the

Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda The Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (, RMVP), also known simply as the Ministry of Propaganda (), controlled the content of the press, literature, visual arts, film, theater, music and radio in Nazi Germany. The ministr ...

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief Propaganda in Nazi Germany, propagandist for the Nazi Party, and ...

. The concrete aim of the letter is the attempt to suggest to Goebbels or the

Reich Chamber of Culture The Reich Chamber of Culture (''Reichskulturkammer'', abbreviated as RKK) was a government agency in Nazi Germany. It was established by law on 22 September 1933 in the course of the ''Gleichschaltung'' process at the instigation of Reich Ministe ...

the creation of a "single chamber for the art of movement and dance". In order to achieve these two goals, Böhme used – obvious in the case of this recipient of the letter – a National Socialist vocabulary that today strongly compromises him, and which has not been demonstrated in this consistency in his work before or since (according to the current state of research). It is striking that Böhme, in order to save the "new German artistic dance", tried to discredit its competitor on the dance stages, the ballet, by using formulations such as "ballet style based on a liberalistic conception of art". Since a "liberalistic conception of art" is much more applicable to expressive dance, it can be assumed that Böhme intended to deceive politicians with this letter and that his own reasons for his intentions are quite plausible. It is at least certain that Böhme did not represent a National Socialist view of modern artistic dance in his critiques, despite occasional formulations typical of the time in this regard. He continued to write factually and positively about modern dancers such as

Dore Hoyer Dore Hoyer (12 December 1911 – 31 December 1967) was a German expressionist dancer and choreographer. She is credited as "one of the most important solo dancers of the Ausdruckstanz tradition." Inspired by Mary Wigman, she developed her own s ...

, whose dance style was judged negatively by National Socialist critics. – In the 1930s, Böhme no longer published any books on dance, but once again contributed to the new edition of Theodor Storm's works.

Post-war period

Böhme was severely restricted in the exercise of his previous professional activities due to the total destruction of the dance archive he had directed as a result of the war and a ban on writing for several years until his

denazification Denazification () was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by removing those who had been Nazi Par ...

in 1949. In the last years of his life, he taught dance history at Marianne Vogelsang's private dance school and at the . Partial estates of Böhme are in the Tanzarchiv Leipzig and in the

Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln The Deutsche Tanzarchiv Köln (German Dance Archive Cologne) is a national information and research centre for concert dance in Germany. It is located in the MediaPark in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, with an archive, library, video library an ...

(German Dance Archive Cologne).

Work

* (Bearb.:) ''Olga Desmond Rhythmographik'', Leipzig 1919 * ''Vom musiklosen Tanz'', Leipzig 1921 * with Curt Moreck: ''Der Tanz in der Kunst'', Heilbronn 1924 * ''Tanzkunst'', Dessau 1926 * ''Der Tanz der Zukunft'',''Der Tanz der Zukunft''
on WorldCat Munich 1926 * ''Entsiegelung der Geheimnisse. Zeichen der Seele. Zur Metaphysik der Bewegung'', Berlin 1928 * (Editor:) ''Die Tänzerin Hilde Strinz. Ein Buch des Gedenkens'', Berlin 1928 * ''Rudolf von Laban und die Entstehung des modernen Tanzdramas''. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1996

References

External links

* * Geertje Andresen
''Fritz Böhme. Pionier der Tanzwissenschaft''
with illustrations (2012). * Findbuch de
Teilnachlasses Fritz Böhme
ehemals im Tanzarchiv Leipzig. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bohme, Fritz 20th-century German journalists 1881 births 1952 deaths Journalists from Berlin