Friedrich Freksa
Friedrich Freksa was a German playwright and novelist born in Munich in 1882, known for his contributions to theater during a time when the expressionist movement was emerging in Germany. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Freksa's early works were characterized by traditional styles, with his first play, "Ninon de l'Enclos: Ein Spiel aus dem Barock," reflecting Baroque influences. His career gained momentum when he caught the attention of the influential director Max Reinhardt, leading to his successful pantomime "Sumurûn," which was staged internationally. Freksa's literary output included both plays and novels, and he later wrote nonfiction works on contemporary drama, influenced by his theatrical experiences.
As World War I approached, Freksa's writings took on patriotic themes, and he continued to promote nationalist sentiments even after Germany's defeat. In the interwar period, he ventured into science fiction with his novel "Druso," which garnered interest in both Germany and the United States. Freksa maintained his patriotic fervor throughout the Nazi regime, engaging in wartime propaganda efforts, including a book that was adapted into a major propaganda film. His complex legacy reflects the shifting cultural and political landscapes of 20th-century Germany.
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Friedrich Freksa
Writer
- Born: 1882
- Birthplace: Munich, Germany
- Died: 1955
Biography
Friedrich Freksa, a German playwright and novelist, was born in Munich in 1882. He came of age in Munich, where he became active in the theater at the time the expressionist movement was gaining popularity in Germany. For the most part, the movement passed Freksa by, and his first three plays were quite traditional. Indeed, his first play, Ninon de l’Enclos: Ein Spiel aus dem Barock, imitated the language and forms of the Baroque era in which it was set, while his next two plays, Das Königreich Epirus and Die Fackel des Eros, were classical in form and setting.
However, Max Reinhardt, the experimental expressionist director who had taken over the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in 1905, was impressed with Freksa’s work in Munich. In 1910, Reinhardt invited Freksa to submit a treatment for a pantomime, a wordless drama developed entirely by the arrangement of large numbers of actors on stage, reviving the nineteenth century semidramatic form of the tableau. Freksa’s response was Sumurûn (pr. 1910; The Story of Sumurûn, pr. 1911), which was restaged in London in 1911 and New York in 1912. At the age of thirty, Freksa had become an international success.
After two more plays, Der Fette Caesar and Die Dame in Kamin, and his first novel, Phosphor, Freksa used what Reinhardt had taught him about the theater to write Hinter der Rampe, a nonfiction guide to contemporary drama, and Erwin Bernstein’s theatralische Sendung, a fictional exploration of the Berlin drama scene in the first decade of the twentieth century.
As World War I approached, Freksa’s pen was put into the service of the Fatherland. His centennial look at the Vienna Congress of 1814, Der Wiener Kongress (1914; A Peace Congress of Intrigue, 1919), had clear implications for the then-current European war. Even after the defeat of Germany, Freksa wrote patriotic histories of World War I, including a justification of Kaiser Wilhelm’s militarism, Menschliche Rechtfertigung Wilhelms II: Nach seinen Randbemerkungen in den Akten des Auswärtigen Amtes, and the biography of a junior officer, Kapitän Ehrhardt Abenteuer und Schicksale. In 1925, he married physician and popular lyricist Margarete Beutler.
After a series of forgettable novels in the 1920’s, Freksa captured the imagination of science-fiction readers between the wars, both in Germany and the United States, with Druso: Oder, Die gestohlene Menschenwelt. Translated by American science-fiction author Fletcher Pratt, the novel appeared in serial form in the May, June, and July issues of Wonder Stories science-fiction magazine in 1934. Though the English translation influenced a few writers of the Golden Age of American science fiction, it was never published in book form.
Freksa’s unabashed patriotism continued during the Nazi regime in Germany, when he again joined the wartime propaganda effort with his version of the life of Boer Republic President Paul Krüger, Ohm Krüger, sein Leben ein Kampf gegen England. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels turned this book into one of the most expensive propaganda films of World War II.