KRAUSS, WERNER
Publié le 22/02/2012
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KRAUSS, WERNER (1884–1959), actor; with Fritz Kortner,* the premier
performer on Germany's Expressionist* stage. Born in the Franconian village
of Gestungshausen, he descended from a line of Lutheran pastors. While he was
studying at a teachers' institute in Breslau, he was suspended for repeated appearances
on a local stage. He acted from 1904 with traveling companies in
Breslau, Aachen, and Nuremberg and then went to Berlin* in 1913 to study
with Max Reinhardt.* Early stage work included plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen,
Hofmannsthal, Wedekind, and Hauptmann*; his film* de´but came in 1914 with
Die Pagode. Although he was on shaky terms with Reinhardt—the director
assigned him roles he did not want—the Deutsches Theater transformed him
into Berlin's best-known villain; he also toured Europe with Reinhardt's ensemble.
During 1924–1926 he acted under Leopold Jessner* at the Staatstheater.
He divided his time after 1929 between Berlin and Vienna's Burgtheater.
Krauss appeared in 104 silent movies. In addition to the title role in Robert
Wiene's Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,* he played a series of miscreants, including
Robespierre in Danton (1920), Iago in Buchowetzki's Othello (1922), Jack the
Ripper in Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks, 1924), and Count Muffat in
Jean Renoir's Nana (1926). By 1926 he was, with Conrad Veidt* and Emil
Jannings,* among Germany's leading film actors, having worked with F. W.
Murnau,* G. W. Pabst,* Lupu Pick, Carl Froelich,* and Paul Leni. Often portraying
a character bent, bowed, and walking as if bearing the world's burdens,
he complained to Renoir in 1926 that he was being typecast. Eventually, he
played heroes and comic characters in addition to villains and outcasts. Despite
enormous success with film, he repeatedly returned to the stage.
Although numerous actors left Germany in 1933–1934, Krauss remained to
star in several Nazi films. He was named Actor of the State and president of
the Reichstheaterkammer; his most notorious work was the portrayal of several
characters in a 1940 anti-Semitic rendering of Jud Su¨ss (The Jew Su¨ss). Years
later Fritz Kortner* accused Krauss of underwriting ‘‘Hitler's* anti-Semitism*
with his own.'' Such work created problems for him in postwar Germany; he
was forbidden to act until 1954.
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