Anton Walbrook was born in Vienna – as Adolf Anton Wilhelm Wohlbruck – on this day in 1896, less than eight months after the arrival of the Cinématographe.
The Lumière Brothers, Auguste and Louis, had unveiled their Cinématographe – a lightweight device combining camera, printer and projector – to the public in Paris in December 1895 but were now touring their new invention around the world. The Vienna screenings opened on 27 March 1896 and followed the same pattern as in Paris, with a private show at the city’s k. k. Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt [Graphic Research Institute] followed by public demonstrations at Kärtner Straße 45 in the city centre. These screenings ran throughout the day from 10 in the morning until 8 at night and, for a fee of fifty kreuzer, visitors could watch a selection of short documentary films accompanied by live piano music. To make the shows more attractive to Viennese citizens, the Lumière agents Alexander Promio and Alexander Werschinger filmed a series of sequences around the capital in early April: shots of St Stephan’s Cathedral, the huge Ferris wheel in the Prater (which would feature in The Third Man five decades later) and scenes of crowds strolling through the Stadtpark. A special screening of these was arranged for the Emperor Franz Joseph in the Hofburg on 18 April 1896. Werschinger recalled the scene:
We had a small room on the second floor of the Burg, as the palace is known, which we were able to try out two days in advance. The entire presentation was to be limited to five minutes, as it was feared that the flickering pictures could damage His Majesty’s eyes. It was also very difficult to explain to the attendant that the demonstration had to be carried out in the dark. He said that this was not possible because court protocol demanded that two candles should always be lit in the presence of His Majesty. Everyone was amazed that after he had seen the pictures, the Emperor demanded very animatedly that they be shown again twice.
The cinema had arrived in Vienna.
Vienna was still buzzing with excitement over this new form of entertainment when young Adolf Wohlbrück was born, but nobody at the time could foresee that ‘moving pictures’ would provide a career for the newborn child. Nor could they have foreseen that within twenty years the Emperor’s candles would be extinguished and his Empire dismembered. For the time being, Vienna was on the rise.
Reinhold Völkel, ‘Café Griensteidl’, painted in the year of Wohlbrück’s birth
Karl Lueger’s Christian Social Party had recently wrestled power from the Liberals and with Lueger as Mayor, Vienna began its transformation into a city of elegant gardens and parks. Artists, writers, musicians and other intellectuals met to discuss their views over coffee in Café Griensteidl, Café Central, or Café Museum. Prominent among these was a group known as Jung Wien [Young Vienna], whose members included the playwrights Arthur Schnitzler – then writing his controversial Reigen – and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Egon Schiele was about to spearhead the Wiener Secession art movement, ‘Waltz King’ Johann Strauss the Younger – composer of the Blue Danube waltz, Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron [The Gypsy Baron] – lived in Igelgasse, Freud had just coined the term ‘psychoanalysis’, Gustav Mahler had recently been appointed Director of the State Opera House, and cinema was the newest addition to the arts in which the Wohlbrück family had been involved for centuries.
Adolf Ferdinand Bernhard Hermann Wohlbrück (1864-1940), a much-loved and well-known clown with the Schumann circus.
The future actor’s father Adolf Wohlbrück had married – at the age of 32 – Gisela Rosa Cohn, a 17-year-old girl from a respectable Viennese family. Born on 21 July 1879 in Vienna, she was the daughter of Wilhelm and Antonia Kohn. Her father – a merchant – had recently died, and it seems her parents had hoped for a better match: having a clown for a son-in-law was rather a disappointment. Nonetheless, Gisela fell pregnant almost immediately and their first child, Adolf Anton Wilhelm Wohlbrück, was born at their home at Jörgerstraße 32, in northwest Vienna, on Thursday 19 November 1896. He was baptised exactly a month later by Fr. Emil Janetzky, the parish priest of Hernals, with religion marked as ‘Catholic’ in the final column (below.)
Although it is frequently stated that Wohlbrück’s mother was Jewish – and the Kohn name clearly indicates Jewish ancestry – her family seem to have embraced Catholicism with ardour: Theodor Kohn (1845–1915), the Catholic archbishop of Olmütz, in Austro-Hungarian Moravia, was a close relative. As I recently discussed in another blogpost elsewhere, the actor’s sense of Jewish identity was more complex and nuanced than is generally stated.
Archbishop Theodor Kohn (1893–1904)
Barely a year later, his sister Antonie Marie was born on 13 November 1897 – in Stuttgart, due to the itinerant nature of circus life. Gisela’s mother was unhappy with the prospect of her grandchildren spending their young lives on the road with a caravan of circus performers, and insisted that they remain in Vienna. In consequence, the siblings were raised largely by their grandmother Antonia, who lived in the same street. Over the next few years, his Viennese childhood would involve both the spectacular performances of the circus and the more serious atmosphere of his monastic education at the ‘Lazarenkloster’, run by the Christian Brothers in Schopenhauerstraße – twin strands of performance and discipline that he would pull together in his acting career. The latter only began, however, when the family moved to Berlin in 1904 and another chapter in his life began…
Adolf and his younger sister Antoinette Marie Wohlbrück in Berlin 1904
A house in Waltraudstraße, in a leafy suburb of southwest Berlin, was AW’s home from the autumn of 1934 until his departure for Hollywood (and then onto the UK) two years later. On 19 November this year – the anniversary of the actor’s birthday – I was delighted to take part in a programme of events at the house in which a plaque was unveiled to commemorate AW’s time here.
The programme was organised by Dr Rosemarie Killius, who had already hosted a similar ‘Hommage’ for Maria Cebotari in Vienna, as well as other events relating to AW in Frankfurt and elsewhere.
We were joined for the occasion by actor and director Holger Mahlich, whose father-in-law was Wolfgang Liebeneiner (1905-87), an actor and director at the Munich Kammerspiele, Preußisches Staatstheater, UFA studios and other venues familiar to AW – they probably met at some point. Holger read out a passage from Schiller, ‘Der Nachruhm eines Schauspielers’ [‘The posthumous fame of an actor’], after which Dr Killius gave an overview of AW’s film career in Germany, and I added a few words on his life in England.
Dr Killius and I then unveiled the plaque:
Thanks to the kind generosity of the current owners of the house, we were all invited inside for drinks and home-made cake. The interior of the house remains substantially unchanged since AW lived here, and as the cultural tastes of the owners mean that the rooms are full of books and paintings, as well as a grand piano and numerous sculptures, it was not hard to imagine AW living here in similar surroundings. Some glimpses into the actor’s life here can be found in Hanna Heßling’s article, ‘Zigeunerbaron zu Hause: Adolf Wohlbrück plaudert am Kamin,’ Mein Film, No. 484 (1935), pp. 4–6, and in Werner Holl, Das Buch von Adolf Wohlbrück (1935), pp. 44–5.
I’d always understood the house to be located in Zehlendorf, but the owner explained to me that the boundary line between Zehlendorf and Dahlem runs up the middle of the street, with AW’s house lying on the Dahlem side. As this is regarded as a more desirable district, the houses on this side are – rather absurdly – priced far higher than those across the road.
These houses were all built in the early 1930s so presumably AW was the first occupier. The land, I believe, was owned by the industrialist Oskar Pintsch (1844–1912) and his wife Helene (1857–1923), patrons of the Oskar-Helene-Heim für Heilung und Erziehung gebrechlicher Kinder – an orthopaedic home for children and others with disabilities – which used to stand just up the road, and which gives it name to the local U-bahn station. I’m not sure if there is any link between their philanthropic ideals for healthcare and the construction of the houses, but AW’s house is beautifully designed. Each room has two doors, so that you can walk around each floor in a circle, from room to room, and if all the doors are opened natural light floods in from all four sides.
Also present in the house was Frau Dr. Karin Timme, of the publisher Frank & Timme GmbH, with whom we are having some discussions about a possible German translation of the biography. Copies of the book were for sale, alongside Holger Mahlich’s biography of Wolfgang Liebeneiner, and Dr Killius’ book on Maria Cebotari.
Afterwards, a group of us went to the nearby local history museum, the Heimatmuseum Zehlendorf, for a special screening of Allotria (1936), the stylish and fast-paced comedy in which AW co-starred with Renate Müller (for the fourth time), Hilde Hildebrand (for the sixth time), Heinz Rühmann and Jenny Jugo. All in all, this was a wonderful day, and we are all deeply indebted to Dr Killius for her hard work in organising the Hommage and for commissioning the design and construction of the plaque.
Welcome to 2021! The last twelve months have been a strange and difficult time for us all, but it was a great delight to see publication of my biography, Anton Walbrook: a life of masks and mirrors, on 14 December last year. Work on the biography has been ongoing for almost a decade and although it feels a little strange that this has now come to an end, it is wonderful to see copies out there at last.
My two previous books, A Carnal Medium: fin-de-siecle essays on the photographic nude (Portsmouth: Callum James, 2012) and Joseph Pike: the happy Catholic artist (Matador, 2017) are still available, and I devoted much time and effort during 2019 to trying to promote these on social media and other outlets. I did two radio interviews, with David Fitzgerald on BBC Radio Devon and Lucy Tegg on BBC Radio Bristol & Somerset, during which I was able to discuss Joseph Pike’s life and work live on air. Other articles have appeared in Picture Postcard Monthly, and I currently have further journal articles in the pipeline. Three conference talks were lined up for 2020, but unfortunately two of these had to be cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic. It’s been a difficult year for many of us working in the creative industries, with the future of many plans and projects remaining uncertain. What 2021 will bring is still unclear, but I have been invited to speak or write about Anton Walbrook across different platforms and publications, and may have exciting news to share soon about a related project.
The last year has been especially busy with writing projects being pursued alongside full-time work as Archivist of the Middle East Collections at Exeter University, as well as editing the journal Photographica World. These commitments and other creative projects have inevitably reduced the amount of free time available to devote to the website, but whenever the opportunity allows there will be regular blogposts covering the usual wide range of topics, most of which could fit under the umbrella term of ‘visual culture.’ After falling behind with my Carte-de-visite of the week series and the regular showcasing of artefacts from my collection of Anton Walbrook memorabilia, these are now picking up again.
Although most of my carte-de-visites are portraits, a number of them show landscapes, usually views of famous buildings or picturesque sites. Among these is the card below:
The Basilica of Notre Dame d’Afrique (Our Lady of Africa) in Algiers
On the reverse of the card is this:
This cdv shows the Neo-Byzantine Basilica of Notre Dame d’Afrique (Our Lady of Africa) in Algiers, designed by architect Jean-Eugène Fromageauand built between 1858 and 1872. The cdv seems to have been issued (and perhaps sold) by the Cistercian abbey at Staouéli, some seventeen miles away, which was founded in 1843 by French monks from the abbey of Aiguebelle. Although the Cistercians had a reputation for asceticism and austerity, the motives behind the foundation were not entirely spiritual, and were in fact closely associated with the French colonization of the country, which lasted from 1830 until Algerian independence in 1962.
The Coming of the French
The French invasion of Algiers was undertaken for a number of reasons, including a wish to end the attacks by Barbary pirates who operated out of Algiers and the need to distract the French population from their dissatisfaction with King Charles X. The immediate catalyst for the invasion was an altercation between Hussein Dey, the Ottoman ruler of Algiers, and the French consul Pierre Deval, during which Dey was alleged to have struck Deval with his fan. An armada of 600 ships sailed from Toulon and around 34,000 troops under General de Bourmont landed at Sidi Ferruch, about seventeen miles west of Algiers, on 14 June 1830.
The landing at Sidi Ferruch
Hussein Dey sent an army of around 24,000 soldiers to meet the French forces, who had encamped at the edge of the plain of Staouéli, which stretched between the Atlas mountains and the coast. The two sides clashed on 19 June and, despite having a few advantages, the Algerian forces were defeated at the ‘Battle of Staouéli’ due to French superiority in artillery power and military discipline. Further skirmishes followed on the 24 June but the French were soon able to begin marching to Algiers, where the city was taken on 5 July. Hussein Dey surrendered and went into exile, leaving Algeria to remain under French occupation for over 130 years.
The Battle of Staouéli, 19 June 1830
The Coming of the Monks
At first the French administered Algeria as a military colony with the focus on the regions around the coast, but over time this policy changed to one of colonial expansion and total control across the whole country. Land was seized and offered to French settlers, factories and businesses were set up, and those in the French army and administration were encouraged to make private investments into land speculation and agricultural production. The Algerians continued to resist throughout the 1830s and 1840s, however, particularly under the leadership of Abd Al-Qādir. After a decade of costly fighting, a French delegation was set up to review the future of a colony in Algeria, and their report concluded that the country ‘…would cease to be French if she was not Christian.’ It was thought that the presence of a religious community in the colony would help to establish Christianity in the region, encourage a more positive view of the French settlers, and bring about some peace and stability. The Cistercians were the ideal choice, given their agricultural expertise and reputation for austere holiness.
After a preliminary visit in September 1842 by Abbot Orsise Carayo of Aiguebelle and Abbot Hercelin of La Trappe, a plot of land was chosen on the Staouéli plain. The site occupied 1000 hectares of rough ground between Wadi Bridja to the east and Wadi Boukara to the west, covered in dwarf palms, mastic trees and wild myrtles. The first monks arrived here on 13 September 1843 and the foundation stone for the monastery, dedicated to Notre Dame de la Trappe de Staouéli, was laid the following day, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, by Dom François-Régis and blessed by the bishop of Algiers, Mgr Dupuch in the presence of General Bugeaud. The relationship between the monastery and the military remained close, with General Marengo using his personal wealth to stave off financial crisis in 1847 as the abbey farm had a disastrous year
The monastery church was consecrated on 30 August 1845 and raised to the status of an abbey the following year, as the community grew from 67 monks to around 120, bolstered by the addition of monks from the abbes of Bellefontaine and Melleray. One of the monks had actually been a soldier who had fought during the Battle of Staouéli. These early years were hard, however; the land was poor and unsanitary, with malaria claiming the lives of many of the monks. Over time, they gradually succeeded in establishing olive groves and mulberry trees, draining the marshes and planting hedges of cypress and bamboo to shelter their fragile crops from the strong sea winds. In 1853 the monks won first prize at the Agricultural Exhibition in Algiers, and when Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie visited Staouéli on 4 May 1865 they marvelled at what had been achieved.
The Abbey
The main monastic buildings were built on two storeys around a cloistered courtyard garden, with the chapel occupying one wing, the kitchen and refectory on the ground floor, and the dormitories and infirmary up above. on the first floor. The farm lay on one side of the abbey, and on the other side a complex of workshops and other outbuildings, including a bakery, laundry, dairy and forge. It was a far simpler building than the magnificent basilica that was being constructed in Algiers. There is no mention of a photographic darkroom among the workshops in descriptions of Staouéli that I can find, and it is not clear if these cartes-des-visites were bought in commercially for resale as souvenirs at the abbey, or if they were in fact taken by a Trappist monk. There is no doubt that other such images were in circulation, as I have another cdv:
Dom Marie-Augustin Charignon OCSO (1818-93) 2nd Abbot of Staouëli 1856-1893
This cdv also has the abbey’s name printed on the back, but in a different font, and with some decorative work around the letters. Someone has helpfully added a pencil note to identify the portrait as that of Dom Marie-Augustin Charignon.
A merchant’s son, he was born Flavien Charignon on 21 February 1818 in Peyrus (Drôme), and entered the novitiate at the Cistercian abbey of Aiguebelle in 1845. After ordination, he rose to become the monastery’s prior, after which he was sent to Staouëli where he served in the same role.
When Abbot François-Régis de Martrin-Donos was transferred to Rome as Procurator-General in 1854, Dom Augustin took over the running of the abbey. He was consecrated as Abbot of Staouëli in December 1856 by the Bishop of Algiers, Louis Pavy, who was the man responsible for the construction of Basilica of Notre Dame d’Afrique. Work began on the cathedral, which was designed by architect Jean-Eugène Fromageau, two years after Abbot Augustin’s consecration. Louis-Antoine-Augustin Pavy (1805–1866) was the second bishop of Algiers, but he died without seeing the cathedral completed.
Dom Augustin, on the other hand, remained Abbot of Staouëli for almost four decades, until his death at the abbey on 29 December 1893, just a few months after celebrating the abbey’s golden anniversary on 21 July 1893. He was succeeded by Abbot Louis de Gonzague Martin (1893-1898), who was the superior when Charles de Foucauld (then a Trappist novice at Akbés ) stayed at Staouëli for a few weeks between 25 September and 27 October 1896. The abbot had been one of the co-founders in 1882 of the Syrian monastery of Notre-Dame-du-Sacré-Cœur (La Trappe de Cheïkhlé) in Akbés near Aleppo, which became a dependent house of Staouëli in 1894. After his death in 1899 he was succeeded by Dom Louis de Gonzague André (1898-1904), the fourth and final abbot of Staouëli. By the early 1900s the abbey’s prospects were not looking good: there were no local vocations and the French government was enforcing strict separation of Church and State that threatened the confiscation of church property and the expulsion of religious orders from France. It was in sharp contrast to the close relationship between the monks and the French authorities that had flourished at the time of Staouëli’s foundation. To pre-empt the possible seizure of the abbey, Abbot Louis sold Staouëli in 1904 and transferred the entire community (apart from one monk) to Maguzzano on the shores of Lake Garda in Northern Italy.
Postscript: Staouëli and the Atlas martyrs
The monks remained at Maguzzano for over thirty years before the monastery closed in 1936. Their last abbot had been another monk of Aiguebelle, Bernard Barbaroux, who had been appointed Abbot of Maguzzano in 1930. The buildings were sold off in 1938, around the same time as another group of Trappist monks were starting a new foundation in Algeria. Our Lady of Atlas was situated at Tibhirine, some 20 km from Médéa and 100 km south of Algiers. In 1947 it was granted abbatial status, and Dom Bernard Barbaroux was consecrated as the first abbot on 26 September 1947, using Abbot Augustin Charignon’s old crozier from Staouëli. Several monks from Staouëli were members of this community, which continued its quiet life of work and prayer throughout the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62), although numbers decreased over the decades and in 1984 Our Lady of Atlas was demoted from abbey to priory status. That same year, Dom Christian de Chergé OCSO was elected prior.
Ever since independence in 1961, Algeria had been governed by the National Liberation Front (FLN) and was a one-party state until the mass riots of October 1988 forced a reform of the constitution. The new democratic system was tested by local elections in June 1990 when the FLN lost heavily to the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS). When it became clear that the FIS were going to win the parliamentary elections following the first round of votes in December 1991, the army moved in to halt the electoral process and declare a state of emergency, precipitating a civil war that would last for over ten years. There were two main Islamist groups that took up arms to fight the government, the Islamic Armed Movement (MIA) and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). On 27 March 1996 members of the GIA arrived at Our Lady of Atlas and kidnapped Dom Christian and six other monks. They were held for two months with the offer that they would be released in exchange for a captured GIA leader. Negotiations failed, and the seven monks were executed on 21 May. A funeral Mass was said for the monks on Sunday 2 June at the Basilica of Notre Dame d’Afrique.
These two cdvs thus represent scenes from the long, complex and troubled history of French monastic involvement in Algeria. I have some other old photographs and postcards that can add to this story, but will keep them for another time.
AW was born on this day in 1896 and this will be the last time I celebrate the anniversary of his birth before the publication of my biography, Anton Walbrook. A Life of Masks and Mirrors, which should be available in a few weeks time.
As many of you know, my original aim had been to have the biography published in the summer of 2017 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of his death. For various reasons, however, that was not to be. Although I regret this in some regards, it was probably a good thing because my research uncovered so much more over the last three years. In fact, even since submitting the manuscript and doing final proof checks on the printer’s drafts, I’m still coming up with new nuggets of information or further thoughts about AW’s life and work.
At some point, though, one needs to draw a line under a project and get it out there, otherwise it will never see the light of day. It is too tempting to keep revising, improving, correcting, expanding, pushing an evolving work-in-progress towards an ever-receding horizon, and then find yourself at the end of life with a crumpled, dog-eared manuscript that no one will know what to do with when you’re gone. A Life of Masks and Mirrors will never be the definitive word on Walbrook/Wohlbrück, but it represents the fruits of over a decade of work as it now stands; any amendments, corrections or additions will need to wait for a second edition.
To mark today’s anniversary, I thought I would share a sneak preview of the opening pages of the biography, heralding AW’s birth in the city of Vienna:
“In March 1896 the Lumière Brothers, Auguste and Louis, brought their new invention to Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Cinématographe – a lightweight device combining camera, printer and projector – had been unveiled to the public in Paris a few months earlier and was now touring the world. The Vienna screenings opened on 27 March 1896 and followed the same pattern as in Paris, with a private show at the city’s k. k. Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt [Graphic Research Institute] followed by public demonstrations at Kärtner Straße 45 in the city centre. These screenings ran throughout the day from 10 in the morning until 8 at night and, for a fee of fifty kreuzer, visitors could watch a selection of short documentary films accompanied by live piano music. To make the shows more attractive to Viennese citizens, the Lumière agents Alexander Promio and Alexander Werschinger filmed a series of sequences around the capital in early April: shots of St Stephan’s Cathedral, the huge Ferris wheel in the Prater (which would feature in The Third Man five decades later) and scenes of crowds strolling through the Stadtpark. A special screening of these was arranged for the Emperor Franz Joseph in the Hofburg on 18 April 1896. Werschinger recalled the scene:
We had a small room on the second floor of the Burg, as the palace is known, which we were able to try out two days in advance. The entire presentation was to be limited to five minutes, as it was feared that the flickering pictures could damage His Majesty’s eyes. It was also very difficult to explain to the attendant that the demonstration had to be carried out in the dark. He said that this was not possible because court protocol demanded that two candles should always be lit in the presence of His Majesty. Everyone was amazed that after he had seen the pictures, the Emperor demanded very animatedly that they be shown again twice.
The cinema had arrived in Vienna.
Seven months later, in the same city, Adolf Anton Wilhelm Wohlbrück was born.
Vienna was still buzzing with excitement over this new form of entertainment, but nobody at the time could foresee that ‘moving pictures’ would provide a career for the newborn child. Nor could they have foreseen that within twenty years the Emperor’s candles would be extinguished and his Empire dismembered. For the time being, Vienna was on the rise.
Karl Lueger’s Christian Social Party had recently wrestled power from the Liberals and with Lueger as Mayor, Vienna began its transformation into a city of elegant gardens and parks. Artists, writers, musicians and other intellectuals met to discuss their views over coffee in Café Griensteidl, Café Central, or Café Museum. Prominent among these was a group known as Jung Wien [Young Vienna], whose members included the playwrights Arthur Schnitzler – then writing his controversial Reigen – and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Egon Schiele was about to spearhead the Wiener Secession art movement, ‘Waltz King’ Johann Strauss the Younger – composer of the Blue Danube waltz, Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron [The Gypsy Baron] – lived in Igelgasse, Freud had just coined the term ‘psychoanalysis’, Gustav Mahler had recently been appointed Director of the State Opera House, and cinema was the newest addition to the arts in which the Wohlbrück family had been involved for centuries….”
The chapter then goes on to discuss AW’s ancestry and family background, his childhood in Vienna and Berlin, and the beginning of his acting career at the Deutsches Theater. Those who want to read more will have to wait for the book to come out, but in the meantime, here’s some of that wonderful footage of Vienna, here showing the busy pedestrian crossing on Ringstraße opposite the magnificent State Opera House, then known as the Wien Hofoper:
