Hartung, Gustav

DIRECTOR, ACTOR, THEATRE MANAGER (GERMANY)
BORN 30 Jan 1887, Bartenstein, Ostpreussen - DIED 14 Feb 1946, Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg
BIRTH NAME May, Gustav Ludwig
GRAVE LOCATION Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg: Bergfriedhof, Rohrbacher Strasse (Abteilung Q (I/35))

Son of the theatre director Edmund May and his wife Luise Höpfner. He worked as an actor under Max Reinhardt and in 1912 he was engaged as director at the Schaulspielhaus in Bremen. In 1914 he moved to Frankfurt am Main. For a short time he was married to Alice Caroli.

From 1920 to 1924 he was the theatre manager of the Landestheater in Darmstadt. At that time he was an important representant of expressionism. In 1922 in Darmstadt he married his second wife Karla, who was a daughter of general Karl von Unruh and a sister of the author Fritz von Unruh. In 1925 he divorced Karla. His third wife was the actress Elisabeth Lennartz, but this marriage failed as well.

In 1926 Hartung was involved in organising the first Schlossfestspiele in Heidelberg. He was the manager of the Renaissance-Theater in Berlin from 1927 to 1930 and from 1931 to 1933 he worked in Darmstadt as general theatre director. After the nazis came to power he emigrated to Switzerland.

In Switzerland he was sentenced to a year of imprisonment because of his sexual assaults on female pupils. In 1945 he returned to Germany and worked for the theater der Stadt Heidelberg. In 1946 he died in Heidelberg.

Related persons
• was pupil of Reinhardt, Max

Images

The grave of Gustav Hartung at the Bergfriedhof, Heidelberg.
Picture by Androom (21 Aug 2010)

 

Sources
• Ruuskanen, Leena, Heidelberger Waldfriedhof im Wandel der Zeit, Der, Verlag Regionalkultur, Ubstadt-Weiher, 2008
Gustav Hartung - Wikipedia


Harvey, Lilian

Published: 14 Apr 2017
Last update: 03 Mar 2022