Konrad Wolf

{{Infobox person

| image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J0325-0024-001, 20 Jahre Akademie der Künste (Konrad Wolf).jpg

| name = Konrad Wolf

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1925|10|20|df=yes}}

| birth_place = Hechingen, Germany

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1982|3|7|1925|10|20|df=yes}}

| death_place = East Berlin, East Germany

| caption = Wolf in 1970

| othername =

| occupation = Film director

| yearsactive = 1954–1982

| spouse = {{marriage|Christel Bodenstein|1960|1978|reason=}}

| parents = Friedrich Wolf

| relatives = Markus Wolf (brother)

}}

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-Z0924-048, Berlin, Kulturkonferenz der NVA, Rede Konrad Wolf.jpg soldiers in 1981, under the motto Kunst ist Waffe ("art is weapon", a quote from his father Friedrich Wolf).]]

File:B-Friedrichsfelde Zentralfriedhof 03-2015 img33 Konrad Wolf.jpg.]]

Konrad Wolf (20 October 1925 – 7 March 1982) was an East German film director. He was the son of writer, doctor and diplomat Friedrich Wolf, and the younger brother of Stasi spymaster Markus Wolf. "Koni" was his nickname.

Biography

Because his father was Jewish and was an ardent and outspoken member of the German Communist Party (KPD) since 1928, he and his family left Germany via Austria, Switzerland, and France for Moscow when the Nazis took power in March 1933, where, arriving in March 1934, Wolf came into intense contact with Soviet film.{{cite news |last=Sylvester |first=Regine |url=http://www.berliner-zeitung.de:80/archiv/wolfgang-jacobsen-und-rolf-aurich-legen-eine-biografie-des-filmregisseurs-konrad-wolf-vor-ein-bild-von-einem-mann,10810590,10270574.html |title=Wolfgang Jacobsen und Rolf Aurich legen eine Biografie des Filmregisseurs Konrad Wolf vor: Ein Bild von einem Mann |trans-title=Wolfgang Jacobsen and Rolf Aurich present a biography of the film director Konrad Wolf: A picture of a man |language=de |work=Berliner Zeitung |date=18 February 2016 |access-date=9 February 2021 |archive-date=18 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160218051839/http://www.berliner-zeitung.de/archiv/wolfgang-jacobsen-und-rolf-aurich-legen-eine-biografie-des-filmregisseurs-konrad-wolf-vor-ein-bild-von-einem-mann,10810590,10270574.html |url-status=live }}[http://www.umass.edu/defa/filmtour/sunny.shtml "Solo Sunny"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080610131725/http://www.umass.edu/defa/filmtour/sunny.shtml |date=2008-06-10 }} DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Amherst. Retrieved November 19, 2011

At age 10, he played a minor role in the film Kämpfer, filmed among the German Communist emigrants in Moscow. In 1936, his family became Soviet citizens but then fell under suspicion leading to his father leaving for Spain in 1937 to serve as a doctor in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War.{{efn|Following the defeat of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, Friedrich Wolf was interned as a refugee at Camp Vernet, which repressively interned Germans, Communists, Soviet citizens, members of the International Brigades, etc. as "suspect foreigners" from February 1939 until September 1939 and, after the fall of France in June 1940, it was a concentration camp in Vichy France. Following the signing of the non aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, he returned to Moscow in 1941, helped broadcast anti-Nazi radio propaganda in German to Nazi troops during World War II and helped found the National Committee for a Free Germany.{{cite web |last=Bocanegra |first=Lidia |url=https://www.exiliadosrepublicanos.info/en/history-exile |title=1939, The Republican exodus |work=Exiliados |date=12 January 2021 |access-date=9 February 2021}}{{cite web |url=http://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/page/affichelieu.php?idLang=fr&idLieu=2311 |title=Camp d'Internement du Vernet-d'Ariège (09) |trans-title=Internment Camp of Vernet-d'Ariège (09) |language=fr |work=Chemins de Memoire |date=16 April 2009 |access-date=9 February 2021 |archive-date=16 April 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090416211417/http://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/page/affichelieu.php?idLang=fr&idLieu=2311}}}} He and his older brother attended the Karl Liebknecht School in Moscow.

He became friends with Louis Fischer's son Viktor Fischer and Wilhelm Wloch's son Lothar Wloch (1923–1976) who was later a German building contractor.{{efn| In 1989, Markus Wolf wrote about the three friends Koni, Vik, and Lothar in The Troika.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/18/world/ex-spymaster-has-germans-curious.html |title=Ex-Spymaster Has Germans Curious |work=New York Times |date=18 October 1991 |access-date=9 February 2021 |archive-date=10 February 2021 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20210210031756/https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/18/world/ex-spymaster-has-germans-curious.html}}}} In December 1942 at age 17, he volunteered into the Red Army, was sent to the front as an interpreter, served in the Caucasus campaigns, was present for the liberation of Warsaw, and was among the first troops to reach Berlin in 1945. After the war, he was a cultural officer at Halle and Berlin and was a reporter for the Berliner Zeitung which began publishing again on 21 May 1945. He remained in the Soviet Army until 1948. He later described these events in the 1968 film, Ich war neunzehn (I Was Nineteen).{{cn|date=August 2022}}

Shortly after the war, Wolf returned to Moscow, where he studied at VGIK and was perplexed about whether he should be German or Russian and then live in Germany or the Soviet Union. His 1959 film Sterne (German: Stars) won the Special Jury Prize at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival.{{cite web |url=http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/3410/year/1959.html |title=Festival de Cannes: Stars |access-date=2009-02-15|work=festival-cannes.com}} In 1961, his film Professor Mamlock was entered into the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival where it won the Golden Prize.{{cite web|url=http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1961 |title=2nd Moscow International Film Festival (1961) |access-date=2012-11-04 |work=MIFF |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116210653/http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1961 |archive-date=January 16, 2013 }}

His 1971 film, Goya or the Hard Way to Enlightenment was entered into the 7th Moscow International Film Festival where it won a Special Prize.{{cite web|url=http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1971 |title=7th Moscow International Film Festival (1971) |access-date=2012-12-22 |work=MIFF |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140403094201/http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1971 |archive-date=April 3, 2014 }}

He worked afterwards as a film director at DEFA. He was honorary president of the Union of Art from 1959 until 1966,{{cite web |title=Gew. Kunst (1949-90) - Gew. Kunst, Kultur, Medien (1990) |url=http://library.fes.de/FDGB-Lexikon/texte/sachteil/g/Gew._Kunst_(1949-90)_-_Gew._Kunst,_Kultur,_Medien_(1990).html |website=FDGB-Lexikon |publisher=Freidrich Ebert Stiftung |access-date=14 July 2020}} and president of the DDR Academy of Arts, Berlin from 1965 until his death in 1982.

In 1978, he was a member of the jury at the 28th Berlin International Film Festival.{{cite web |url=http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/1978/04_jury_1978/04_Jury_1978.html |title=Berlinale 1978: Juries |access-date=2010-08-04 |work=berlinale.de}} In 1980, his film Solo Sunny was entered into the 30th Berlin International Film Festival.{{cite web |url=http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/1980/03_preistr_ger_1980/03_Preistraeger_1980.html |title=Berlinale 1980: Prize Winners |access-date=2010-08-22 |work=berlinale.de}}

He was married to the actress Christel Bodenstein from 1960 to 1978. He was cremated and honoured with burial in the Pergolenweg Ehrengrab section of Berlin's Friedrichsfelde Cemetery.

Films

1955: Once Is Never
1956: Genesung
1957: Lissy
1958/1972: Sun Seekers
1959: Stars
1960: {{Ill|Leute mit Flügeln|de}}
1961: Professor Mamlock
1964: Divided Heaven
1966: {{Ill|The Little Prince (1966 film)|de|3=Der kleine Prinz (1966)|lt=The Little Prince}} (TV film)
1968: I Was Nineteen
1971: Goya or the Hard Way to Enlightenment
1974: {{Ill|Der nackte Mann auf dem Sportplatz|de}}
1976: Mama, I'm Alive
1979: Solo Sunny (co-director: Wolfgang Kohlhaase)
1981/1982: Busch singt (6-part documentary about Ernst Busch, completed by others)

Notes

References

{{cite book |last=Wolf |first=Markus |author-link=Markus Wolf |title=Die Troika: Geschichte eines Nichtgedrehten Films |trans-title=The Troika: The Story of a Non-Made Film |language=de |publisher=Aufbau-Verlag |date=January 1, 1989 |isbn=978-3546498395}}