Childhood and youth Gerhart Hauptmann was born in 1862 in
Obersalzbrunn, now known as
Szczawno-Zdrój, in
Lower Silesia (then a part of the
Kingdom of Prussia, now a part of Poland). His parents were Robert and Marie Hauptmann, who ran a hotel in the area. As a youth, Hauptmann had a reputation of being loose with the truth. His elder brother was Carl Hauptmann. Beginning in 1868, he attended the village school and then, in 1874, the
Realschule in
Breslau for which he had only barely passed the qualifying exam. Hauptmann had difficulties adjusting himself to his new surroundings in the city. He lived, along with his brother Carl, in a somewhat run-down student boarding house before finding lodging with a pastor. for which he is best known outside of Germany. His work also included comedies, including
Colleague Crampton (1891) and
The Beaver Coat (1893). In 1893, he also took actress Margarete Marschalk as his lover. In order to get some distance, Marie moved to the US with their sons. Hauptmann prepared the first French performance of his play
The Assumption of Hannele and then went after Marie, without even staying for the premiere. The rift, however, was not to be bridged. After several years of separation, the marriage was ended in July 1904. However, Marie continued to live in the villa Hauptmann had built in
Dresden.
Recognition and World War I From 1901, Hauptmann lived with Margarete Marschalk in Agnetendorf (today Jagniątków in Poland). He called it
"the mystical protective sheathing of my soul". In the preceding year, Margarete had borne him a son, Benvenuto. In September 1904, they were married; this second marriage lasted until his death, though it was thrown into a serious crisis in 1905 and 1906 by his affair with a 16-year-old actress,
Ida Orloff. In 1910, Hauptmann's first full-length novel was published,
The Fool in Christ, Emanuel Quint, which told the story of a wandering preacher who mixed
sun worship with Christianity. His 1912 novel,
Atlantis, became the basis for a
Danish silent film of the same name. The novel was written one month before the
RMS Titanic disaster, and the film's 1913 release was less than one year after the event. The storyline for both involved a romance aboard a doomed ocean liner, and the similarity to the disaster became obvious. This coincidental untimeliness caused the film to be banned in Norway, due to perceived insensitivity. Nevertheless, excited by the possibilities of this new medium, Hauptmann wrote several screenplays, none of which were ever filmed. Around the turn of the century, Hauptmann began to receive official recognition. Three times he was awarded the Austrian
Franz-Grillparzer-Preis. He also received honorary doctorates from
Worcester College at Oxford in 1905 and from the
University of Leipzig in 1909. In 1912, he was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature "primarily in recognition of his fruitful, varied and outstanding production in the realm of dramatic art", after he had been nominated in that year by
Erich Schmidt, member of the
Prussian Academy of Science. from 1897.
Kaiser Wilhelm II, however, did not care for the "social democratic" poet. He vetoed the awarding of the 1896 Schiller Preis (for
The Assumption of Hannele) and at the instigation of his son,
Crown Prince Wilhelm, in 1913, a
Breslau production of Hauptmann's play
Commemoration Masque (
Festspiel in deutschen Reimen) was canceled, because in it the hundredth anniversary of the
Liberation of Germany from Napoleon was depicted with a pacifistic rather than patriotic tone. However, the very same Hauptmann who had criticized militarism in the
Masque, the very next year was among those who supported the war. Hauptmann signed the
Manifesto of the Ninety-Three, a manifesto signed by 93 German scientists, scholars and artists, declaring their unequivocal support of German military actions at the beginning of
World War I. He published supportive poems (many of which read as unintentional satires and which he later crossed out in the manuscript). In 1915, Wilhelm II awarded him the
Order of the Red Eagle, Fourth Class. After Germany's military defeat and the fall of the monarchy, Hauptmann fled to the pacifist colony
Monte Verità in
Locarno, Switzerland. Several years later, he wrote
Till Eulenspiegel, a poetic memorial to
Hans Paasche, the pacifist and reformer who was assassinated by ultra-nationalists.
Representative poet of Germany In 1918, he joined a declaration, signed by a number of German intellectuals and published in the
Berliner Tageblatt newspaper, showing solidarity with the
Republic. During the early years of the republic, he was considered as a candidate for the Reichspräsident and offered the position of Reichskanzler, which he turned down. In the following years, he was the first recipient of the
Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches (The Eagle Shield of the German Reich) an award for scholarly or artistic achievement. During this period, the demand for Hauptmann's work had declined, to the point where, in order to maintain his lifestyle, he had begun to do films and serializations. Despite this, he continued to enjoy popularity. He was seen abroad as the representative of German Literature. In 1932, in honor of the centenary of
Goethe's death, he went on a lecture tour of the United States and was awarded and honorary doctorate from
Columbia University. In addition he was awarded the Goethe Prize of the city of
Frankfurt am Main. On his 70th birthday, he was awarded several honorary citizenships. There were countless exhibitions and performances of his work, many with well-known performers.
Max Reinhardt played the lead in the premiere of Hauptmann's new play
Before Sunset. From 1926 to 1943, Hauptmann summered with his family in
Hiddensee.
The Nazi era After the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Hauptmann signed a loyalty oath of the German Academy of Literature, a section of the
Prussian Academy of Arts. In the summer of the same year, according to writer and historian
Ernst Klee, he applied for membership in the Nazi party Hauptmann's copy of
Mein Kampf, which can now be found in the Hauptmann collection at the
Berlin State Library, was heavily annotated. He regarded himself as being fundamentally a poet, above the political fray; and certainly nothing from the Nazi ideology was incorporated into his works. However, he had earlier been a founding member of the
eugenics organization the
German Society for Racial Hygiene, in Berlin in 1905, and his play
Before Sunrise is deeply concerned with hereditary alcoholism, a popular idea with eugenicists, and the main character rejects his fiancée due to concerns about his potential children's genetics. Because Hauptmann remained highly regarded by the German people, the Nazis did everything to keep him from leaving the country, despite the emigration of many of his colleagues. At times he suffered from official disapproval. The censors of the Propaganda Minister
Goebbels kept an eye on Hauptmann's work and even banned a new edition of his novella
The Shot in the Park because it featured a black character. Hauptmann was told that reprinting was impossible because of a paper shortage. The film versions of
The Beaver Coat and
Before Sunrise were censored, and the film adaptation of
Schluck and Jau was banned. For Hauptmann's 80th birthday, in 1942, representatives of the Nazi regime cooperated with honors, celebrations, and celebratory performances. Hauptmann was presented by his publisher with the first copy of his 17-volume Complete Works. Hauptmann lived through the end of
World War II at his house, Wiesenstein. In 1944, he published his
Atreus Tetralogy, which he had been working on for four years. It comprises
Iphigenia in Delphi,
Iphigenia in Aulis, ''Agamemnon's Death
, and Electra''. In 1944, Hauptmann's name was included in the
Gottbegnadeten list (the "God-gifted list"), a list of artists considered crucial to the German culture, who were therefore exempt from mobilization in the war effort. He was one of the six most important writers in the special list of the "irreplaceable artists.". During the
bombing of Dresden, Hauptmann was staying at a Dresden
sanatorium due to severe pneumonia. He said of the inferno, "Whoever had forgotten how to cry learned again at the destruction of Dresden. I stand at the end of my life and envy my dead comrades, who were spared this experience." After the war, Silesia, where Hauptmann was living, became part of Poland, but Hauptmann was temporarily allowed to stay due to a letter of protection. Then, on 7 April 1946, he was informed by the Soviet military authorities that the Polish government was insisting on his resettlement. Before his expulsion, he became very ill.
Death , Germany At the beginning of May 1946, Hauptmann learned that the Polish government was insisting on the expulsion of all Germans without exception. On 6 June, he died of
bronchitis in Agnieszków (present-day Jagniątków, a part of
Hirschberg im Riesengebirge, now
Jelenia Góra). His last words were reported to be, "Am I still in my house?" Despite his final wishes, as expressed in his
last will, Hauptmann was not buried at his home. An official letter from the Soviet Administration in favor of the writer, who was highly regarded in the
Soviet Union, proved ineffective, though the family was permitted to take its belongings. Only an hour after his death, the local militia had gathered outside the window directly under his deathbed and
banging pots and pans and blowing whistles and trumpets. ==Funeral==