screenings Skladanowsky was of Polish descent, his family relocating to Berlin in the early 19th century. Born as the fourth child of
glazier Carl Theodor Skladanowsky (1830–1897) and Luise Auguste Ernestine Skladanowsky, Max Skladanowsky was apprenticed as a
photographer and glass painter, which led to an interest in
magic lanterns. In 1879, he began to tour Germany and Central Europe with his father Carl and elder brother Emil, giving
dissolving magic lantern shows. While Emil mostly took care of promotion, Max was mostly involved with the technology and for instance developed special multi-lens devices that allowed simultaneous projection of up to nine separate image sequences. Carl retired from this show business, but Max and Emil continued and added other attractions, including a type of
naumachia that involved electro-mechanical effects and pyrotechnics. Max would later claim to have constructed their first film camera on 20 August 1892, but this more likely happened in the summer or autumn of 1894. He also single-handedly constructed the Bioskop projector. Partially based on the dissolving view lantern, it featured two lenses and two separate film reels, one frame being projected alternately from each. It was hand-cranked to transport 44.5mm-wide unperforated Eastman-Kodak film-stock, which was carefully cut, perforated and re-assembled by hand and coated with an emulsion developed by Max. The projector was placed behind a screen, which was made properly transparent by keeping it wet to show the images optimally. The Skladanowskys showed eight films, varying in length from 99 to 174 frames (circa 6 to 11 seconds if played at 16 fps), looped repeatedly, while a specially composed score was played especially loud to drown out the noise of the machinery. The "Apotheose" film showed the brothers entering the frame from opposite sites in front of a white background, bowing towards the camera as if receiving applause and walking out of the frame again. When their show was finished they replicated the action in person in front of the projection screen. The popular venue was filled to capacity with circa 1500 rich patrons for each evening program, but not all of them watched the films. Reviews favoured the three elephants, but the Bioskop was reportedly well-received with extensive applause and flowers thrown at the screen. However, the Berlin papers were seldom critical about shows due to the revenue of the theatre advertisements they placed. They returned to Berlin in February 1897, and shot several crowded urban street scenes. The new films were thought to meet the taste of new audiences and were much needed since the older films started to wear out. However, the investments proved to be in vain as a proposed return to the Wintergarten was not approved, their trade license was not renewed as the authorities believed there were already too many film exhibitors active in town, and they managed to find one venue for a second tour. Eventually, the last Bioskop show by the Skladanosky brothers took place in
Stettin on 30 March 1897. After this Skladanowsky returned to his former photographic activities including the production of
flip books and further magic lantern shows. He also sold amateur film cameras and projectors and produced 3-D
anaglyph image slides. His company
Projektion für Alle also produced a number of films in the early 20th century, some directed by Eugen, his younger brother, but with little success. In his later years Skladanowsky was accused in the press of exaggerating his role in the early days of cinema, most notably by the pioneering cameraman
Guido Seeber. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they investigated the Skladanowsky family's background to determine if they were
Polish Jews. Because Skladanowsky was of non-Jewish origins, he was elevated by the Nazis as a great German cinema innovator. On May 4 1933, an event at Berlin's Atrium cinema honoring Skladanowsky's contributions to German cinema was attended by
Joseph Goebbels and in 1935
Adolf Hitler attended a private screening of a Skladanowsky film. Skladanowsky was fully supportive of the Nazis, adding "Heil Hitler!" to many of his letters and describing the Bioskop as a non-Jewish and therefore authentically German invention. Skladanowsky's support for the Nazi embrace of his work came during a time of poverty and may have been motivated by profit. The Nazis had some ambivalence about his work due to his Polish ancestry and because he had fabricated some of his chronology to exaggerate his influence and by the time of his death in 1939 the Nazis interest in his work had declined. ==Legacy==