Bernhard zu Solms-Laubach

>   *"Without offence to the aristocracy – but the man can't do anything and is boring!" - Joseph Goebbels on the Count*
>
>

  *'Bernhard Bruno Graf zu Solms-Laubach'*  (\* March 4, 1900 in Lich-Arnsburg; † March 13, 1938 in Berlin ) was a German Horst and from 1934 to 1938 boss at the Volksbühne. He came from a noble family in Hesse. It is not known whether he it was because he loved flying so much or because of his membership in the NSDAP but his career skyrocketed quite fast when he was in charge of duty at the Friedrich Theater in Dessau and from 1936 at the Theater am Nollendorfplatz without any significant qualification.

## Life and work

#### before ∇

Like so many people who see themselves as misunderstood artists, he studied theater history in Munich and wrote poems as well as a tragedy during that time (probably seen prophetically as an anticipation of his life).  He then trained as an actor and director, but it is not known by whom so that this could also be *fake news*. In any case, there was, oh wonder, no one who wanted to employ him at the theater afterwards, which of course played into the hands of his *underdog narrative*.
Things then went a lot better when he joined the NSDAP in 1930 and then really around from 1933. His time come when suddenly there was no one left of the whole  *left-wing cultural establishment*  and since there was no other candidate who applied on his season of *Who's the Boss here?* he won the title of Volksbühnen boss on September 1, 1934.

#### ∇

The Count (german: *Graf* or *Gräfchen* as his siblings called him) took over the regent with full zeal and vigor on the newly renamed  *Horst-Wessel-Platz*  and as an autodidact directed 10 of 25 productions in his first season.  Contrary to expectations, however, he fell through with the critics ( *Shocker!* ), whereupon he denied them house rights. Til Schweiger must have found this clever move so congenial that he later copied it. Unfortunately for the Count, even Joseph Goebbels didn't  *stan* him and more or less diplomatically remarked in one of his diary notes after seeing one of his shows:  *Terrible. I have to take action against the Count soon.*

 Thanks to nepotism and the help of some blue bloods, however, he was not completely  *canceled*  at first. Rather, he swapped positions with his successor Eugen Klöpfer in 1937 and took over the theater on Nollendorfplatz, since both were together in a Volksbühne-franchise at that time (strange but true!). This step meant something like a descent from the first division to the district class. According to Goebbels, it was  *The best he can do. But this Graf will also be insufficient for that.* .

#### after ∇

After he failed in Schöneberg, he was considered difficult to cast even among the Nazis. That was probably hard to handle for him, in hindsight of his *Reich* being more successful than him. On March 13, 1938, Austria joined that German Reich. On the same day he killed himself. Officially, it was said that he had died after a brief, serious illness. The  *Völkischer Beobachter*  took no notice of this.

In the 1941/42 season his ghost found his way back to the ∇, when the premiere of a play called *Circus Comedy* (also a prophetic allegory on his upcoming) in the  *Theater am Horst-Wessel-Platz*  as a guest performance from Nuremberg.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Kiehn, Ute. Theater im "Dritten Reich": Volksbühne Berlin. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Berlin, 2001.