Artur Brauner

Artur Brauner (1918-2019) was one of Germany’s best-known film producers, creating popular classics of entertainment cinema with pop comedies like LIEBE, TANZ UND 1000 SCHLAGER (1955) with Caterina Valente, monumental films like DAS INDISCHE GRABMAL (1959) by Fritz Lang, and genre films like the Karl May adaptations of the 1960s. This was anything but a matter of course: Brauner came to Berlin as one of hundreds of thousands of Jewish “displaced persons” – survivors of Nazi persecution, most of whom hoped to emigrate to Palestine or the United States. Artur Brauner remained in Berlin. He built his own film studios and became one of the most important producers of German cinema. He surrounded himself with stars and became a glamorous figure himself, producing hundreds of films until his death. Today, Brauner is primarily credited for his many “films against oblivion” – but his work is marked by the contradiction between light entertainment and memory.