35 Facts About Gerhart Hauptmann

Gerhart Hauptmann is counted among the most important promoters of literary naturalism, though he integrated other styles into his work as well.

Gerhart Hauptmann received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.

Gerhart Hauptmann was born in 1862 in Obersalzbrunn, now known as Szczawno-Zdroj, in Lower Silesia.

Gerhart Hauptmann's parents were Robert and Marie Hauptmann, who ran a hotel in the area.

Gerhart Hauptmann had difficulties adjusting himself to his new surroundings in the city.

Gerhart Hauptmann lived, along with his brother Carl, in a somewhat run-down student boarding house before finding lodging with a pastor.

Gerhart Hauptmann was not physically prepared for the work and he had a contracted a life-threatening lung ailment that troubled him for the next twenty months.

Gerhart Hauptmann was temporarily expelled for "poor behavior and insufficient diligence," but quickly reinstated on the recommendation of the sculptor and Professor Robert Hartel.

Gerhart Hauptmann returned disappointed to Germany, where he began a brief stint at the Royal Academy in Dresden before beginning to study history at the University of Berlin.

Gerhart Hauptmann married Marie Thienemann in Radebeul on 5 May 1885.

Gerhart Hauptmann's work included comedies, including Colleague Crampton and The Beaver Coat.

Gerhart Hauptmann prepared the first French performance of his play The Assumption of Hannele and then went after Marie, without even staying for the premiere.

However, Marie continued to live in the villa Gerhart Hauptmann had built in Dresden.

From 1901, Gerhart Hauptmann lived with Margarete Marschalk in Agnetendorf.

Gerhart Hauptmann called it "the mystical protective sheathing of my soul".

Around the turn of the century, Gerhart Hauptmann began to receive official recognition.

Gerhart Hauptmann received honorary doctorates from Worcester College at Oxford in 1905 and from the University of Leipzig in 1909.

Gerhart Hauptmann vetoed the awarding of the 1896 Schiller Preis and at the instigation of his son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, in 1913, a Breslau production of Hauptmann's play Commemoration Masque 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 Gerhart Hauptmann who had criticized militarism in the Masque, the very next year was among those who supported the war.

Gerhart Hauptmann was seen abroad as the representative of German Literature.

Gerhart Hauptmann regarded himself as being fundamentally a poet, above the political fray; and certainly nothing from the Nazi ideology was incorporated into his works.

Gerhart Hauptmann was told that reprinting was impossible because of a paper shortage.

Gerhart Hauptmann was presented by his publisher with the first copy of his 17-volume Complete Works.

Gerhart Hauptmann lived through the end of World War II at his house, Wiesenstein.

In 1944, Gerhart Hauptmann's name was included in the Gottbegnadeten list, a list of artists considered crucial to the German culture, who were therefore exempt from mobilization in the war effort.

At the beginning of May 1946, Gerhart Hauptmann learned that the Polish government was insisting on the expulsion of all Germans without exception.

Gerhart Hauptmann first encountered the various representatives of the naturalist movement through the avant-garde society "Durch" in 1885, which was an important influence.

Gerhart Hauptmann gave a lecture about the theretofore largely forgotten poet and dramatist Georg Buchner.

Gerhart Hauptmann was in 1887 called before the court in Breslau, because he had been a follower of the "Icharians," whose ideas hearkened back to the ideas of French communist Etienne Cabet.

Gerhart Hauptmann sought refuge in his brother's house in Zurich in order to avoid prosecution.

Gerhart Hauptmann however did have an important role, with the support of Otto Brahm, in establishing naturalistic drama on the German stage.

Gerhart Hauptmann had taken up a lavish lifestyle, lived in expensive hotels, often received guests, and took trips to Italy.

When Gerhart Hauptmann continued to live in Germany after the Nazis came to power, they attempted to use Gerhart Hauptmann for their own purposes.

The American authorities, believing that Gerhart Hauptmann had served the Nazis too well, banned his plays from the theaters in their sector in West Berlin.

Gerhart Hauptmann's reputation was further diminished by his uncritical attitude toward the Nazis.