Bernauer, Rudolf

(1880-1953)

   Playwright, manager, actor. Bernauer became one of the most successful theater businessmen of the Weimar period, though his goal always was to emulate the artistic achievements of Max Reinhardt. Bernauer began his career as an apprentice under Otto Brahm at the Deutsches Theater while still a student at the University of Berlin. He subsequently worked as a full-time actor for Brahm, performing alongside Reinhardt. Bernauer was among the first actors Reinhardt hired in 1903 at the Neues Theater in Berlin, and later Bernauer became Reinhardt's personal assistant at the Deutsches Theater. With Carl Meinhard (1886-1949), Bernauer wrote a series of parodies of then-current Berlin theatrical triumphs, which they called the Bösen-Buben-Bälle ("Bad Boys' Balls"), presenting them at the Berliner Theater. They soon bought that facility, and in 1911 they added the Theater in der Königgrätzerstrasse to their list of properties. They bought the Komödienhaus two years later and eventually became owners of the Theater am Nollendorfplatz as well.

   After he became a wealthy theatrical entrepreneur, Bernauer continued to write. In the waning years of the Weimar Republic, he formed a partnership with Rudolf Österreicher, and together they completed some of the most successful comedies of that period. Their Der Garten Eden (The Garden of Eden, 1926), Geld auf der Strasse (Money in the Streets, 1928), and Konto X (The X Account, 1930) were performed hundreds of times in scores of productions.

   In 1931 Bernauer premiered the German version of Lewis Milestone's film All Quiet on the Western Front at the Theater am Nollendorfplatz, and Joseph Goebbels ordered white mice released throughout the theater to disrupt the film's running. When the National Socialists came to power, they immediately arrested Bernauer and later forced him to auction his Berlin properties at a considerable loss. He emigrated to London in 1934.