Thomas Mann compared the actor nature of his temporary son-in-law and husband of daughter Erika with the existence of the firefly: inconspicuous during the day, shining in the evening. Klaus Mann was less affectionate towards his brother-in-law Gustaf Gründgens. He portrayed him, barely veiled, under the name Hendrik Höfgen in his key novel "Mephisto" as the prototype of the follower and "monkey of power" in a deeply untrue system – the dictatorship of National Socialism.
Gründgens, born on December 22, 1899, in Düsseldorf and director of the Schauspielhaus there from 1947 to 1955, is part of German cultural history – from the Weimar Republic through the Third Reich to the Federal Republic. As a theater man, he was a European figure and a remarkable phenomenon, he became – against his will – the general director of the Prussian stages, state councilor, and senator under the protection of Minister President Göring, the cultural representative of Hitler's regime. His Düsseldorf teachers Louise Dumont and Gustav Lindemann had attested to him in 1920 as possessing "energetic will" and "nervous temperament" along with a "discernible formation of the mental structure of problematic natures." That was to remain so. The artist in twilight.
From Halberstadt via Kiel, he came to the renowned Hamburg Kammerspiele of Erich Ziegel and made his way to Berlin from there: a hot spot for the "monocle-wielding actor," as Alfred Kerr called him. Elegant, extravagant, alert and opportunistic, the lust for success drove him through revues, cabaret and operette, drama, opera and film (including as a syndicate criminal with a bowler hat in Fritz Lang's masterpiece "M"). A brain acrobat and dancer on a volcano, Gründgens played his first Mephisto in "Faust" in 1932, portraying him as an "agent, demagogue, and manager," as Herbert Ihering wrote.
In 1933, the pact with the devil in brown uniform occurred. Gründgens was not a Nazi; he regarded and defended his theater as an "island," a space of order and a security zone. He tried to endure the regime artistically unscathed, also helping politically persecuted individuals, but was nonetheless subject to a distortion of reality. "Power was not questioned or examined by him, but confirmed," analyzes his biographer Peter Michalzik. He stated in a letter, "I had to swallow more than one probably ought to without harming one’s soul."
Gründgens had long since divorced Erika Mann, and she and the entire family of the Nobel Prize winner were in exile. Gründgens married Marianne Hoppe, the second legendary connection. Yet this marriage did not last either. However, the artistic relationship of the couple on stage and screen thrived. He gave his wife the screenplay for the Fontane adaptation "Effi Briest" as a wedding gift and directed the film "Der Schritt vom Wege" with her.
Gründgens, a fanatic of precision, became, after 1945, following a brief period of suppression by the Soviets, the representative of absolute fidelity to the work in theater. In the service of the "score of poetry," he built his brilliant classical productions with great clarity and strict formal intent to the point of formalism. His last station was the Hamburger Schauspielhaus, where he disciplined himself with great self-control. Gründgens died in 1963 in Manila – a note was found beside his bed: "Let me sleep."
