"The Devil's General" and "The Zurich Engagement" are among the best-known films by the great film and TV producer. But the Nazi terror also shaped Gyula Trebitsch's life.
With his job, Gyula Trebitsch "only" fulfilled his childhood dream:Even as a boy, he explained to his father that he wanted to become a "film manufacturer". He had nothing against it, Trebitsch said decades later. According to his father, he could become anything - just not a civil servant. In post-war Germany, Gyula Trebitsch built up a successful film and television production company with Real-Film and later Studio Hamburg, and shaped the media landscape for decades.
Training as a projectionist
After graduating, Trebitsch received his ID as a "Royal Hungarian projectionist".Gyula Trebitsch was born on November 3, 1914 in Budapest. In 1932 he started there as a trainee at the Hungarian UFA branch and completed his training as a cinema projectionist in 1937. In the same year, with bank loans, he made his first film, "I trust you with my wife", which was later remade in Germany with Heinz Rühmann. But the Nazis soon stopped Trebitsch's promising career:His first production company, "Objective Film", was "Aryanized" in 1938. As a Jew, Trebitsch loses his job at UFA.
Nazi terror and concentration camp imprisonment in Wöbbelin
The Nazi regime persecuted Trebitsch and his family mercilessly. One of his two brothers dies on the way to a German concentration camp, the second brother dies in the Mauthausen concentration camp. Trebitsch's parents survive thanks to the help of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and later emigrate to Israel. Gyula Trebitsch is drafted into the Jewish labor service by the Nazis and has to clear mines on the Eastern Front. Later he works as a forced laborer in Serbian copper mines. He experienced the end of the war in the Wöbbelin concentration camp near Ludwigslust. Trebitsch later described the liberation of the camp as "the most beautiful day of my life. All the horrors of the past were over."
Involvement in uniting those persecuted by the Nazi regime
The British take the emaciated prisoner to a hospital in Itzehoe. When he regained his strength, Trebitsch became the second chairman of the local group of the Association of People Persecuted by the Nazi Regime (VVN). In 1946, the association managed to have a memorial erected in Itzehoe for the victims of National Socialism - the first in Germany. The brick column was designed by the architect Fritz Höger, who designed the Hamburg Chilehaus in the 1920s.
Trebitsch:"You have to live forward"
Trebitsch (left) with his business partner Walter Koppel and Zarah Leander during the production of the film "Gabriela" in 1949.For decades, Trebitsch did not comment on his experiences during the Nazi era. "You can only understand life by looking at the past, but you have to live forward" - this quote from the Danish philosopher Søren He makes Kierkegaard his motto in life. As early as 1947, Trebitsch got back into the film business. Together with Walter Koppel he founded the production company Real-Film in Hamburg. In the same year he married the costume designer Erna Sander, with whom he had three children - Katharina, Markus and Ulrike.
Up with cinema hits like "Der Hauptmann von Köpenick"
According to Trebitsch in the 1970s, he did not develop his own artistic ambition in his production decisions.With films such as "Des Teufels General" or "Der Hauptmann von Köpenick" the production company made a name for itself in the young Federal Republic in just a few years. Other cinema hits follow, such as "The Zurich Engagement" with Liselotte Pulver or "Der Schinderhannes" with Curd Jürgens. The successes are always due to his objective and rational decisions. He does not develop his own artistic ambition. "I have always conducted all business according to economic, commercially reasonable laws, not according to show business methods," Trebitsch explains in 1974.
In 1959, Trebitsch sold 80 percent of his Real Film shares to Norddeutsche Werbefernsehen GmbH, which was renamed Studio Hamburg in 1960. Trebitsch remains managing director. The busy producer also recognized the importance of television early on:with the series "Hafenpolizei" he landed an early television hit from 1963. Numerous other film, series and show productions follow.
"Good times - despite the cruel years in between"
Gyula Trebitsch did not attribute the success he had as a film producer to luck, but purely to hard work.In addition to the Hamburg studio, Trebitsch runs several other production companies, such as "Polyphon" in Hamburg, which was founded in 1963, and "Polytel" in Amsterdam. In 1971 he parted with his 20 percent share in Studio Hamburg, but remained in the management until 1980. He then worked as a freelance producer with Trebitsch Production Holding GmbH &Co. KG. Trebitsch received numerous honors for his life's work, including the German Film Prize, the German Television Prize, the Golden Camera and the Hamburg Citizens' Prize. He is also honorary chairman of the North German Film Manufacturers Association and the Association of Technical Companies for Film and Television, Berlin. In an interview on the occasion of his 70th birthday, he explains his recipe for success:"I don't believe in luck. I believe in hard work, systematic planning of what you do and concentration on performance. Nothing comes from nothing."
"They were very good times - despite the cruel years in between" - this is the summary Trebitsch draws in the old age. He died in Hamburg on December 12, 2005 at the age of 91. A school in Hamburg-Tonndorf has been named after him since 2011.