Overview

"This book depicts the life of Conrad Veidt (1893 - 1943), the defining German actor of Expressionist cinema in the 1920s. His legendary performance in Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1919/20) earned him the epithet ""Demon of the Screen"" and made Veidt an international star. To this day, Veidt is considered an icon of early horror film. He showed his enormous acting range in more than a hundred films, among them masterpieces such as The Indian Tomb (1921), Orlac's Hands (1924), The Man Who Laughs (1928), The Thief of Bagdad (1940), and Casablanca (1942). Conrad Veidt used his acting to become socially and politically involved, starting with the film Anders als die Anderen, the first film to advocate homosexual rights, in 1919. After the Nazis came to power, he left Germany to protest anti-Semitism and Nazi rule. Along with his biography, this book provides insights into the development of filmmaking from its beginnings through the 1940s. This exciting epoch of cinematic art is marked by technical innovations like sound and color film and by world-shaking events, including two world wars."

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9781476690810

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A comprehensive account of a giant of German cinema in the 1920s and 30s who resisted the rise of Nazism and in 1935 was forced into exile in Britain and the United States where he continued to struggle against racism, antisemitism, and homophobia. ... Conrad Veidt's sympathy for the marginalized homosexual and his pioneering resistance to the rising tide of antisemitism in Jew Suss, a sympathetic portrayal of a Jewish victim of persecution, provide Schwientek with an opportunity to describe and define the social and political currents that shaped Veidt's career. In our day, a time of global environmental, social, and political crisis, a German voice of resistance to Nazi racism and authoritarianism is extremely relevant. Speaking uncomfortable truth to your own people on behalf of the marginalized, despised, and persecuted is the essence of a true nobility that resides not in blood but in courage and compassion. -Charles McCollester, past president of the Pennsylvania Labor History Society and the Battle of Homestead Foundation

"A comprehensive account of a giant of German cinema in the 1920s and 30s who resisted the rise of Nazism and in 1935 was forced into exile in Britain and the United States where he continued to struggle against racism, antisemitism, and homophobia. … Conrad Veidt's sympathy for the marginalized homosexual and his pioneering resistance to the rising tide of antisemitism in Jew Süß, a sympathetic portrayal of a Jewish victim of persecution, provide Schwientek with an opportunity to describe and define the social and political currents that shaped Veidt's career. In our day, a time of global environmental, social, and political crisis, a German voice of resistance to Nazi racism and authoritarianism is extremely relevant. Speaking uncomfortable truth to your own people on behalf of the marginalized, despised, and persecuted is the essence of a true nobility that resides not in blood but in courage and compassion.""—Charles McCollester, past president of the Pennsylvania Labor History Society and the Battle of Homestead Foundation"

Author Information

Sabine Schwientek is a communication designer and art historian. She works as a freelance artist and author. Her scientific interest is film history. She lives in the Bergisches Land region of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

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