The son of a master weaver, Albert Klinge was born on January 26, 1872, in Hornburg, near Magdeburg. He joined the Brunswick State Orchestra on double bass in 1891 while also taking on substitute duties at the local Hoftheater. In 1894, he joined the orchestra of the Hessian Landestheater Darmstadt, where he remained for 39 years. Appointed chamber musician in 1915, he was drafted into the military in 1916 and served in the First World War until 1918. After the war, he returned to his position in Darmstadt and, in 1925, also performed with the orchestra of the Bayreuth Festival.
On June 21, 1933, after the Nazis had come to power, the Hessian Ministry of Education and the Arts called on Klinge to retire voluntarily as an act of “national sacrifice”. Such forced retirements were intended to demonstrate the Nazi ideal of the Volksgemeinschaft (people’s community), but in practice they primarily served to make room for younger musicians, preferably those aligned with the National Socialist regime. The management of the Hessian Landestheater itself noted in a letter to the pension insurance authority that this was “not a departure from service in the usual sense. Rather, Mr. Klinge retired at the urging of the state government, as did many other civil servants, out of a sense of national sacrifice. Had this not been the case, he would have continued in his position until reaching the age of 65.”
How the musician survived National Socialism and the Second World War is unknown. Albert Klinge died in 1947 in Darmstadt.
1872 Hornburg
1947 Darmstadt