Born in Jülich on September 28, 1889, Hugo Hertz began his stage career in 1924 as an actor at the Landestheater Sondershausen. From 1926 to 1930, he worked as an assistant prompter at the National Theater in Mannheim and also served as a prompter at the Heidelberg Festival in 1927 and 1929. In 1930, he became a prompter at the Mainz Stadttheater before being appointed opera prompter at the Hessian Landestheater Darmstadt in September of 1931. The theater management was so satisfied with his work there that it offered to retain him as early as January of 1933.
However, Hertz was Jewish, and the Nazis’ seizure of power brought his career in Germany to an end. On March 31, 1933, he was placed on leave by order of the Hessian Ministry of Education and the Arts, but shortly afterward he succeeded in having the decision reversed because he had served as a soldier during the First World War. After being violently forced by the SA to scrub building walls and suffering a nervous breakdown, however, his situation had become untenable. On June 2, he requested a leave of absence, and the following day he received notice that his employment would be terminated at the end of the theater season.
Hertz fled Germany and joined the German Theater in Prague. Following the occupation of Czechoslovakia by German troops in March of 1939, he was briefly imprisoned. After his release, he managed to escape with his family to England in May of 1939. The hardships of imprisonment and exile took a lasting toll on him, and he was unable secure employment again until 1950, when he found work as a music teacher. Hugo Hertz died in 1977 while visiting Germany.
1889 Jülich