Karl Wollf was born on June 27, 1876, in Koblenz. After completing a doctorate in law and German studies, he became a dramaturge at the Munich Hoftheater in 1912. In 1916, he moved to the Königliches Schauspielhaus in Dresden on a three-year contract. There, for the first time in his theatrical career, he faced anti-Semitic hostility: the king expressed concern about the dramaturge’s “certain Semitic tendencies,” which were thought to potentially influence both repertoire choices and casting decisions. He therefore informed his theater director, Count von Seebach, that he had given orders to “carefully supervise Dr. Wollf’s activities.” When Reinhard Goering’s pacifist play Seeschlacht caused a scandal in nationalist circles on February 10, 1918, Wollf’s position became untenable. His contract was to be terminated against Seebach’s wishes, but the November Revolution of 1918 ultimately saved him.
Wollf remained chief dramaturge and shaped the artistic identity of the theater during its most creative period. He brought the director Berthold Viertel to Dresden, transformed program notes into “strategic papers”, and used his journal Der Zwinger as a forum for debates on contemporary theater. Even his fiercest adversary, the theater critic of the Dresdner Anzeiger, conceded: “A sharp intellect, skillfully dialectical, philosophically educated.” However, after a scandal in January of 1924 surrounding a performance of Ernst Toller’s expressionist drama Hinkemann—provoked by anti-Semitic students, anti-democratic paramilitary groups, and Nazi activists—Wollf’s artistic freedom was increasingly restricted to the classical repertoire. In 1927, he attempted to break out of this limitation by founding a contemporary stage dedicated to new writers, but the experiment lasted only a year. Then came the Nazis, who starting in 1929 repeatedly demanded in the state parliament that “the post of dramaturge Wollf be eliminated.” Their hostility was based on a familiar anti-Semitic conspiracy theory: that the theater’s repertoire was not curated by Wollf himself but dictated by the Dresdner Neuesten Nachrichten, whose editor-in-chief and shareholder was his cousin Julius Ferdinand Wollf. Similar accusations were made in the Nazi party newspaper Der Freiheitskampf.
It is therefore unsurprising that Wollf was placed on leave on March 7, 1933, together with Fritz Busch and formally discharged on June 30. He subsequently worked as a highly sought-after lecturer of philosophy, literature, and theology in Prague, Vienna, and London, as well as numerous cities in the Netherlands, and Switzerland. In spring of 1939, he emigrated to France, where he was interned after the outbreak of war. In May of 1942, he managed to escape to London. There he became a member of the German section of PEN and of Club 1943, an association of emigrant artists and scholars. Now a British citizen, Karl Wollf remained in England after the war, published books, and gave lectures. He died on June 13, 1952, in London.
1876 Koblenz
1952 London