Richard Löwenbein
art_director, director, writer
- Born:
- 1894-06-29, Vienna, Austria
- Died:
- 1943-09, Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Poland
- Professions:
- art_director, director, writer
Biography
Vienna, 29 June 1894: Richard Löwenbein enters the world just as the flicker of moving pictures is beginning to cast its spell across Europe. Within two decades he is himself conjuring that flicker, writing and staging three quicksilver comedies—Marionetten, Die bösen Buben, Die Direktion verlobt sich—all rushed to the screen in 1915 while the continent is still echoing with wartime gunfire. The films vanish from theaters almost as fast as they arrive, yet for a moment he is part of the new art’s first headlong sprint. Nazi round-ups reach him in 1942; a year later, in September 1943, the freight cars halt inside the gates of Auschwitz. The projectors stop, the light goes out, and Richard Löwenbein is erased at forty-nine.
