Sturm, Peter

Born August 24, 1909 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary , in a Jewish tailor's family. Father died when the boy was 6 years old. At first he was an apprentice in a trading shop, then he worked as a radio technician. Having decided to become an actor at the same time he took lessons from Raoul Aslan ( Raoul Aslan ). He took the stage name Peter Sturm .

In 1928, at the age of 19, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Austria , and later became an active member of the Communist Party of Austria , which in 1933 was banned by the government of Engelbert Dolphus , who embarked on the path of fascization of the country. In 1935 he was accused of high treason and spent a year and a half in prison.

After his release, he worked as an actor in Brettl am Alsergrund , a political, left-wing cabaret in the Vienna district of Alsergrund , directed by Leon Askin, where the Communist playwright Jura Soyfer worked at that time.

During the war years

In May 1938, after Anschluss , he was arrested and, as an Austrian political prisoner, he was sent to the Dachau concentration camp , in August he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp . In April 1939 he was released and left Germany. He emigrated to Italy, then to France, lived in Marseille. After the capture of France by the Nazis, he was interned, but escaped.

In August 1942, he was arrested and deported to the Drancy concentration camp , from where he was sent to Auschwitz . Peter Sturm's mother died in Auschwitz.

In January 1945, the prisoners were transferred to Buchenwald on a death march; Sturm's report on the march, written shortly after arriving in Buchenwald, was preserved.

He joined the communist underground organization of the camp, was a member of the detachment of Robert Sievert . Member of the uprising of April 11, 1945.

After the war

After the war, he returned to Vienna, where he resumed his acting career at first on the stage of the Josefstadt Theater , and later joined the cast of the de: Scala Wien theater founded in 1948 by the Communists returning to Vienna, located in the 4th city district of Vienna, Widen , which is part of the Soviet sector of occupied Vienna. After the Soviet Union left Austria, the theater was left without financial and political support and was closed. It was noted that in addition to adopting a communist and pro-Soviet line, the theater openly defied the Austrian ban imposed on the plays of Bertolt Brecht - journalists Friedrich Torberg and Hans Weigel, both fierce opponents of the playwright, have called for the theater to close since the early 1950s. ^[one]

In 1956 he emigrated to the GDR with several other theater actors, settled in East Berlin , where director Wolfgang Langhoff took him to the regular German Theater.

Having made his film debut in 1956 in the film adaptation of the operetta Gasparone , he had a long career as a film actor at the DEFA and DFF studios in East Germany .

He died on May 11, 1984 in Vienna.

In 1960, he performed the role of August Rosa, a prisoner of Buchenwald betraying his friends, in the German television play based on the novel by Bruno Apitz “ Naked Among the Wolves ”.

For performing the role of Sturm in 1961, the GDR Art Prize was awarded.

In 1962, he played this role in the film adaptation of the novel, but was greatly depressed by the work on the role and became seriously ill. When a year later he was offered to play this role again - he refused.

Until the end of days, he participated in all events dedicated to the memory of the victims of Buchenwald.

He starred in more than fifty films and television productions.

Selected Filmography

• 1961 - Professor Mamlock - Dr. Hirsch
• 1963 - Naked Among the Wolves - August Rose
• 1971 - Liberation - Colonel General Walter Model
• 1974 - Jacob the Liar - Schmidt

He also worked as a dubbing actor, in particular, voiced the main role of the film “ Silent Star ”.

Participated in radio shows " Radio GDR ".

• http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0836410/ Peter Sturm, IMDb
• Peter Sturm Report on the Buchenwald Death March , January 1945, Heritage Museum, Holocaust Documentation and Training Center