Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Alexander (Fritz) Lehmann
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Curriculum Vitae
Friedrich Wilhelm Alexander Lehmann, known as Fritz, was born in Vienna as the youngest of five legitimate sons of the tax official Alois Lehmann and Hermine, née Stastny. After elementary school, he attended the lower school of the Fichtnergasse grammar school in Vienna's 13th district and then transferred to the Aufbaukonvikt in Horn for a year before going to the boarding school of the Juvenat of the Chorherrenstift Klosteneuburg. He graduated from high school there in 1934, joined the Augustinian canons in September of the same year and took the religious name Dietmar. At Klosteneuburg Monastery, he met the Augustinian canons Roman Karl Scholz CanReg.
In 1936, however, Fitz Lehmann decided to become an actor and left the order. On the advice of Katharina Schratt, he studied at the Staatsakademie für Musik und darstellenden Kunst [today: Max Reinhardt-Seminar] in the master class of Prof. Wilhelm Klitsch. After passing the entrance examination, he is awarded a 'free place' due to his special talent and therefore does not have to pay tuition fees. From 1933 to 1937, he was a member of the student faction of the Heimatschutz and then a member of the Vaterländische Front.
On March 12, 1938, the devout Catholic and patriotic Austrian Fritz Lehmann witnessed the invasion of the German Wehrmacht and the occupation of free and independent Austria by the National Socialists. In 1939, Lothar Müthel, the new director of the Burgtheater appointed by the National Socialists, brought him directly from the State Academy of Music and Performing Arts to the Burgtheater.
Through his old acquaintance Roman Karl Scholz CanReg and Viktor Reimann, he came into contact with the Austrian Freedom Movement - Scholz Group at the beginning of 1939. When he happened to meet the resistance fighter Karl Lederer a short time later, Fritz Lehmann informed him that Roman Karl Scholz CanReg was setting up a group with similar content, whereupon Karl Lederer got in touch with Roman Karl Scholz.
From July 1940, a good 300 people from these resistance groups were betrayed by the castle actor Otto Hartmann (Otto Hartmann was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment in 1947 and pardoned in 1957) and Fritz Lehmann was arrested by the Gestapo on July 31, 1940. While in prison, he wrote down thoughts and poems by Roman Karl Scholz CanReg and arranged for the writings to be smuggled out. His code name in prison is William Harden, to whom Scholz's book 'Goneril' is also dedicated.
Fritz Lehmann returns to Vienna after the war and plays at the Burgtheater again. However, as his resistance to the National Socialist regime was viewed negatively by some colleagues, his artistic progress was hindered. He therefore left Vienna in 1949/50 and went to Graz. Later, he also made stops in Switzerland and Germany. He also played in various television films. Fritz Lehmann returned to the Burgtheater in Vienna in 1960. He became a member of the board of trustees of the Documentation Archive of Austrian Resistance (DÖW).
In 1977, Fritz Lehmann made his last appearance at the Akademietheater; his last role at the Burgtheater was that of the Patriarch in 'Natan the Wise'. His wife Maria Kramer died in 1980. In 1981 he married Cordelia Reinthaller and subsequently had two sons with her.
Fritz Lehmann died in Vienna at the age of 83 and was laid to rest at the cemetery in Schönberg am Kamp in Lower Austria.
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Citations
Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstands (DÖW)
Cordelia Lehmann-Reinthaller, Privat
