Stefan Lux

Stefan Lux (born the November 11th 1888 with Vienna and dead the July 3rd 1936 with Geneva) is a Jewish man of letters Czech, which is committed suicide in full session of the Société of the Nations in 1936 to alert the world on the dangers of the German Antisémitisme .

Biography

Youth

A few months after its death, however, Arnold Hahn devotes a writing to him where it is learned that Stefan Lux was born on November 11th, 1888 in Vienna. His/her father was notary with Malacky. He completes his Gymnase with Bratislava and begins the right to the Université of Budapest. But after two examinations, it decides to practice the théâtre.
It leaves for Vienna - where it meets the old tragic actor Joseph Kainz, the last favorite of Louis II of Bavaria… - then to receive the teaching of the actor and director Ferdinand Gregori to be committed with the Deutsches Theater of Berlin at twenty-three years. It publishes the first volume of Poème S: Meine Lieder - which will know three republications - under the pseudonym of Peter Sturmbusch.

One then finds it on the boards of Neue Bühne of Vienna, for the seasons of 1913 and 1914, when the war bursts. It engages. After being struck by the Typhus, a ball reaches it with the lung. Hardly given, it turns over to the face and is again wounded, at the point to lose several months the use of an arm. It finishes officer, in the Hungarian army.

Man of theater

The finished war, Lux leaves for Berlin and it begins its action in favor of the maltreated Jews. It is in this action that in autumn 1919 it creates the Sozial-Film GMBH which will produce, under its artistic director, one of first films devoted to the fight against the anti-semitism: Gerechtigkeit (Justice).

Lux obtains the support of the professor Julius Hirsch, the first role falls to Rudolph Schildkraut assisted by Ernst Deutsch, Fritz Kortner, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Maria Zelenka, etc outsides are turned to Goslar and Nuremberg, and the film is financed by the owner of a department store of Berlin.
In March 1920, the film is finished and ready to be projected in rooms, when bursts the Putsch of Kapp. First is deferred by the events and the backer withdraws his funds. Gerechtigkeit is oublié.
Lux remains still a certain time in the cinema while working as scenario writer for the production company of the actress Henny Porten and for Wengeroff-Film, then for several publishers, and reaches the statute of independent writer.

In 1921 it publishes Liebeslieder , a new volume of its poems which are the obejt musical adaptations by the type-setters Wilma von Webenau, Erwin Bodky, Otto Siegl, etc It redécouvre and publishes in 1923 a new joke, Nur keck , of Johann Nestroy - the Feydeau Viennese . But it is impassioned especially for its research on the philosopher Popper-Lynkeus.
Lux has dependant now, its Dora wife and their Albert son born in 1922. Its articles visionaries in which he announces all that, indeed, will occur, return with regularity of the offices of drafting, burdened with the mention Inopportun or Pas to say .
Lux projects the publication of a review: Weltbühne of the kleinen Baskets ( World scene of the small man ), but it remains with the state of project: Hitler has just reached the capacity and it will have to be exiled.

Return to the native land

It turns over in its fatherland, become the Czechoslovakia, and settles with Prague, its pieces of furniture and businesses remaining in Berlin, seized by its owner. It has a new project: to found a theater. A Jewish theater, with Jewish parts which, as in Gerechtigkeit will show that the injustices undergone by the Jews. It succeeds in assembling two or three representations by its Jüdisches Kammerspiel. In Germany, the policy hitlérien is propagated and spread in Eastern Europe, S.d.N is impotent. Lux in démord not: it is necessary to shake the public opinion, to make react the leaders of the world and to encourage the Jews with resistance. Lux decides to come to Geneva, to be made admit in the Room of the Council and, at a meeting, to make in front of the statesmen amazed a speech ignited at warning and alarm clock of the consciences.

Final preparations

It gathers the sum necessary to the voyage and on June 4th Arne Laurin editor association of Prager Presse - and personal secretary of Masaryk - gives to him a letter of introduction near the Paul journalist Of Bochet.

It stops initially in Paris, to collect in the mediums of emigrants, what to pack his Genevese intervention. But he will hardly be listened.

In Geneva, where it arrives on June 26th, it is accommodated by Of Bochet who gets a chart of press to him to attend the meetings of S.d.N. Lux understands that before this assembly, an ignited speech would be without the least effect.

In its room of the Elisabeth Pension, place of the Alps, where it is descended, Lux taken stock. It discounts to be made listen by Anthony Eden, Foreign Minister in Great Britain, according to him - in spite of the naval agreement germano-British - able to only stop the explosive device.

In the night from Tuesday, June 30 to Wednesday the 1st er July, it writes what it calls its Memorandum in the shape of a letter with Sir Eden. In this letter, he explains the motivations of his act and the importance by its desperate gesture underlines some. He denounces the rearmament of Germany and predicted a “world catastrophe”.

The 2, he still writes some letters, with his wife, Of Bochet, Doctor Heller of Prague to recommend his wife and their son to his benevolence, with the king Edouard VIII, the Times , the Manchester Guardian , the Intransigent of Paris. The evening, it regulates its note of the pension, writes its will, and prepares a last letter, intended for the General secretary of the Company of the Nations Joseph A. Avenol, to excuse disturbance and to entrust the routing of the other letters to him.

The suicide

The morning of Friday July 3rd 1936, with the Palate of the Nations, the delegates are brought together in the room of the General advice for the sixteenth session of the Société of the Nations (S.d.N.). One discusses mainly reform there of the Pact.

At ten hours and half, whereas the Spanish delegate Augusto Barcia has just finished his speech and that the interpreter begins his English translation, a shot resounds. The Czech writer Stefan Lux outlines towards the president (Paul Van Zeeland) a gesture, coward a revolver and collapses after having succeeded in articulating some words. Van Zeeland stops the meeting immediately and asks whether there is a doctor in the room. The Canadian delegate Roy runs near the casualty. The personnel of the room transports the casualty in another room, reserved to the Secretariat, while the chief of the Corboz police force arrives at the head of a battalion of gendarmes. And the president reopens the meeting after having given the only information it has: the drama is not related to the debate in progress.
Doctor Weber-Bauler, doctor of the Company of the Nations, examines Lux and orders his immediate transfer to the hospital. An ambulance takes along there, accompanied by its compatriot László Benes, it will collect the last confidences of Lux. The chief rabbi of Geneva, Solomon Poliakof, arrives on the request for Lux. And, after having declined its Hebraic identity - Schmuel Mosche Ben Abraham - he asks to be buried among the Jews. Doctor Jentzer tries the impossible one but Stefan Lux succumbs the evening even to nine hours. It rests with the Cimetière Jew of Veyrier (canton of Geneva).

In a few hours the world, until in America, learned the gesture from that which a newspaper calls “the hero of Geneva” and heard its message .

Homages

At the time of the burial to the Cemetery Jew of Veyrier, a large crowd and personalities are present. Robert Dell, writer with the Manchester Guardian and chair International association of the Press accredited the Company of the Nations, finished the homages as follows: “Stefan Lux, which can we say of your gesture? Useless gesture perhaps, but heroic gesture, supreme gesture of abnegation. We can at least ensure in front of your coffin, which we will never give up the cause of the human solidarity, for which you sacrificed your life, and which we will be never neutral in front of the crime”.
One month later, while was born the world Jewish Congress in the room even where Lux had committed suicide, Nahum Goldmann declared: “One will build one day, in Germany, of the monuments to the memory of Stefan Lux”.

While paying homage to its cause but by condemning its gesture, Leon Savary, concluded: “The men able to fight for justice should not commit suicide, they must remain at their station”.

Evocation

the film Amen of Costa-Gavras (2002) starts with the gesture of Stefan Lux.

Works

Under the pseudonym of Peter Sturmbusch :

Meine Leider. ; Wien, C. Konegen, 1911.
Drei Lieder für hohe Singstimme put Klavierbegleitung ; Julius Rünger; Peter Sturmbusch; Emma Destinnová; Ada Negri; Mainz: B. Schott' S Söhne, 1916.
Liebeslieder. ; Wien: Carl Konegen, 1921.
Nur keck: Installation put Gesang in 3 Akten ; Johann Nestroy ; Peter Sturmbusch; Wien: Interterritorialer Verlag " Renaissance" (Erdtracht) 1923.

Like realizer of cinema:

1920 - Gerechtigkeit with Rudolph Schildkraut

Random links: