Walter Max Guido Jockisch (20 February 1907 – 22 March 1970) was a German pedagogue, dramaturge, librettist and opera director.
Family Born in Bad Arolsen, Free State of Waldeck-Pyrmont,Birth certificate Walter Max Guido Jockisch, Registry Office Arolsen, No. 9/1907, 25 February 1907; facsimile transmitted by the Department of Citizen Services, Public Safety and Order of the City of Bad Arolsen, Siegfried Butterweck, 12 August 2020 Jockisch was the only child of the Oberregierungs-Medizinalrat and Kingdom of Prussia Stabsarzt Franz 'Max' Louis Paul Jockisch (1865–1947) and his first wife Harriet Edeline Eugenie 'Melanie' née von Schlicht (1878–1929).Heir certificate Franz Max Louis Paul Jockisch, Standesamt Bad Naueim, No. 2/1947, 2 January 1947Heir certificate Harriet Edeline Eugenie Melanie Jockisch, née von Schlicht, Standesamt IV Frankfurt, no. 1618/1929, p. 430, 8 November 1929, married to Oberregierungsmedizinalrat, Doktor der Medizin Franz Max Louis Paul Jockisch zu Frankfurt, Holbeinstraße 19In the contemporary address books for Danzig and Frankfurt, Dr. med. Franz Max Louis Paul Jockisch was listed with the spelling Jokisch, Max. Both parents were .
On 16 August 1933, Jockisch married the writer Gisela Günther née Schoenfeld (1905Birth register no. 460 of the Protestant parish Landstraße–1985) in Berlin-Wilmersdorf.Marriage certificate of the registry office Berlin-Wilmersdorf No. 788 of 16 August 1933, Aufgebotsverzeichnis No. 859Zuckmayer, Gisela. In Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, at d-nb.info The witnesses to the marriage were the writer Paula Ludwig from Ehrwald in Tyrol, whose son had been a pupil of Jockisch on the North Sea island of Juist, and Gretha Schaettler from Berlin. This marriage nominally produced a daughter, Michaela 'Michele' (born 10 November 1933 in Ehrwald, Tyrol; married to Richard Schenkirz from 1957).Schreiben von Walter Jockisch an den Studenten Heinz-Günther Knolle (ehemaliger Schüler der Schule am Meer auf Juist) vom 19 November 1933, maschinenschriftlich, unveröffentlicht; Quoted after Faksimile aus dem Privatbesitz von Dr. med. dent. Achim Knolle, LöhneIrene Nawrocka (ed): Carl Zuckmayer: Briefwechsel, vol. 1: Briefe 1935–1977. Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2004, , Heiratsanzeige von Michele und Richard Schenkirz an Carl Zuckmayer, undated 1957. In Nachlass Carl Zuckmayer, Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, Bestandssignatur A:Zuckmayer, Carl; Zugangsnummer HS.1995.0001
His wife had been married before, then an actress, in 1924 to the merchant Heinrich Max Franz Westphal (born 1900) from Słupsk in Pommerania, who lived in Charlottenburg's Schlüterstraße 12.Marriage Register Heinrich Max Franz Westphal and Gisela Schoenfeld, Standesamt Charlottenburg I, No. 9/1924, Aufgebotsverzeichnis No. 75, 20 February 1924 Their marriage was a marriage of convenience, because she was about to give birth to an illegitimate child whose father was a foreigner. Under the Nazi regime, Jockisch wanted to give the child an Aryan qualification.Judith Hélène Stadler: Grete Weil – Der Brautpreis. Master's thesis, Faculty of Culture and Social Sciences, University of Lucerne, Lucerne 2010, (209) He had met his wife at the Schule am Meer, where she was later involved with the choir and orchestra director Eduard Zuckmayer, the elder brother of the writer Carl Zuckmayer, who worked there. After their divorce in 1934, Gisela and her daughter Michaela followed Zuckmayer into exile in Ankara, where he – through Paul Hindemith and at the invitation of President Kemal Atatürk – was to shape the entire Turkish music teacher training in the spirit of the German . Zuckmayer was not able to marry her until 1947 because the Nazi authorities denied expatriate emigrants a Ehefähigkeitsbescheinigung.Eduard Zuckmayer. In Lexikon verfolgter Musiker und Musikerinnen des NS-Zeit (LexM), edited by the Institut für Historische Musikwissenschaft der Universität Hamburg, at uni-hamburg.de After their marriage, he adopted Michaela.Barbara Trottnow: Eduard Zuckmayer – Ein Musiker in der Türkei. Documentary, on YouTube, 2:41 Min.
In 1946, Jockisch's childhood friend Grete Weil, née Dispeker, who had been married to his friend Edgar Weil who was murdered in the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1941,Peter Ahrendt: "I am a bad hater", an glarean-magazin.ch visited from their Dutch exile. As both had agreed after Weil's death,Grete Weil: Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben (Autobiographie). Nagel + Kimche, Zurich among others 1998, , Waldemar Fromm, Wolfram Göbel, Gabriele Förg, Kristina Kargl, Elisabeth Tworek Freunde der Monacensia – Jahrbuch 2009. Allitera Verlag, Munich 2009, , Grete Weil first lived with Jockisch in Darmstadt from 1947 onwards; they did not marry until 13 February 1961 in Frankfurt.Heiratsurkunde beim Standesamt Frankfurt am Main-Mitte, No. 470/1961Waldemar Fromm, Wolfram Göbel, Gabriele Förg, Kristina Kargl, Elisabeth Tworek: Freunde der Monacensia e. V. – Jahrbuch 2009. Allitera Verlag, Munich 2009. ,
School Jockisch grew up for about thirteen years initially at Heiligenbrunner Weg 6 in Gdańsk-Langfuhr,Neues Adressbuch für Danzig und Vororte, 23 Jahrg. 1919, I. Teil. A. W. Kasemann G.m.b.H. Danzig, (Jokisch, Max, Dr. med., Ober-Stabsarzt, Lgf.) where he attended school until his family moved to Frankfurt in about 1920 to Holbeinstraße 19 in the Sachsenhausen district.Adreßbuch für Frankfurt am Main und Umgebung, 1921 edition (PDF file; 529.62 megabytes). August Scherl Deutsche Adreßbuch-Gesellschaft m.b.H. Frankfurt, (Jokisch, Max, doctor)Adreßbuch für Frankfurt am Main und Umgebung, 1924 edition (PDF file; 276.54 megabytes). August Scherl Deutsche Adreßbuch-Gesellschaft m.b.H. Frankfurt, (Jokisch, Max, Ob. Reg. Med. Rat)Thomas Blubacher: Walter Jockisch. In Andreas Kotte (ed.): Theaterlexikon der Schweiz, vol. 2. Chronos Verlag, Zurich 2005. , He subsequently attended the Musterschule and became close friends with the brothers Edgar (1908–1941) and Hans Joseph Weil (1906–1969),Weil, Hans Joseph, at juedisches-leben-in-ingenheim.de the sons of Richard Weil, a chemical-pharmaceutical manufacturer with a doctorate, who lived at Friedberger Anlage 9, near their father's company headquarters at Grüne Straße 11–13.Adreßbuch für Frankfurt am Main und Umgebung 1924 (PDF-Datei; 276,54 Megabyte). August Scherl Deutsche Adreßbuch-Gesellschaft m.b.H. Frankfurt, (Dr. R. u. Dr. O. Weil, chem. Präparate; Weil, Richard, Dr., Fabrik.) Through her he met her grandcousin Grete Dispeker and her friend Doris von Schönthan around 1923/24.Grete Weil: Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben (Autobiographie). Nagel + Kimche, Zurich among others 1998. , He thus belonged to the extended circle of friends of two of Thomas Mann's children, the closely related siblings Erika and Klaus Mann.Waldemar Fromm, Wolfram Göbel, Gabriele Förg, Kristina Kargl, Elisabeth Tworek: Freunde der Monacensia e. V. – Jahrbuch 2009. Allitera Verlag, Munich 2009. , At Easter 1925 he passed his Reifeprüfung for Musterschule.Lehrerbuch der Schule am Meer, Juist, Blatt 31. In Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesbibliothek, Handschriftenabteilung, Nachlass Luserke, Martin, Signatur: Cb 37 (Die handschriftlich ausgefüllte Seite des Lehrerbuches verzeichnet seinen Namen in der Schreibweise Walter Jockisch)
Studies He then studied Germanistics, history and English, at the Goethe University Frankfurt and at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin. and completed his studies in 1929 in Berlin with an inaugural dissertation on Andreas Gryphius und das literarische Barock and his doctorate to Doctor philosophiae (Dr. phil.).Dr. Walther Jockisch: Andreas Gryphius und das literarische Barock (Germanische Studien, H. 89), edited by Dr. Emil Ebering. Emil Ebering Edition, Berlin 1930, Nicola Kaminski, Robert Schütze: Gryphius-Handbuch. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2016 ,
Professional development Educator
Jockisch was first employed from 19 April 1930 to 18 March 1932 as a teacher of German, history, English and Latin at the progressive education run by Martin Luserke Schule am Meer on the East Frisia island Juist,: Blätter der Außengemeinde der Schule am Meer Juist, 5th circular, July 1930, Stiftung Schule am Meer: Blätter der Außengemeinde der Schule am Meer Juist, o. no., November 1934, where he became involved in the run by Luserke. Jockisch was influenced by the free-standing , which was unique, inspiring amateur drama, the German Youth Movement, the Youth Music Movement and professional theatre. Luserke and Carl Zuckmayer wrote texts for Eduard Zuckmayer's compositions at the Schule am Meer.Walter Killy: Dictionary of German Biography, volume 10: Thiebaut – Zycha. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2006. , Eduard Zuckmayer / Martin Luserke: Herbst-Kantate, at swissbib.chLuserke, Martin. In Bruno Jahn: Deutsche biographische Enzyklopädie der Musik, Vol. 2: S – Z. K. G. Saur Verlag, Munich 2003. , Jockisch's colleagues also included among others , Fritz Hafner, , Heinrich Karl Ernst Martin Meyer, Anni and , as well as . He became close friends with the student Heinz-Günther Knolle (1912–1999), who was also friend with Grete Dispeker from September 1929. From 1932, Jockisch and Knolle lived in a shared apartment on the Weinmeisterhöhe in , Knolle studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Jockisch, who after 1933 did not intend to submit to the Nazi dictates, consequently reoriented himself professionally and found a politically largely neutral field of activity.
Artistic director Between 1935 and 1937 Jockisch worked as assistant stage manager for Walter Felsenstein and at the Oper Frankfurt.Reichstheaterkammer, Fachschaft Bühne (ed.): Deutsches Bühnen-Jahrbuch – Theatergeschichtliches Jahr- und Adressbuch, 47. Jahrg. 1936, , From 1937 to 1940 he worked under Karl Bauer at the opera and operetta of the , first as Spielleiter, from 1938 as Oberspielleiter. Bauer took Jockisch with him when he move to the Grillo-Theater in Essen, where he worked from 1940 to 1944, first as drama director, dramaturge and head of the artistic operations office, and from 1941 as head opera director.
In the last months of the Second World War, Walter Jockisch was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a Funker.Grete Weil: Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben (Autobiographie). Nagel + Kimche, Zurich among others 1998. , Maria Frisé: Von Flucht und Rettung. In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 98, 28 April 1998, , at faz.net
At the end of the war and in the immediate post-war period, Jockisch worked again in Frankfurt (1947: Igor Stravinsky / Charles Ferdinand Ramuz' L'Histoire du Soldat), at times probably also at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich.Hedwig Mueller von Asow, Erich Herrmann Mueller von Asow (ed.): Kürschners Deutscher Musiker-Kalender 1954. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2019. , From 1946 to 1948, Jockisch was artistic director of the Landestheater at the Orangerie in Darmstadt,Ian Pace: The Reconstruction of Post-War West German New Music during the early Allied Occupation (1945–46), and its Roots in the Weimar Republic and Third Reich (1918–45). PhD Thesis, Cardiff University, Cardiff 2018, at which he had previously guest directed (1943: Capriccio by Richard Strauss; 1946 Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice). During this time, Hans Werner HenzeLandestheater in der Orangerie, at darmstadt-stadtlexikon.de met him and his partner Grete Weil (from 1947). According to Henze's retrospective description, Jockisch was a "gaunt anthroposophical pedagogue and theatre man".Hans Werner Henze: Reiselieder mit böhmischen Quinten – Autobiographische Mitteilungen 1926–1995. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt 2015. , K. F. Reinking: Die großen Ansprüche. In Die Zeit, No. 24 (1950), 15 June 1950, at zeit.de