Ernst Hugo Correll (9 June 1882 – 13 September 1942) was a German

film producer A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, di ...

active during the

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

and early

Nazi era Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

s. Born in

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

, recently incorporated into the

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

, he worked as a

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

before service in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. He fought on the Western Front and was awarded the

Iron Cross The Iron Cross (german: link=no, Eisernes Kreuz, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). King Frederick William III of Prussia est ...

. Postwar he founded a

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

-based film production company with the Italian-born actor

Luciano Albertini Luciano Albertini (30 November 1882 – 6 January 1945) was an Italian actor, film producer, and film director. After initially appearing in Italian films, he moved to Germany following the First World War. In 1921 he founded a production compa ...

, which was subsequently taken over by the larger Phoebus Film. Correll became head of production at Phoebus, building it into one of the more successful companies of the era, until 1927 when he had to resign following the Lohmann Affair. The following year he was appointed to a similar role at

UFA Ufa ( ba, Өфө , Öfö; russian: Уфа́, r=Ufá, p=ʊˈfa) is the largest city and capital of Bashkortostan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Belaya and Ufa rivers, in the centre-north of Bashkortostan, on hills forming the ...

, the largest German studio of the era. The former production chief

Erich Pommer Erich Pommer (20 July 1889 – 8 May 1966) was a German-born film producer and executive. Pommer was perhaps the most powerful person in the German and European film industries in the 1920s and early 1930s. As producer, Erich Pommer was involved ...

worked under him as a leading producer until 1933.Hardt p.211-12 Other heads of production units included Bruno Duday and Gunther Stapenhorst. When Pommer and other

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

filmmakers left Germany following the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

's takeover, Correll remained at UFA. Although he had incurred the dislike of the new Minister of Propaganda

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...

, he was protected for a number of years by Ludwig Klitsch. However, in 1939 he was dismissed because he refused to join the Nazi Party. He retired and died three years later in southern

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

. The stone cross on his grave has been sculpted by

Otto Hitzberger Otto Kaspar Hitzberger (October 2, 1878 in Munich – July 22, 1964 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen) was a German sculptor. Hitzberger was the son of the photographer Josef Hitzberger and his wife Anna. In 1883 the family moved to Partenkirchen. Fro ...

, an artist classified as

degenerate art Degenerate art (german: Entartete Kunst was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, ...

by the Nazi regime.

In popular culture

In 2016, Correll was played by David Novotný in '' The Devil's Mistress'' (''Lída Baarová'') by

Filip Renč Filip Renč (born 17 August 1965) is a Czech film director, screenwriter, and actor. Biograph Filip Renč was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Since his childhood, he already proved his enthusiasm for movies and drama. As a young boy he appear ...

, a dramatization of Lida Baarová's life, a mistress of

References

Bibliography

* Hardt, Ursula. ''From Caligari to California: Erich Pommer's life in the International Film Wars''. Berghahn Books, 1996. * Kester, Bernadette. ''Film Front Weimar: Representations of the First World War in German films of the Weimar Period (1919-1933)''. Amsterdam University Press, 2003. * Kreimeier, Klaus. ''The Ufa Story: A History of Germany's Greatest Film Company, 1918-1945''. University of California Press, 1999.

External links

* 1882 births 1942 deaths German film producers People from Alsace People from Haut-Rhin German Army personnel of World War I Recipients of the Iron Cross (1914) {{Germany-film-bio-stub