BLUNCK, HANS

(1888-1961)

Playwright. Blunck was a Nazi functionary in the Propaganda Ministry, though he had experienced some minor success as a playwright in the Weimar period while employed as an administrative official at the University ofHamburg. He became a strong supporter of the Nazi movement in the later 1920s, and in the Third Reich wrote two comedies that were often in theater repertoires during the mid-1930s:Die Lügenwette(The Wager of Lies, 1933) andDer Sprung ins Bürgerliche(The Leap into Prosperity, 1934). In 1938 the regime awarded him the Goethe Medallion for his "exemplary artistic endeavors."