ZIEGEL, ERICH

(1876-1950)

Director. Ziegel assumed leadership of theMunichKammerspiele in 1913, shortly after its founding in the former Munich Comedy Theater. He began an aggressive program of premiering a new play every two weeks. One of them was Ludwig Thoma's one-actDie Sippe(The CJan), after which Munich police arrested both Ziegel and the playwright on the theater's stage. Of the more than 30 plays Ziegel presented, he directed over half of them. Ziegel left the Munich Kammerspiele in 1916 to found theHamburgKammerspiele, where he opened his administration with a week ofFrank Wedekindplays. He continued to premiere new plays, many of them by then-unknownExpressionists. He briefly directed the HamburgDeutsches Schauspielhausin the mid-1920s when the Kammerspiele was torn down. After it was rebuilt in 1932, he returned there until 1934, when the Gestapo threatened him after he staged a production of a play byJohann Wolfgang Goethethey felt was "insulting." He departed for Vienna, where he found little work; he then returned periodically toBerlinto work forGustaf Gründgens.