IHERING, HERBERT

(1888-1977)

critic; evolved the parameters that de-fined Weimar's socially relevant theater.* Born in Springe, near Hanover, he studied philosophy, history, andGermanistik. He was soon writing essays on contemporary drama, in which he advocated a new form of theater and dispar-aged the period s level of criticism. His ideas attracted Siegfried Jacobsohn,* and from 1909 he wrote forDie Schaubuhne(see Weltbuhne). He was soon writing also for theVossische Zeitungand moved to Austria* in 1914 to direct Vienna'sVolksbuhne. After he returned to Berlin* in 1918, he focused exclu-sively on criticism, writing first forDer Tagand from 1922 for theBerliner Borsen-Courier.His work documents the history of Weimar-era theater. Much later he claimed that "the dynamism that was missing from the revolution was to be found in the theater. He perceived the crisis of Expressionist* theater while advocating a stage prepared to portray contemporary problems. As a board member for the Kleist Foundation (an organization founded to reward promising but financially impaired writers), he was committed to promoting young and unknown talent. He facilitated Bertolt Brecht s* breakthrough and sponsored the playwrights Arnolt Bronnen* and Ernst Barlach.* He also expedited the direct-ing careers of Erich Engel,* Jürgen Fehling,* and Erwin Piscator.*

A champion of what he called "productive criticism," Ihering was less interested in the success or failure of a performance than in the total meaning of a production. Never a great stylist, he stressed what he conceived as a meta-physical interaction between "productive criticism and the "theater of pro-ductive contradiction. Because of his a partiality for "political theater, he was faulted for embracing selected playwrights—an error he later acknowledged in the case of Bronnen. He scorned isolated criticism and ridiculed the individ-ualistic approach of Alfred Kerr,* the era's premier critic. His published quarrels with Kerr were already legendary in the 1920s.

Although Ihering was a well-known leftist, he remained in Germany after Hitler s* appointment. In 1933 he joined theBerliner Tageblatt, for which Kerr had written. He was silenced by theReichspressekammerin 1936 for his "de-liberate and systematic sabotage of National Socialist reconstruction and thereafter published nonpolitical portraits of actors, worked for the Tobis Film Society, and from 1942 was intendant for Vienna sBurgtheater. He settled in East Berlin after World War II and produced criticism until the 1970s.