Harry Buckwitz

He was general manager of the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt from 1951 and 1967, where he was responsible for opera and plays, and initiated a new house for them after the formerly separate theatres had been destroyed in World War II.

Buckwitz focused on productions of Bertolt Brecht's plays which he directed himself,[5] such as Der kaukasische Kreidekreis in 1955 and Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder in 1958, with Therese Giehse in the title role.

[1] He also produced works by contemporary authors such as Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Max Frisch, Rolf Hochhuth, Eugène Ionesco, Arthur Miller, Jean-Paul Sartre and Tennessee Williams, some of them performed in Germany for the first time.

[4] After health problems and budget disputes with the city government, Buckwitz announced his resignation in January 1967, serving until his contract ended in August 1968.

[1] His appointment there led to a fierce controversy with the journalist Hans Habe, who accused him of having once been a henchman of Adolf Hitler, in an article for the newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

Habe based his accusation on quotations from the book Heimkehr: Vertrieben aus deutschem Land in Afrika, published in 1940 by the Reichskolonialbund under Buckwitz's name.

[3] In December 1977 Buckwitz appeared as an actor in the role of Luis Concha Córdoba in the German television film Der Tod des Camilo Torres oder: Die Wirklichkeit hält viel aus, directed by Eberhard Itzenplitz [de].