Iffland-Ring

The Iffland-Ring is a diamond-studded ring with a picture of August Wilhelm Iffland, a prominent German actor, dramatist and theatre director of the late 18th and early 19th century, who played in works of contemporary writers Goethe and Schiller, starting in 1782.

One exception to this rule came in 1954, when Werner Krauß was not determined by the previous holder Albert Bassermann (1867–1952) but by a committee of German-speaking actors.

[5] Devrient, a close friend of E. T. A. Hoffmann, whose death in 1822 he never got over, was one of the most gifted actors Germany ever produced, but also a drunkard.

Haase was born in Berlin, as the son of the personal servant of the then crown prince of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV.

The director of the Burgtheater, Hermann Röbbeling [de], saved the ring by taking it off the coffin, declaring that it belonged to a living actor, not a dead one.

In 1946, when Bassermann visited Vienna, Egon Hilbert, director of the Austrian theatre administration, had two meetings with the actor.

In October 1954, after an extraordinary meeting of the actors' guild, the ring was awarded to Werner Krauss and this time he accepted.

[13] Krauss received the ring on 28 November 1954 and handed a sealed envelope to the Austrian theatre administration on 12 December, stating his choice of succession.

Like Ludwig Devrient, Krauss collapsed while performing King Lear and died on 20 October 1959, passing the ring to Josef Meinrad, his original choice in 1954.

To the disappointment of many actors at the Burgtheater, the ring was awarded to Switzerland; Meinrad had chosen Bruno Ganz.

[16] The current holder of the ring is German actor Jens Harzer, having been named by Bruno Ganz as his successor.