In the economic austerity and socio-political turbulence of post-war Germany he left home aged sixteen in order to pursue his passion to become a dancer.
By the end of the decade he had been talent spotted by Olga Brandt-Knack and made his debut at the Hamburg State Opera, in 1928 taking the lead role in "Der Gaukler und das Klingelspiel" ("The Juggler and the Bell Game"),[4] and coming to the attention of the youthful theatre impresario Gustaf Gründgens, the writer Klaus Mann and the dancer-choreographer Mary Wigman.
In the wake of Germany's military defeat and the subsequent economic collapse, politics in the country had become increasingly polarised: Hans Weidt became an active member of an artistic left-wing movement.
He developed a close co-operation with "Truppe 31" ("Troup 31"), a politically engaged group of performance artists around the actor-director Gustav von Wangenheim, and included Ludwig Renn, Hans Rodenberg [de], John Heartfield and Arthur Pieck.
He warned early, loudly and frequently about the growth of Fascism in Germany and across Europe, and created the choreography for "Potsdam" (1932),[4] in which the dancers perform with grotesque masks that symbolise Hitler and de facto accomplices such as Hugenberg, and von Papen.
In 1938 Weidt established "Ballet 38" in Paris, becoming by now one of France's top dancers and choreographers, [9] and heading up what he himself later identified, according to his son Andreas, as the country's "Undisputed Number 1" of the modern French dance scene.
[10] The French and British governments declared war on Germany in September 1939 in response to the implementation of a German-Soviet agreement to partition Poland.
Jean Weidt volunteered to join the British army, now taking an active role in the fighting against Nazi Germany in North Africa and, subsequently, in Italy.
[1][11] The Dupuys, respectively a dancer and a choreographer, and his youngest protegees who originally met one another in 1946 at a dance-class held by Jean Weidt, would later continue to present Wendt's choreography well into the twenty-first century.
[10] In Paris, Weidt built up his company and despite lack of money and frequently dire living conditions, undertook various tours across a shattered continent, including one to occupied Germany and another, in 1947, to Copenhagen.
The 1947 tour of Copenhagen, which involved the "International choreography concours" where Weidt one first prize with a revolutionary piece called "La Cellule/Die Zelle" ("The Cell").
Back home in Paris, however, critics were unimpressed by his triumph in Denmark, and Jean Weidt's choreography seemed to have fallen out of fashion since the end of the war.
In 1988, the year of his death, Jean Weidt was made an honorary citizen of Rangsdorf, a district of Teltow-Fläming a short distance to the south of Berlin where by this time he lived.