"[1]) In 1916 he made posters for a small movie theater in the Black Forest, having been rejected by the military during World War I because of a physical disability.
In 1919 he was an administrator of the Internationale Film-Industrie company in Heidelberg, which specialized in detective movies and westerns.
After the completion of Berlin-Alexanderplatz (1931), based on the Alfred Döblin novel, his political orientation changed drastically.
But he was not by any means a renowned director, and continued to have financial difficulties until the end of his life.
After the end of World War II he returned to his native Altleiningen; he died the following year in Neustadt an der Weinstraße.