Fritz Löhner-Beda
Fritz Löhner-Beda was an Austrian librettist, lyricist and writer. Murdered in Auschwitz III Monowitz concentration camp and nearly forgotten, many of his songs and tunes remained popular up to today.
Löhner-Beda was born Bedřich Löwy in Wildenschwert, Bohemia (present-day Ústí nad Orlicí, Czech Republic). In 1888, his family moved to Vienna, and in 1896 changed their surname to the less Jewish surname Löhner. He did his studies of law at the University of Vienna and after he had obtained his doctorate, he worked as a lawyer from 1908 onwards.
In 1910, Löhner-Beda decided upon a career as an author. He wrote numerous light satires, sketches, poems, and lyrics but also contributed to several newspapers. In 1913, he met Franz Lehár, for whom he wrote the libretto of the 1916 operetta Der Sterngucker (The Stargazer). Two years later, in 1918, Löhner-Beda was called up for military service in World War I, which he left as an officer and a convinced antimilitarist.
In the 1920s, Löhner-Beda became one of the most sought-after librettists and lyricists in Vienna. Together with Lehár as composer, Ludwig Herzer as co-author, and Richard Tauber as singer, Löhner-Beda produced the operettas Friederike (1928), Das Land des Lächelns (1929), and, with Paul Knepler as co-author, Giuditta (1934). Together with his friend Alfred Grünwald as co-author and Paul Abraham as composer, Löhner-Beda produced Viktoria und ihr Husar (1930), Die Blume von Hawaii (The Flower of Hawaii, 1931), and Ball im Savoy (Ball at the Savoy, 1932).
On April 1, 1938, almost immediately after the Anschluss (the Austrian annexation to Nazi Germany, in mid-March 1938), Fritz Löhner-Beda was arrested and deported to the Dachau concentration camp. On September 23, 1938, he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Even though Löhner-Beda's name appeared in the Nazi Encyclopedia of Jews in Music in 1940, his songs and the Lehár operettas were still performed (but with no mention of their librettist). On October 17, 1942, he was deported to the Monowitz concentration camp, near Auschwitz. There, the already diseased Löhner-Beda was denounced as working not hard enough, for which he was beaten to death. A Kapo accused of the murder in the 1968 Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial was acquitted of the charge due to lack of evidence.
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