Fritz Grünbaum

He died at the Dachau concentration camp on 14 January 1941 after having acted for a last time on New Year's Eve for his fellow-sufferers.

He was a writer and actor, known for Die Csikosbaroneß (1930), Liebeskommando (1931) and Jeder fragt nach Erika (1931). He was married to Lilly Herzl, Mizzi Dressl and Karolina Nagelmüller.

When he met his colleague Karl Farkas at the Vienna cabaret "Simplicissimus" in 1921, it arose a fruitful cooperation. They were very successful with their "Doppelconference".

Until the beginning of World War I (in which he enlisted himself as a voluntary in 1915) again and again he traveled to Berlin - the first time in 1907 in order to perform at "Chat Noir" - to act as master of ceremonies at Rudolf Nelson's theaters.

Cabaret artist with Vienna's "Simplizissimus" and author of operettas and revues. A former lawyer, he took to performing from 1906. His lampooning of the Nazis, combined with the fact that he was a Jew, led to his internment in Dachau concentration camp. Already suffering from consumption, he died there in 1941.

After a study as a lawyer from 1899 to 1903 he turned to the cabaret where he appeared at the Vienna "Die Hölle" from 1906. In the following years he was very successful as a cabaret artist in Vienna as well as Berlin.

During his lifetime, Fritz Grünbaum was a well-known art collector, especially of Austrian modernist art, whose artworks were featured in famous catalogs and exhibitions. His collection extended to over 400 pieces, 80 of them works by Egon Schiele (1890-1918). This collection disappeared during the Nazi period and 25% of the collection appeared on the art market in the early 1950s through Swiss Art dealer Eberhard Kornfeld. The fate of the rest is unknown.

Fritz Grünbaum was born on April 7, 1880 in Brünn, Moravia, Austria-Hungary as Franz Friedrich Grünbaum.