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Zuckmayer attended a humanistic high school in Mainz and completed his secondary school diploma there. Immediately afterwards he volunteered for the First World War. From 1918 to 1920 he studied law, zoology, art history and economics in Frankfurt/M and Heidelberg. After dropping out of his studies, he worked as a dramaturge and assistant director in Berlin, Kiel and Munich. In 1920 his first drama "Way of the Cross" was performed in Berlin - but without success. It was removed from the program after three days. Zuckmayer lost his job and became a freelance writer. In the years 1924 and 1925 he had a short engagement with Berthold Brecht at the "Deutsches Theater" in Berlin. In 1925 his comedy "The Happy Vineyard" was performed, which is set in the Rhine-Hesse milieu and is written with both humor and coarseness. The work was Carl Zuckmayer's breakthrough. It became the most successful German theater play of the 1920s and was awarded the Heinrich Kleist Prize.
In 1928 the Rhenish robber drama "Schinderhannes" and the comedy "Katharina Knie" were released. In the same year, Zuckmayer wrote the script for the global hit "The Blue Angel", based on Heinrich Mann's play "Professor Unrat". Marlene Dietrich, among others, stars in the film. During this time, Zuckmayer was honored with the renowned Georg Büchner Prize. The play "Der Hauptmann von Köpenick" premiered in 1938 with great success. In it, Zuckmayer satirically looks at faith in the authorities and unconditional military obedience. As early as 1926 he acquired the "Wiesmühl" near Henndorf near Salzburg. In 1933 he was banned from publishing and performing because of critical statements against the Nazi regime. After the annexation of Austria in 1938, his house was confiscated by the Gestapo. Carl Zuckmayer emigrated to the USA via Switzerland and Cuba. There he initially worked as a screenwriter and lecturer. From 1941 he rented a farm in Vermont. After the war ended in 1946, he returned to Germany on behalf of the American government.
In the same year, his drama "Des Teufels General" premiered in Zurich, an examination of the Nazi regime. Based on the biography of the famous aviator Ernst Udet, a fatal connection between a passion for flying and the National Socialists is revealed. On the other hand, the piece came under criticism because of the use of language to portray the aviator hero. From 1946 to 1947, Zuckmayer traveled through Germany on behalf of the American government to take stock of cultural life and its possibilities for development and development. In the years from 1950 to 1959 came the works "The Song in the Fiery Furnace" (1950), "Lord of Life and Death" (1952), "The Cold Light" (1955), "The Drunken Hercules" (1958) and " "The Carnival Confession" (1959) onto the market. Carl Zuckmayer received the Federal Cross of Merit in 1955. Further honors followed with the important Kleist Prize, the Heinrich Heine Prize, which he was the first to receive, the Goethe Prize (1952), an honorary doctorate from the University of Bonn and the Great Austrian State Prize in 1960. In 1958 the writer moved to Saas-Fée in Switzerland. His autobiography "As if it were a piece of mine" was published in 1966. This marked the prose author's greatest success.
The German version was preceded by an English text entitled "Second Wind" (1940). Zuckmayer's folk plays are based on Ernst Elias Nibergall's local dialect comedy "Datterich". He knew how to make connections between Rhenish Hessian liveliness, scheming love affairs, whimsy and satire on topics such as reactionary bureaucrats or Jewish wine merchants. Sentimental tones appeared in his later works. In the post-war period, his period pieces dealt with themes such as resistance, betrayal or nuclear power, as shown in the works "The Song in the Fiery Furnace" (premiered in 1950) or "The Cold Light" (premiered in 1955). His other plays include "Way of the Cross" (1921), "A Farmer from the Taunus and Other Stories" (1927), "The Rogue of Bergen" (1934), "Bellmann" (1938), "Lord about Life and Death" (1938), "The Soul Brew" (1945), "Poems" (1918-1948), "The Carnival Confession" (1959), "The Life of Horace A. Tabor. A piece from the days of the last kings" ( 1964), or "The Pied Piper. A Fable" (1975).
Carl Zuckmayer died on January 18, 1977 in Visp (Valais).
