ORF-E
German with English Subtitle
1 x 45 min
Worldwide

Star tenor Richard Tauber, who was celebrated around the world, was hounded off the stage by the Nazis in Berlin in 1933 and fled to his homeland of Austria. There, Tauber, who was half Jewish and the son of actor Anton Richard Tauber and actress Elisabeth Seifferth, was able to continue his international career. By a stroke of luck, when the German army invaded Austria in March 1938, Richard Tauber had just begun his concert tour in Italy. He thus escaped persecution by chance – but he lost all of his fortune and his homeland, which he was never to see again. Using previously unseen private footage of Tauber’s tour, this documentary depicts the world of the rich and beautiful in 1938, at a time when the Nazis were extending their dominion over Europe. Historical documentation of the invasion, the persecution of the Jews, and the November pogrom is contrasted with Tauber’s private travel footage. Historians and Tauber specialists discuss society and the events in their temporal context, completing the picture that director Thomas Hackl paints in this remarkable review of the dramatic developments of 1938.