Shorn by Nazi bigotry of his position as the outstanding comedian of the German stage, Max Pallenberg met tragic death in a plane crash here today.
Driven from the Reich theatre along with his wife, Fritzi Massaury, star of many Berlin revues and operettas, because they were Jews, he recently had been in exile.
Pallenberg received world acclaim as one of the greatest German character actors and comedians of modern times.
Born in Vienna on December 18, 1877, of Russian immigrant ancestry, he studied in the Technical School in that city and for a short time was engaged in merchandising.
When he was twenty years old the youth decided to become an actor and joined an itinerant group which gave him his earliest Thespian experience. After seven years as a member of wandering minstrel groups he returned to Vienna, where he was taken into the Vienna Volksteater company.
In 1914 he was rewarded for the place he had made for himself in the world of theater by an invitation to join the renowned Max Reinhardt group in Berlin.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
