Trivia

His notable films include the experimental Strich-Punkt-Ballett, which he began in 1943 and completed in 1949 before its 1952 premiere, as well as Der Ewige Kreis and the industrial short Der Wundertisch.

Herbert Seggelke began his professional career in the German film industry in 1937 when he joined the cultural film department of Tobis Film. During the same period, he also wrote screenplays for short films at Ufa.

He produced numerous films that blend innovative techniques with factual documentation.

Seggelke developed a strong enthusiasm for the medium of film during his youth, much to the displeasure of his parents. He pursued academic studies in literature, art, and philosophy in Munich and Paris. These were followed by additional study visits to Vienna, Prague, London, and other cities.

Herbert Seggelke began his experimental film Strich-Punkt-Ballett in 1943 while working in the Nazi-controlled film industry, employing a camera-less direct animation technique by drawing abstract patterns with colored grease pencils directly onto the film strip. The work was set to jazz music, a genre officially condemned as "degenerate" and prohibited under Nazi cultural policy, rendering the film's soundtrack a potentially subversive element in the context of wartime restrictions on art and entertainment.

Seggelke's collaborations, such as those involving dancer Harald Kreutzberg in dance-related films, highlight his interest in integrating movement, music, and visual experimentation into his projects.

Seggelke's legacy endures through preserved prints and screenings of his films at institutions focused on historical and avant-garde cinema, underscoring his role in documenting an era of profound change.

Seggelke's most distinctive postwar avant-garde achievement is Eine Melodie - vier Maler (1954/1955), a cameraless direct animation project that integrated contributions from four renowned artists: Jean Cocteau, Gino Severini, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, and Hans Erni. Each painter created an experimental animated segment featured within the film, using techniques such as painting, scratching, and other hands-on manipulations of the film emulsion. The work connects these visual interpretations to a melody by Johann Sebastian Bach, fusing music and abstract imagery in a collaborative exploration of rhythm and form.

Following the end of World War II, Herbert Seggelke took on roles in broadcasting and journalism in Munich while continuing his filmmaking activities. He served as an editor, speaker, and author at Radio Munich, the American-occupied broadcaster that later became the Bayerischer Rundfunk.

Due to the constraints of World War II, Seggelke's opportunities for directing were severely limited during this period. His only other completed directorial work of the war years was the short documentary Die Kunst der Maske in 1944. This resulted in just two finished directorial projects during the Nazi era.

Although working within the state-controlled film sector under Nazi rule, Seggelke rejected the regime and maintained contacts with anti-Nazi resistance groups, leading to multiple interrogations by the Gestapo.

Before entering the industry, Seggelke had developed a strong interest in film during his youth, which prompted his studies in literature, art, and philosophy across cities including Munich, Paris, Vienna, Prague, and London.

Herbert Seggelke's post-war work was deeply shaped by his pursuit of the "Hochzeit der Künste" (wedding of the arts), a vision of merging diverse artistic disciplines into a symbiotic whole through the medium of film. This interdisciplinary approach led him to collaborate with prominent figures from pantomime, dance, sculpture, and painting, creating experimental shorts that fused performance, visual arts, and cinematic techniques.

In his post-war career, Herbert Seggelke concentrated on documentary and cultural filmmaking, producing a series of short works that profiled artists, examined cultural symbols, and illuminated creative processes across various disciplines. These films often embodied his pursuit of a synthesis of the arts, blending visual, musical, and thematic elements to present subjects in an integrated cinematic form.

In his later years, Herbert Seggelke produced a series of short documentary films that sustained his interest in cultural portraits, artistic interconnections, and societal reflections. These works emphasized the symbiosis of diverse art forms-a lifelong pursuit he termed the "Hochzeit der Künste"-while addressing themes such as urban development and literary-cultural intersections.

Seggelke's final film, Künstler und Jugendbuch (1984), was a short documentary examining artists in relation to youth literature, marking the end of his filmmaking activity. These later productions extended his focus on cultural documentation and societal themes well into the 1980s, consistent with his established approach to blending artistic and documentary elements. His posthumous influence derives from the distinctive symbiosis of artistic experimentation and documentary rigor in his body of work, alongside his involvement with film institutions such as the Düsseldorf Filmforum.

Herbert Seggelke made his directorial debut in 1941 with the short documentary Menschen ohne Schwerkraft, a Kulturfilm focused on artistic circus performances. The production was handled by Lex-Film under Albert Graf von Pestalozza in Berlin.

Herbert Seggelke's short films earned notable recognition at major international festivals and through Germany's national film prizes during the post-war period. His 1957 documentary Tausend kleine Zeichen received the Silver Berlin Bear in the Special Prize category for Short Documentary/Cultural Film at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film also won the German Film Award in Silver for Best Cultural Short (Bester Kulturkurzfilm) that same year.

Herbert Seggelke was a German filmmaker known for his extensive work as a director, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, and producer in documentary and experimental cinema from the early 1940s to the 1970s.

Due to health reasons, he was exempted from military service throughout the war.