Hanns Lippmann(1890-1929)

Born into a the family of a well-to-do businessman, Hanns Lippmann bought into the Deutsche Bioscop Film GmbH., Berlin, in April 1914, when he was just 23 years old. Initially, he controlled the fortunes of the company with Siegmund Jakob, owner of the Frankfurter Film Co., in Frankfurt am Main. In October 1917, he bought out Jakob, taking a controlling interest, and becoming "Generaldirector" of the firm. Under his watch, the company produced the fabulously successful Homunculus (1916) series. His scriptwriter on that six-part serial, Robert Reinert, would become Lippmann's most important director and producer, creating such monumental and aesthetically ambitious works as the Ahasver series (1917), in several parts, while supervising films by Josef Stein. Lippmann also produced two of Paul Wegener's Golem films, The Golem (1914) and The Golem and the Dancing Girl (1917), both now lost. In 1918, Lippmann was drafted into the German Imperial Army, forcing him to sell the Deutsche Bioscop. After his demobilization, Lippmann founded the Gloria Film GmbH. in December 1918. The new company was 50% financed by the Universum Film A.G. (UFA), 50% by Lippmann. As in the case of the Deutsche Bioscop, Lippmann promised to produce films a limited number of films of superior quality, working with directors like Ewald André Dupont, Paul Leni, Karl Grune, and the well-known theatre director/producer Leopold Jessner whose Hintertreppe (1921) became a signature film of German Film Expressionism. By the early 1920s, UFA had taken complete control of the Gloria, even though Lippmann remained as the head of the firm, producing films for directors, such as Manfred Noa and Hans Steinhoff. Lippmann remained with Gloria until his premature death in late 1929.