Background
Carl Sternheim was born William Adolph Carl Francke, on April 1, 1878, in Leipzig, Germany. He was the son of Jacob Sternheim, a banker, and Rosa Marie Flora (Francke) Sternheim.
1930
German actress Pamela Wedekind (daughter of Frank Wedekind) and the German writer Carl Sternheim after the ceremony in the registry office Brandenburgerstraße / Berlin.
1930
German actress Pamela Wedekind (daughter of Frank Wedekind) and the German writer Carl Sternheim after the ceremony in the registry office Brandenburgerstraße / Berlin.
Carl Sternheim
Carl Sternheim
Carl Sternheim
Carl Sternheim
Carl Sternheim was born William Adolph Carl Francke, on April 1, 1878, in Leipzig, Germany. He was the son of Jacob Sternheim, a banker, and Rosa Marie Flora (Francke) Sternheim.
From 1897 to 1902, Sternheim attended Universities of Munich, Leipzig, Göttingen, and Berlin.
Sternheim decided to become a writer at an early age, but his writing was informed by a deep longing for preeminence. In his early career, however, he was supported almost entirely by his family, who published his plays at their own expense.
The decade between 1897 and 1907 was difficult for Sternheim: he wrote, but seemed to have felt strangled creatively. His second wife, Thea brought to the marriage a great deal of money. Through her inheritances, she enabled Sternheim to focus entirely on his writing while living in high style. Thea also introduced Sternheim to various influential figures, including the writer Franz Blei. Together, Stemheim and Blei founded a journal titled Hyperion, which Sternheim edited until 1912. Moreover, Thea and Blei encouraged Sternheim to read Moliere, who became the model for Sternheim’s satire.
The most important of the comedies Sternheim wrote between 1907 and 1924, were three of the plays collected as Aus dem bürgerlichen Heldenleben (From the Heroic Life of the Bourgeois).
During the period of his marriage to Thea, Sternheim produced numerous plays in this pattern, as well as a significant output of novels and stories. Following their divorce - which was reportedly precipitated by Sternheim’s record of infidelity - the playwright became increasingly reclusive, producing little and delighting in nothing. He died of pneumonia in 1942.
Sternheim's father was a wealthy Jewish banker, while his mother had been raised as a Lutheran, and the disparity of their religious backgrounds seems to have affected Sternheim. Throughout his life, he struggled with his confused religious identity, first converting to Protestantism in 1897, then marrying his first wife as a Catholic in 1900.
Quotes from others about the person
"Sternheim craved personal recognition and influence that would enable him to move in the circles of important men. Finally, he yearned for erotic power and a career of sexual conquest on the order of Don Juan’s. These fantasies, more in their sinister than in their pleasurable implications, form the groundwork for many of his plays."
In 1900, Sternheim married Eugenie Hauth, but they divorced in 1906. In 1907, he married Thea Bauer, but their marriage also ended a divorce in 1927, and Carl married Pamela Wedekind in 1930. By that time Sternheim was suffering from syphilis. For a long time Pamela didn't know about his disease. In 1934, the couple separated. He left for Berlin where his illness grew worse. From 1934 onward he lived with his housekeeper Henriette Carbonara (1897-1959) in Brussels.
Sternheim had one child from his first marriage, Carlhans, and two children from the second, Klaus and Dorothea.