Happy Birthday, Mr. Frohman

Harry Frommermann, October 12th, 1906 - October 29th, 1975

Attempt at a short biography

(Blogger's Note: In attempt to keep this short, I have condensed events considerably. For anyone interested in reading more, I recommend the sources listed at the end of the article - unfortunately, all in German! But I'm in the process of trying to provide more Comedian Harmonists content in English.)

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Harry Frommermann was born in Berlin on 12 October 1906. His father was a cantor and former opera singer who had immigrated from Galicia. Together with his wife he ran a cantorial school and a kosher restaurant, among other things. Harry grew up surrounded by music, but his real desire was to become an actor, which led to fierce conflicts with his father, who unceremoniously put him in an apprenticeship in a clothing shop. When his father died, Harry, who was 18 years old at the time, seized the opportunity and began studying at the Staatliche Schauspielschule Berlin/Acting School. Unfortunately, he was expelled after only six months for an alleged lack of discipline. He made a scarce living with small roles at the Berliner Volksbühne. Among the actors he met during this time were Alexander Granach and Asta Nielsen. Alexander Granach occasionally enjoyed the good cooking of Harry's mother (Granach, like the Frommermanns, also came from Galicia) and gave her a gramophone as a thank you gift - and on this gramophone Harry listened to the records of the American group "The Revelers", whose music he had got to know through Asta Nielsen's daughter. When his mother died in 1927 and he came of age at 21, he moved into a small attic flat with a friend, sold his parents' estate and began to write sophisticated polyphonic arrangements in the Revelers' style for a group that did not yet exist.

In December 1927 he scraped together his last money and placed the famous advertisement in the Berliner Lokalanzeiger, in which he searched for singers. His first audition in his attic flat in Stubenrauchstrasse 47 was attended by a certain Robert Biberti, a singer in the choir of the Grosses Schauspielhaus, with no formal musical education but with a warm, full bass voice probably inherited from his father (a former opera singer at the Berlin Royal Opera House), who shared Harry's enthusiasm for the Revelers. Biberti loved Harry's idea and introduced three other singers, most of whom he knew from the Schauspielhaus choir - Bulgarian tenor Ari Leschnikoff, Polish-born baritone Roman Cycowski, and second tenor Walter Nussbaum. Finally, the very young but incredibly talented pianist Erwin Bootz was added, whose friend from the music academy, Erich Collin, later replaced Walter Nussbaum as second tenor, and the future musical dream team of the Weimar Republic was complete.

Harry's complex arrangements required many hours of intense rehearsals, during which the young group often lost hope, because even after weeks and months they were still miles away from the perfection that could be heard on the Revelers' records. After these initial difficulties, the group finally received a contract at the Grosse Schauspielhaus, where they performed during the breaks in a revue, and became a raving overnight success. In the following years their records conquered not only the German market but also many European countries. In France they were particularly popular, and they recorded many of their songs in French. They are often called "the first boyband in the world", which I think doesn't do them justice, because contrary to common perceptions of a "boyband", they were actually capable and trained musicians. (Even though, according to Robert Biberti, they had also mastered the art of "butt wiggling"). Four of them had studied music or singing for several years, the other two came from an extremely musical background. Even Harry, who had no formal musical education, still had comprehensive musical training. (Since his father would have liked him to be a cantor as well, he received lessons in harmony, music theory and piano playing. Moreover, he had taken him to rehearsals of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra as a young boy, when his friend Arthur Nikisch was conducting there). But they were the first pop stars of the 20th century. Harry wrote most of the arrangements and also acted as third tenor, or tenorbuffo, which had not originally been planned that way.

Robert Biberti, Erich Collin, Roman Cycowski, Erwin Bootz, Ari Leschnikoff, Harry Frommermann

Three of the Comedian Harmonists were Jewish - Harry Frommermann, Roman Cycowski, who had fled pogromes and poverty in Poland to study music and learn about German "culture" (which he ended up learning quite a bit about later on), and Erich Abraham Collin, the son of a respected and progressive Berlin pediatrician (who, incidentally, ran a private recreation home for children from poor Berlin districts for a while). Their difficulties began in 1933, although their audience was still loyal to them. Initially, a ban on performances in Germany was imposed, so that after their last concert in Germany in March 1934, the group only toured abroad - including the USA, where they gave a highly acclaimed concert on an aircraft carrier on the Hudson River in New York, in the presence of the entire US fleet.

The bubble burst in 1935. The Jewish members of the group were not admitted to the Reich Chamber of Music, and were thus banned from their profession; their Aryan colleagues were forbidden to make music with them. Their last legally produced recording was, appropriately enough, "Morgen muss ich fort von hier" ("Tomorrow I must leave here"). Presumably in the night of 28th February/1st March 1935, they sneaked "like thieves" (Robert Biberti) into their recording studio in the Berlin Philharmonie to illegally record their last two songs - the "Barcarole" from The Tales of Hoffmann, and Hungarian Dance No. 5, for which Erich Collin had written the lyrics (of course, when the song was later used by the Aryan colleagues remaining in Berlin, his name was not mentioned).

Harry Frommermann, along with his wife Erna, whom he had married in 1931, and the other Jewish members and their wives first went to Vienna where they built a new group. They were joined by two Austrians (Rudolf Mayreder and Hans Rexeis) and another Berlin emigrant (Ernst Engel, later replaced by Fritz Kramer), and for a few years enjoyed success in many parts of the world, now as the Comedy Harmonists. The three Aryan members of the original group did the same in Berlin and added three "racially impeccable" singers to their group, but of course they were limited to the German market and "Aryan", Nazi-approved music and composers.

The Comedy Harmonists/Vienna Group: Erich Collin, Fritz Kramer (piano), Rudolf Mayreder, Hans Rexeis, Roman Cycowski, Harry Frommermann

After the annexation of Austria by the German Reich in 1938, the members of the Comedy Harmonists had to flee their new homeland and were now, even more than before, almost constantly on the road, including long tours in Australia, South Africa and South America. They were particularly successful in Australia. Tragically, they were once again steamrolled by events. After the outbreak of the war they were unable to return to Australia after a tour of the United States and Canada in 1940. They had planned to settle permanently in Australia since they were very popular there and the stateless among them had been offered Australian citizenship - but now the six Comedy Harmonists were stranded in the USA.

Unfortunately they didn't have much success there. Like many emigrants they had the problem that what they were doing was not working on and for the American market. On top of this came personal conflicts that broke out in this nerve-racking situation - Erich Collin had had to leave a sister in Australia, and his wife and child in France, while Roman Cycowski was worried about his family in Poland. When Roman received the news of his father's murder, he decided to leave the group to fulfil the wish of his father, who had always wanted him to become a cantor. Rudolf Mayreder, one of the new members recruited in 1935, had already left the group after an argument with Collin. Thus the fairy tale ended for good.

Harry Frommermann went to New York with his wife Marie Erna (which she later shortened and americanized to to "Marion") , where he survived on odd jobs and some support from Jewish charities. He tried to create a new ensemble, but to no avail. In the following years he joined the American army and became an American citizen - from there on he called himself "Harry Frohman". He was assigned to troop support in military hospitals.

After the war he returned to Germany still in the service of the US Army, where he worked as a translator in the preparation of the Nuremberg Trials. In 1946 he was transferred to RIAS (Radio in the American Sector of Berlin) as a control officer, where he remained until 1947. His departure there may have been the result of a burgeoning distrust of European emigrants combined with anti-Semitic currents and the incipient paranoia of the McCarthy era.

Harry decided to make a new life for himself in Switzerland - his wife was still in New York. On the journey to Zurich he met Erika von Spaeth, who was to play a major role in his life later on.

He was living in a boarding house in Zurich when he received a telegram from his former colleague Erich Collin, who was on tour with his newly founded ensemble of Amerian singers in Scandinavia, where, unfortunately, the tenor buffo of the group had died unexpectedly. Collin asked Harry to step in and Harry immediately went to Denmark to rehearse with this "American group" and continue the rest of the tour through several European countries with them. In February 1949 the group recorded a few songs in Basel, but due to alleged lack of discipline on part of the American members (the earlier groups were known for their incredible hard work, diligence in rehearsing, and perfectionism) the project finally failed.

Now Harry moved to Rome where he worked for RAI and was offered the opportunity to form a group in the style of the Comedian Harmonists. In fact, "Harry Frohman and his Harmonists" (one pianist and six singers) did more than 60 radio appearances for RAI. However, a planned tour failed because the two young women involved in the project were forbidden by their parents to travel with men.

After renewed unsuccessful attempts to make a living in Zurich again, Harry finally returned to New York in 1951. A year later he and his wife got divorced. The next few years were difficult: he worked as a taxi driver, in factories, or as an accountant, interrupted by periods of unemployment or illness. A further attempt to create a new group with Erich Collin, who lived on the West Coast, failed in the very early planning phase. Harry experimented with one-man voice recordings, which he edited and copied together to create the impression of a polyphonic voice orchestra.

In the mid-50s he married German emigrant Olga Bertha Wolff, but they separated in 1959. He increasingly suffered from health problems. He resumed written contact with Erika von Spaeth, who encouraged him to apply for compensation from the German government.

In 1962 Harry Frohman moved to Bremen to live with Erika von Spaeth, where he spent the last 14 years of his life, always with a packed suitcase under his bed. The last years of his life were overshadowed by illness, and he often found himself in legal arguments with Robert Biberti, mainly because Biberti liked to call himself the "founder" of the Comedian Harmonists. Harry's experimental recordings were not successful. He had the opportunity to talk about the origins of the Comedian Harmonists in several radio programmes.

Harry Frohman died on 29 October 1975, shortly before a planned meeting with Robert Biberti, and before his scheduled interviews for a TV documentary could be filmed. Instead of him, his ex-wife and Erika von Spaeth talked about him and his life.

He did not live to see the renaissance of the Comedian Harmonists after the broadcasting of the above-mentioned three-hour documentary in 1976 and 77, and again after the success of the Vilsmaier film in 1997 (which considerably mispresents some events).

In 1979 the Comedian Harmonists received the German Record Prize after the release of a stunning compilation of their works on five vinyl double albums in the mid- to-late 1970s, in 1998 the Echo award for their life's work.