Friedrich Haase was a prominent German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 and theatre director. He was born in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, the son of a valet

Valet

Valet and varlet are terms for male servants who serve as personal attendants to their employer.- Word origins :In the Middle Ages, the valet de chambre to a ruler was a prestigious appointment for young men...

 to King Frederick William IV

Frederick William IV of Prussia

|align=right|Upon his accession, he toned down the reactionary policies enacted by his father, easing press censorship and promising to enact a constitution at some point, but he refused to enact a popular legislative assembly, preferring to work with the aristocracy through "united committees" of...

, who was his godfather

Godparent

A godparent, in many denominations of Christianity, is someone who sponsors a child's baptism. A male godparent is a godfather, and a female godparent is a godmother...

.

Career

Haase trained under Ludwig Tieck

Ludwig Tieck

Johann Ludwig Tieck was a German poet, translator, editor, novelist, writer of Novellen, and critic, who was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.-Early life:...

 and made his first appearance in 1846 in Weimar

Weimar

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

. He later performed in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

 (1849–1851), under Eduard Devrient

Eduard Devrient

Eduard Devrient was a German baritone, librettist, playwright, actor, theatre director and theatre reformer and historian.Devrient came from a theatrical family...

 in Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe

The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...

 (1852–1855), and Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 (1860–1866). He also toured the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

He was manager of the court theatre in Coburg

Coburg

Coburg is a town located on the Itz River in Bavaria, Germany. Its 2005 population was 42,015. Long one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined with Bavaria by popular vote in 1920...

, and was manager of the Stadttheater in Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

 (today Oper Leipzig

Oper Leipzig

Oper Leipzig is an opera house and opera company in Leipzig, Germany.The Leipzig Opera traces its establishment to the year 1693, making it the third oldest opera venue in Europe after La Fenice and the Hamburg State Opera...

, from 1870 to 1876. After returning to Berlin, Haase founded the Deutsches Theater

Deutsches Theater

The Deutsches Theater in Berlin is a well-known German theatre. It was built in 1850 as Friedrich-Wilhelm-Städtisches Theater, after Frederick William IV of Prussia. Located on Schumann Street , the Deutsches Theater consists of two adjoining stages that share a common, classical facade...

. He was awarded the prestigious Iffland-Ring

Iffland-Ring

The Iffland-Ring is a diamond-studded ring with the picture of August Wilhelm Iffland ....

 in 1878 by Theodor Döring

Theodor Döring

Theodor Döring was a German actor.Döring was born in Warsaw and settled with his family in 1807 in Prenzlau. He attended high school in Berlin. He found work as an actor, later working in Hamburg in 1834. He received a lifetime contract at the Berlin Hoftheater...

 and much the legend of the ring's origin goes back to Haase.

Haase retired from the stage in 1898. The street Haase Straße in Berlin-Friedrichshain

Friedrichshain

Friedrichshain is a part of Berlin's borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, and like Kreuzberg across the river it has its own distinct character, with the result that the new double name is hardly ever used outside government administration. From its creation in 1920 until Berlin's 2001...

is named after him.

Literature

• Paul von Ebart: Friedrich Haase als Leiter des Koburg-Gothaischen Hoftheaters. Including excerpts from Haase's letters. In: Deutsche Revue 1912, March