Biography: http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/de/fritz_loehnerbeda_18831942

Viennese opera librettist and satirist. His first volume of collected satires had been published in 1908, when he was twentyfive years old.

In the midst of march 1938 Fritz was captured by the nazis and transported to Dachau KZ. October 1938 was transfered to and remained in Buchenwald KZ for more than three years. While in the camp he organised as best he could, cultural activities and competitions.

On 17 October 1942 he was deported from Buchenwald to Auschwitz, and beaten to death on 4 December 1942 by the Nazis.

His librettos was and are still very popular and e.g. he is represented on the swedish national library's catalogoue with sixteen posts under the name Fritz Löhner Beda. He made librettos to "Singspiel" and many of the songs have been reprinted and reproduced many times. Among the most popular are the texts to Franz Lehárs (1870-1948) music. But also music composed by Paul Abraham (1892-1960).

LIBRIS.

Source

• The Holocaust - Martin Gilbert, page 62
• English Wikipedia

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Wikipedia:

"In the 1920s he became one of the most sought-after librettists and lyricists of Vienna. Together with Franz Lehár as composer, Ludwig Herzer as co-author and Richard Tauber as singer he produced the operettas Friederike (Frederica) (1928), Das Land des Lächelns (The Land of Smiles) (1929) and, with Paul Knepler as co-author, Giuditta (1934). Together with his friend Alfred Grünwald as co-author and Paul Abraham as composer, he produced Viktoria und ihr Husar (Victoria and Her Hussar) (1930), Die Blume von Hawaii (The Flower of Hawaii) (1931) and Ball im Savoy (Ball at the Savoy) (1932).

In mid-March 1938 Fritz Löhner-Beda was arrested and deported to the Dachau concentration camp on 1 April 1938. On 23 September 1938 he was displaced to the Buchenwald concentration camp. There he composed, together with his fellow prisoner Hermann Leopoldi, in the end of 1938 the famous anthem of the concentration camp, Das Buchenwaldlied ("The Buchenwald Song"):

O Buchenwald, ich kann dich nicht vergessen, weil du mein Schicksal bist. Wer dich verließ, der kann es erst ermessen, wie wundervoll die Freiheit ist! O Buchenwald, wir jammern nicht und klagen, und was auch unser Schicksal sei, wir wollen trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen, denn einmal kommt der Tag, dann sind wir frei! O Buchenwald, I can’t forget about you, because you are my fate. Who leaves you, only he can appreciate how wonderful freedom is! O Buchenwald, we don’t cry and complain and whatever may be our destiny, even so we shall say "yes" to life for once the day shall come when we shall be free!

His initial hope for an intercession by Franz Lehár was deceptive. On 17 October 1942 he was deported to the Monowitz concentration camp near Auschwitz. The circumstances of his death have been described by Raul Hilberg in The Destruction of the European Jews: After an inspection by directors of the syndicate IG Farben at which the already diseased Löhner-Beda was denounced as working not hard enough he was beaten to death on 4 December 1942."

Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes

• First Name Fritz
• Last Name Löhner
• Date of Birth 24.06.1883
• Place of Birth Wildenschwert
• Residence Wien 8, Lange Gasse 46
• Date of death 04.12.1942
• Place of death Auschwitz
• Deportation Dachau
• Date of Deportation 01.04.1938
• Transport Dachau/Buchenwald
• Second transport Buchenwald/Auschwitz
• Date of second transport 16.10.1942

From Raul Hilberg, "The Destruction of the European Jews:"

“One day, two Buna inmates, Dr. Raymond van den Straaten and Dr. Fritz Löhner-Beda, were going about their work when a party of visiting I.G. Farben dignitaries passed by. One of the directors pointed to Dr. Löhner-Beda and said to his SS companion, ‘This Jewish swine could work a little faster.’ Another director then chanced the remark, ‘If they can’t work, let them perish in the gas chamber.’ After the inspection was over, Dr. Löhner-Beda was pulled out of the work party and was beaten and kicked until, a dying man, he was left in the arms of his inmate friend, to end his life in I.G. Auschwitz.”[1]