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Schwarz himself was also persecuted under the Nuremberg Laws due to his father's Jewish origin. In 1939, he was excluded from the Reichstheaterkammer, which meant that he was not able to work as an actor anymore.[8] He also at some point became stateless.[9] He was later deported to the forced labour camp in Lenne[10] and to the Holzen concentration camp, which he only survived due to one of the commanders there being a former childhood friend.[2] Two of his sisters and one brother also survived the Holocaust.[11]
Career and later life
In 1948, he started working as a translator for the BBC in London, where he lived for many years. He later also lived in Paris and eventually moved back to Germany.
In 1956, he and Freddy Quinn became the two German participants at the first Eurovision Song Contest, which took place in Lugano, Switzerland. A national final was held prior to the contest.[12][13][14] Schwarz participated with a song titled "Im Wartesaal zum großen Glück", which he wrote and composed himself. In the song, whose lyrics contain a lot of surreal imagery, Schwarz criticizes the German Vergangenheitsbewältigung and the attempt of many Germans, especially in the immediate post-war era, to deny the past and sweep their own involvement in the Holocaust under the rug. His placing is not known, but it is rumoured that he finished second.[15]
He later went on to become a successful author and narrator of audiobooks and radio dramas.[16] In 1967, Schwarz produced a radio segment called Wiedergutmachung, which was influenced by his own experiences of trying to receive reparations for the persecution he experienced, criticizing the fact that the German bureaucracy was trying to get him to settle for a small payment.[17]
He also had some small acting roles in various movies and TV series during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.[18]
In 1985, he appeared, along with many other former German representatives, as the interval act of the German national final, which was a medley of all German entries until that year.
In 1986, together with Dieter Süverkrüp, he recorded an album containing poems and songs written by Erich Mühsam.
Schwarz, who was never married, died in 1992 in Heidelberg.[11]
Works
Discography
Meisterliche Chansons von und mit Walter Andreas Schwarz (1956)
Im Wartesaal zum großen Glück / Für 300 Francs (1956)
Die Frucht der Ungesetzlichkeit. Der Deutschen Mai zu Hambach 1832-1982 (1982)
