Hans Fischerkoesen, also known as Hans Fischerkösen or Hans Fischer (18 May 1896 – 23 April 1973) was a German commercial animator. Fischerkoesen is considered an animation pioneer, due to the inventions and innovations he applied to animation technology, especially the use of three-dimensional elements in his animations. Later he becomes Germany's most influential cartoonist, often nicknamed “Germany’s Walt Disney” alongside Rolf Kauka. He won both first and second prizes at a Dutch-sponsored international competition in 1937, for advertising films (the runners up included George Pal and Alexander Alexeieff ). By 1956 he had won major prizes at commercial film festivals in Rome, Milan (three times), Venice, Monte Carlo and Cannes. Most notable was the participation in the 1st Berlin International Film Festival, where Fischerkoesen's film Blick ins Paradies won the Bronze Medal (Advertising Film) award.
Filmography
1919: Das Loch im Westen (The Hole in the West) 1921: Bummel-Petrus (Strolling Peter) 1922: Seemansliebe (Sailors Love) 1923: Die Besteigung des Himalaja (Climbing of the Himalaya) 1924: Der Pfennig muß es bringen (The penny must bring it) 1925: Der Kluge Einfall (The Clever Idea) 1926: Die Geschichte vom Schokoladenkasper (The History of Chocolate Kasper) 1927: Auf der Skitour (On the Ski Tour) 1928: Zur gefälligen Beachtung (For Your Attention) 1929: Der möblierte Herr (The Furnished Mister) 1933: Schall und Rauch (Smoke and Mirrors) 1934: Vertrag mit der Hölle (The Contract with the Hell) 1935: Das blaue Wunder (The Blue Wonder) 1936: Gesang des Kragenknopfes (Song of the Collar Button) 1937: Zwei Minuten von Bedeutung (Two Minutes of Importance) 1938: Dicke Luft (Thick Air) 1940: Im Glückshimmel (In Happiness Heaven) 1942: Verwitterte Melodie (Weather-Beaten Melody) 1944: Der Schneemann (The Snowman) 1944: Das dumme Gänslein (The Silly Goose) 1944: La Prairie Enchantée (French title for The Enchanted Meadow, projected in color in 1944 at Paris) 1951: Blick ins Paradies (Looking into Paradise) 1955: Durch Nacht zum Licht (Through Night to Light) 1964: Die Kleine Null (The Little Zero)
Early life
Hans Fischer was born on 18 May 1896 in the small town of Bad Kösen, near Naumburg, at the River Saale in the German state of Saxony. Because the name “Fischer” was a very common name in the film industry, he later created the alias of Fischerkoesen, by combining his name – Fischer and his birthplace - Kösen, in order to distinguish himself from others. His father was a middle-class entrepreneur, dealing with building materials. He was a sensitive child, affected by asthma, which determined his parents to spoil both him and his sister Leni, by creating puppet shows and home entertainment, thus they developed a taste for fantasy and spectacle. Confined in bed most of his childhood by this bad case of asthma, he developed a great passion for drawing. Later, in 1916 he and his equally talented sister Leni, attended for three years the Academy of Graphic Arts, in Leipzig. Over the years, Leni was Fischerkoesen's closest collaborator on many animation film projects.
During the First World War, Fischerkoesen could not serve as a soldier because of his asthma, but he worked in army hospitals near to the front line where he witnessed the shocking horrors of trench warfare. Profoundly impressed by these terrifying experiences, at his return home when the war was ended, Fischerkoesen planned to make an animation film, Das Loch im Westen (The Hole in the West), which would expose the war profiteer as the real cause of the war. Thus, he spent months drawing about 1600 sequential images, designed his own animation stand and shot the animation movie himself, and successfully sold it to a local distributor for 3,000 marks which allowed him to pursue an animation career. Hole in the West, Fischerkoesen's first film, premiered in 1919 and made history as the first animated film ever produced in Germany.