Rudolf Schanzer

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Rudolf Moritz Schanzer (12 January 1875 – 1944, some sources say 1945) was an Austrian playwright and journalist who wrote many operetta librettos for composers like Leo Fall, Jean Gilbert, Emmerich Kálmán, and Ralph Benatzky. Born into a Jewish family in Vienna, his father was a shipping agent. He studied law at the University of Vienna (1894–1895) and then went to Paris to work as a private secretary and journalist. He later settled in Berlin as a journalist, critic, and editor for Berliner Zeitung am Mittag, while also writing theatre pieces. He began collaborating on operetta librettos with Rudolf Bernauer and Ernst Welisch and became a full-time librettist. He wrote or co-wrote more than 30 librettos, many of which were made into films. With the rise of the Nazis, he left Berlin in 1935 and lived at his villa in Bad Ischl. He briefly returned to Vienna in 1936, but after the 1938 Anschluss he fled to Abbazia (then under Italian control). He tried to emigrate to the United States or Britain but failed. In 1944 he was arrested by the Gestapo; while awaiting deportation, he committed suicide by taking poison he carried with him. He died in Italy (some sources list 1945).