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Oscar Blumenthal

German playwright and drama critic (1852–1917)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ71567
Source-derived summary

Oscar Blumenthal (or Oskar Blumenthal; 13 March 1852 – 24 April 1917) was a German playwright and drama critic.

Biography

Blumenthal was educated at the gymnasium and the university of his native town in Berlin, and at Leipzig University, where he received a Doctor of Philosophy in 1872. After having been editor of the Deutsche Dichterhalle in Leipzig, in 1873 he founded the Neue Monatshefte für Dichtkunst und Kritik. In 1875, Blumenthal moved to Berlin, where he became theatrical critic of the Berliner Tageblatt, holding this position until 1887, when he opened the Lessing Theater, of which he was director till 1898. From 1894 to 1895 he was also director of the Berliner Theater. From 1898 he was engaged exclusively in literary work.

Blumenthal was well known as a critic and playwright. His critiques in the feuilletons of the newspapers sparkle with humour, at the same time doing justice to authors and actors. Because of their sharpness he was sometimes called "bloody Oscar". His plays were successful, and many of them were well received at the leading German theatres.

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This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Oscar Blumenthal” as german playwright and drama critic (1852–1917). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1852, 1917, 1872, 1873—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1852-03-13, 1852-01-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. The account is most persuasive where Oscar, Blumenthal and German can be independently traced.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as german playwright and drama critic (1852–1917). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q71567. VIAF identifies the subject as 74132797. The Library of Congress control number is n82208539. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1852, 1917, 1872 and 1873.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Oscar Blumenthal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.