Adolf Trotz (September 6, 1895 – after 1937) was a German film director. He was known for his films in the Mittelfilme (mid-budget) genre.[1]
Trotz was born in Janow in what is now Poland in Silesia.[2] He originally studied pharmacy and philosophy, but began a career in film after the first World War.
Trotz's 1932 film Rasputin, Demon with Women was certified as "artistically valuable"; however, in 1933, Joseph Goebbels banned the film throughout Germany and ordered all prints and advertising materials to be destroyed. Trotz smuggled both the original pictorial and soundtrack negatives to a farmhouse in Austria.[3] At one point in 1933, he was part of the wave of German émigrés who fled to Paris.[4] In 1936, Goebbels banned his 1933 film Ways to a Good Marriage, which depicted the path to happiness as advice based on the sexology research done by Magnus Hirschfeld, and Trotz fled to Spain in 1936.[5] [6] He continued producing films there until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.[7]
After Spain, Trotz moved to Italy in November 1936. He died in Italy shortly before the outbreak of World War II.
In 1926, Trotz married screenwriter and editor Ruth Schweriner.[8] They remained married until his death.