On initiative of Max Lippmann, the Director of DIF from January 1959 until his death in January 1966 she became one of his close collaborators in the chief management of our institution in the end of the fifties. Later, still before 1966, she had dedicated her activities to film print archive problems with the focus on cataloguing and preservation.
Her strongest wish to organize an archive's cinema she could only realize in 1980 with the opening of "Caligari". Her engagement in programming various international film series brought her the honour of receiving the Wiesbaden Kulturpreis (Cultural Award of the Town of Wiesbaden) in 1989. Since 1968 she was member of the FIAF Commission on Cataloguing until she left the Institute in 1989 prematurely for health reasons. Because of her technical knowledges and her extensive readiness to help, she was highly esteemed not only among her colleagues in the commission.
Eberhard Spiess, retired Deputy Director of the Deutsches Institut für Filmkunde (Wiesbaden)
Tribute to Dorothea Gebauer
The members of the Cataloguing Commission join Eberhard Spiess in mourning the death of our beloved colleague, Dorothea Gebauer. A member of the Commission from its conception, Ms Gebauer always gave generously of herself to our work and to the work of the Federation.
Most of all, we who mourn Dorothea remember her spirit. With her twinkling eyes and warm, smiling laughter, she touched both our individual and our collective lives. She was a selfless teacher and advisor, whose basic philosophies imbued all that she was and did with a personal concern for the welfare of her fellow human beings and a professional approach as to projects which would be of greatest use and relevance in the moving image fields without regard to politics and politicking. To help cataloguers in all archives find resources for their work from every country, she undertook and saw through to completion a project to compile and publish a bibliography of national filmographies. This work resulted in the Commission's publication, Bibliography of National Filmographies (Brussels: FIAF, 1985). To help new cataloguers, archivists and administrators understand the important central role which cataloguing plays in the work of film archives, she instituted a project to prepare a basic informational brochure on the nature and purpose of film cataloguing. While these two projects were under her immediate direction, there was in reality not one project undertaken by the Commission during her years of service to which Dorothea did not make a major contribution: the FIAF Cataloguing Rules for Film Archives, the FIAF Glossary of Filmographic Terms, the early production company and logos project, and the genres project.
For the members of the Commission, Dorothea served as the center of our family, encouraging and inspiring us all to give our best for each other and for the work of the Federation and the Commission. She ministered to our needs, both personal and professional, giving generously of her time to comfort, to counsel, and to care. Everything Dorothea did, she did selflessly and quietly. Without ever a word being spoken, she seemed to know when any of us was having personal or professional problems and would set about helping without fanfare. She had just the right words to say to a someone suffering the loss of a family member, and she was always there with words of encouragement and practical actions when any one of us was in trouble, dispirited or downhearted. Whatever our Commission projects, Dorothea was always present with appropriate reassurances, wise counsel, and helpful insights.
No one can ever replace Dorothea in our hearts, and her passing brings us sorrow. We remember Dorothea with love and admiration and celebrate the memory of her life with great joy.
Harriet Harrison
Eberhard Spiess y la Comisión de catalogación expresan así sus sentimientos: "Nadie podrá remplazar a Dorothea en nuestros corazones. Su partida nos duele. Guardamos, con amor y admiración, el recuerdo de Dorothea y celebramos con alegría la memoria de su presencia entre nosotros".