Georg Stefan Troller was born to a Jewish family in Vienna in 1921. After high school he began training as a bookbinder, but Nazi violence forced the teenager to flee Vienna. In 1938 he emigrated – via France and North Africa – to the United States. Troller worked in a bookbindery from 1941 to 1943, when he joined the U.S. Army. During the last years of World War II, he was stationed in Europe and assigned to a division that questioned prisoners of war. Troller’s company remained stationed in Munich until 1946.
For several years after completing his military service, Troller studied English literature at the University of California, eventually returning, briefly, to Vienna and then Paris, in 1949, where he settled and began work as a journalist in 1951. Throughout a long career as a writer and journalist, Troller wrote for various radio and television programs broadcast in West Germany, including the radio program “Pariser Journal” which he produced for 10 years, and programs for ZDF. Troller had collaborated with director Axel Corti on several projects, including Young Dr. Freud (1976), before the two men teamed up on God Does Not Believe in Us Anymore, Santa Fe, and Welcome in Vienna, three feature films which became the Where to and Back trilogy. The films, written by Troller and directed by Corti, are loosely based on Troller’s experiences between 1938 and 1946.
The National Center For Jewish Film
Brandeis University, Lown 102, MS053, Waltham MA 02454
P: (781) 899 7044, F: (781) 736 2070
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