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1-50 of 145
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Director. Writer. Studied at the Deutsches Institut fuer Film und Fernsehen (DIFF) in Munich, Germany, as well as at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques (IDHEC) in Paris, France. In 1969 he founded the production company Hallelujah Film together with Volker Schlöndorff. Since 1992 he is co-manager of the Babelsberg studios in Potsdam, Germany (former UFA/DEFA).- Maria Bard was born on 7 July 1900 in Schwerin, Mecklenburg, Germany. She was an actress, known for Berlin-Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (1931), Husbands or Lovers (1924) and G.P.U. (1942). She was married to Hannes Stelzer, Werner Krauss and Wilhelm Graaff. She died on 5 April 1944 in Potsdam, Germany.
- German Army Gen. Kurt von Schleicher was born in 1882 in Brandenburg, Germany (then Prussia), the son of an officer in the Prussian army. He himself enlisted in the Prussian army, soon graduating from officer training school with the rank of lieutenant. In 1909 he attended the Prussian Military Academy, where he made the acquaintance of future political leader Franz von Papen. Schleicher subsequently was assigned to the Railway Department of the Prussian General Staff.
When World War I broke out Schleicher, now a captain, was attached to the General Staff at Supreme Army Command. During the year-long battle of Verdun--in which more than one million men died--Schleicher suspected that the reason many of the German artillery shells, for example, didn't explode on contact was because of shoddy workmanship due to defense contractors' greed for profits, and he wrote a blistering paper attacking war profiteering. That earned him a reputation as a liberal--not the best thing to be known as in an organization as fanatically conservative as the Prussian officer corps--and he spent the rest of the war on the General Staff. After the war he became assistant to Gen. Wilhelm Groener, who was placed in charge of the German army. In November of 1918 Germany was torn by political turmoil, much of it coming from a militant, armed leftist group known as the Spartacist League. Schleicher was used by the army as the negotiator between the civilian government and army, which wanted to enter Berlin and crush the Spartacist revolution once and for all. Schleicher managed to persuade the government to accede to the army's wishes, which caused his stock to rise in the halls of power within Germany. It was Schleicher's efforts that led to the government allowing the army to remain basically autonomous, without civilian oversight or control, in exchange for the army's promise to protect the government against any further revolutionary attacks.
One problem the army had was that, due to the Treaty of Versailles' restrictions on the size of the newly re-formed German army, many of the troops left in the army couldn't be counted on to remain completely loyal. Schleicher solved that problem by helping to form "freikorps", or paramilitary-type militia units, which consisted mainly of disaffected German veterans, in addition to street toughs, ex-convicts and convicted criminals. These units, while not officially part of the German army, were used to crush political opposition--the Spartacist League, for example, was effectively destroyed by the freikorps--in either street battles or straight-out assassinations, often in close cooperation with army officials. Adolf Hitler's feared "Storm Troopers", and later his even more feared SS, originally consisted mostly of former or current freikorps members. The German army did not consider the Weimar Republic, the elected government at the time, to be legitimate, and did everything it could to sabotage and undermine it. Schleicher's main function was to ensure that the army stayed independent of the government and got what it wanted without giving anything up, a task at which he succeeded admirably.
Schleicher rose quickly through the ladders of power in the German army and government, gaining a reputation for ambition and ruthlessness combined with a knack for ingratiating himself with the powers-that-be and a mastery of the intricacies and intrigues of the cutthroat--and lethal--politics of the time. He became a proponent of the philosophy of "total war" against Germany's real and perceived enemies and found ways around the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, meant to ensure that Germany would never re-arm itself to the point where it would pose another threat to peace in Europe. He used the freikorps to crush street protests against the government and even to assassinate political opponents. He became a close confidant and adviser to German President Paul von Hindenburg through his friendship with Hindenburg's son, a fellow army officer. In that capacity he exercised immense power and used that power to undermine the democratic process in Germany--he believed that only a military dictatorship, with him as head, could "make Germany great again"--and decided to use the ever-increasing power of Adolf Hitler's Nazi movement to accomplish that. He believed that he could use the Nazis to crush all domestic opposition and put them in power, then destroy them himself. However, Nazi officials knew Schleicher better than he thought they did--Herman Goering once quipped that "any Chancellor who has Herr von Schleicher on his side must expect sooner or later to be sunk by the Schleicher torpedo"--and they had no illusions as to what he had in store for them.
Schleicher's rise to power eventually resulted in his being appointed Chancellor. However, his term turned out to be a disaster. His relations with the Cabinet were frosty at best, and his once solid friendship with President Hindenburg's son evaporated over some sort of personal affront--it's never been made clear exactly what happened--but it also resulted in the loss of his access to President von Hindenburg himself. Schleicher's skills at political intrigue didn't translate into skills at governing, and he alienated practically every level of the German government and society itself. Matters finally came to a head when the army leadership demanded that Hindenburg fire Schleicher as Chancellor and install Hitler, which Hindenburg did on January 30, 1933.
Schleicher tried to ingratiate himself with the new Hitler government, but with little success. Hearing of the growing rift between Hitler and SA (Storm Trooper) leader Ernst Röhm, Schleicher decided to throw in with Rohm against Hitler. That proved to be his undoing. Hitler, fearing that Rohm was organizing a coup against him by the SA, moved against Rohm on June 30, 1934, thereafter known as "The Night of the Long Knives". Rohm and the top SA leadership and their associates were arrested and imprisoned--many, including Rohm, were murdered in their cells by SS executioners--and many more were simply shot as soon as they were found. Unfortunately for Schleicher, he was one of them. SS assassins burst into his house that night and shot and killed Schleicher and his wife. - Actress
- Additional Crew
Tilly Lauenstein was born on 28 July 1916 in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Hesse, Germany. She was an actress, known for The College Girl Murders (1967), Cäsar und Cleopatra (1969) and Die Troerinnen (1966). She was married to ???. She died on 8 May 2002 in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.- Alfred Struwe was born on 22 April 1927 in Marienburg, East Prussia, Germany [now Malbork, Pomorskie, Poland]. He was an actor, known for Das unsichtbare Visier (1973), Front ohne Gnade (1984) and Das große Abenteuer des Kaspar Schmeck (1981). He was married to Brigitte. He died on 12 February 1998 in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.
- Angela Brunner was born on 12 January 1931 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for Wolf unter Wölfen (1964), Genesung (1956) and Eine Handvoll Noten (1961). She was married to Walter Kaufmann. She died on 17 June 2011 in Kleinmachnow, Potsdam-Mittelmark, Brandenburg, Germany.
- Joachim Tomaschewsky was born on 1 April 1919 in Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany. He was an actor, known for The Reader (2008), Archiv des Todes (1980) and Jeder stirbt für sich allein (1970). He was married to Gisela Morgen. He died on 8 February 2019 in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.
- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Lothar Warneke was born on 15 September 1936 in Leipzig, Germany. He was a director and actor, known for Bear Ye One Another's Burden (1988), Die Beunruhigung (1982) and Addio, piccola mia (1979). He died on 5 June 2005 in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.- Cinematographer
- Director
- Writer
Roland Gräf was born on 13 October 1934 in Meuselbach, Thuringia, Germany. He was a cinematographer and director, known for P.S. (1979), Fallada: The Last Chapter (1988) and Der Tangospieler (1991). He was married to Christel Gräf and Christel Gräf. He died on 11 May 2017 in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.- Peter Jahoda was born on 30 November 1952 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, Germany. He was an actor, known for Zwerg Nase (1978), Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe (1984) and Spuk von draußen (1987). He died in 1990 in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.
- Production Designer
- Art Director
- Costume Designer
Otto Hunte qualified with a degree from the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hamburg. He first came to notice as a stage designer in Berlin around the turn of the century. When he entered films in 1919 as a set decorator and costume designer, he joined a highly skilled team (usually working in tandem with top craftsmen like Erich Kettelhut and Karl Vollbrecht), frequently for the director Fritz Lang. As production designer/art director, Hunte was especially renowned for the darkly sinister, gothic sets he created for Lang's mammoth "Nibelungen" saga. In perfect contrast to these were his stylised futuristic designs for the underground Metropolis (1927); the monumental and richly ornate architecture for the sacrificial temple of Eschnapur in the two-part epic "Das Indische Grabmal" (and, similarly, for the city of Ophir in the fifth instalment of "Die Herrin der Welt").
With the advent of sound, Hunte's work adapted to more contemporary requirements, such as the seedy night club setting for The Blue Angel (1930). An atomic reactor designed for the film Gold (1934) was apparently so convincing, that the Allies confiscated all prints of the film after the war. During the mid-1930's, Hunte sadly blotted his copy book by working on several notorious Nazi propaganda films. Ironically, his penultimate contribution was the anti-Nazi drama Murderers Among Us (1946). This, the first so-called 'Trümmer-film', was an immensely effective evocation of devastated post-war Germany.- Viktor Lutze was born on 28 December 1890 in Bevergern, Westphalia, Germany. He died on 2 May 1943 in Potsdam, Germany.
- Writer
- Director
Bernhard Kellermann was born on 4 March 1879 in Fürth, Bavaria, Germany. He was a writer and director, known for Der Tunnel (1915), The Tunnel (1933) and Der Tunnel (1933). He was married to Else Michaelis and Mabel Giberson. He died on 17 October 1951 in Klein Glienicke, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Egon Günther was born on 30 March 1927 in Schneeberg, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for Wenn du groß bist, lieber Adam (1990), Morenga (1985) and Lotte in Weimar (1975). He was married to Franziska and Helga Schütz. He died on 31 August 2017 in Potsdam, Germany.- Actor
- Producer
Ernst Hofmann was born on 7 December 1880 in Berlin, Germany. He was an actor and producer, known for Die Fledermaus (1923), Marie Antoinette - Das Leben einer Königin (1922) and Emerald of Death (1919). He was married to Hedda. He died on 27 April 1945 in Potsdam, Germany.- Ingrid von Bothmer was born on 26 January 1918 in Hamburg, Germany. She was an actress, known for Cliff Dexter (1966), Und oben wohnen Engels (1978) and Tatort (1970). She was married to Karl Heinrich Flickenschildt. She died on 21 July 2003 in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.
- Werner Dissel was born on 26 August 1912 in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He was an actor, known for Das grüne Ungeheuer (1962), Immenhof (1994) and Solange Leben in mir ist (1965). He died on 22 January 2003 in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.
- King Frederick III of Prussia was born on 18 October 1831 in Potsdam, Kingdom of Prussia [now Brandenburg, Germany]. He was married to Princess Royal Victoria. He died on 15 June 1888 in Potsdam, Kingdom of Prussia [now Brandenburg], Germany.
- Lore Frisch was born on 4 May 1925 in Schwindegg, Bavaria, Germany. She was an actress, known for Meine Frau macht Musik (1958), Das Tor zum Paradies (1949) and Zar und Zimmermann (1956). She died on 6 July 1962 in Potsdam, German Democratic Republic.
- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Rolf Losansky was born on 18 February 1931 in Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for ...verdammt, ich bin erwachsen (1974), Der Revolver des Korporals (1967) and Die Hussiten (1963). He was married to Annelore Losansky. He died on 15 September 2016 in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Karl Gass was born on 2 February 1917 in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He was a writer and director, known for Kosmos - Erinnerungen an Alexander von Humboldt (1960), Allons enfants... pour l'Algérie (1962) and Der Oktober kam... (1970). He was married to Gitta Nickel and Christel Hemmerling-Gass. He died on 29 January 2009 in Kleinmachnow, Potsdam-Mittelmark, Germany.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Werner W. Wallroth was born on 28 February 1930 in Erfurt, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for Zille und ick (1983), Seine Hoheit - Genosse Prinz (1969) and Du und ich und Klein-Paris (1971). He died on 9 August 2011 in Potsdam, Germany.- Production Designer
- Art Director
- Writer
Alfred Hirschmeier was born on 19 March 1931 in Berlin, Germany. He was a production designer and art director, known for Addio, piccola mia (1979), Der Aufenthalt (1983) and Wengler & Sons (1987). He died on 27 March 1996 in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.- Frederick the Great was born on 24 January 1712 in Berlin, Germany. He died on 17 August 1786 in Potsdam, Germany.
- Actor
- Production Manager
- Producer
Adolf Fischer was born on 18 November 1900 in Odessa, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire. He was an actor and production manager, known for Murderers Among Us (1946), Das Mädchen vom Moorhof (1958) and Verwirrung der Liebe (1959). He died on 21 October 1984 in Potsdam, German Democratic Republic.