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Born the fourth of six children to Austrian customs officer Alois Hitler--who had been married twice before--and the former Klara Polzl, Adolf Hitler grew up in a small Austrian town in the late 19th century. He was a slow learner and did poorly in school. He was frequently beaten by his authoritarian father. Things got worse when Adolf's older brother, Alois Jr., ran away from home. His mild-mannered mother occasionally tried to shield him, but was ineffectual. Adolf's attempt to run away at 11 was unsuccessful. At the age of 14 he was freed when his hated father died - an event that he did not mourn.

Hitler dropped out of high school at age 16 and went to Vienna, where he strove to become an artist, but was refused twice by the Vienna Art Academy. By this time Hitler had become an ardent German nationalist--although he was not German but Austrian--and when World War I broke out, he crossed into Germany and joined a Bavarian regiment in the German army. He was assigned as a message runner but also saw combat. Temporarily blinded after a gas attack in Flanders in 1918, he received the Iron Cross 2nd Class and was promoted from private to corporal. In 1918, when the war ended, Hitler stayed in the army and was posted to the Intelligence division. He was assigned to spy on several radical political parties that were considered a threat to the German government. One such organization was the German Workers' Party. Hitler was drawn by party founder Dietrich Eckart, a morphine addict who propagated doctrines of mysticism and anti-Semitism. Hitler soon joined the party with the help of his military intelligence ties. He became party spokesman in 1919, renamed it the National Socalist German Workers Party (NSDAP/NAZI) and declared himself its Führer (leader) one year later. In 1920 Hitler's intelligence handler, Munich-based colonel named Karl Haushofer, introduced the swastika insignia. In 1921 Haushofer founded the paramilitary Storm Troopers ("Sturmabteilung", or SA), composed of German veterans of WWI and undercover military intelligence officers. They helped Hitler to organize a coup attempt--the infamous "beer hall putsch"--against the Bavarian government in Munich in 1923, but it failed. The "rebels" marched on Munich's city hall, which was cordoned off by police. Hitler's men fired at the police and missed; the police fired back and didn't, resulting in several of Hitler's fellow Nazis being shot dead. Hitler himself was arrested, convicted of treason and sent to prison. During his prison time he was coached by his advisers and dictated his book "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle") to his deputy Rudolf Hess. He only served several months in prison before being released. By 1925 the Nazi party was in much better straits both organizationally and financially, as it had secured the backing of a large group of wealthy conservative German industrialists, who funneled huge amounts of money into the organization. Hitler was provided with a personal bodyguard unit named the "Schutzstaffel", better known as the SS. The Nazis began to gain considerable support in Germany through their network of army and WWI veterans, and Hitler ran for President in 1931. Defeated by the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler next attempted to become Chancellor of Germany. Through under-the-table deals with powerful conservative businessmen and right-wing politicians, Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January 1933. One month later, a mysterious fire--which the Nazis claimed had been started by "terrorists" but was later discovered to have been set by the Nazis themselves--destroyed the Reichstag (the building housing the German parliament). Then Hitler's machine began to issue a series of emergency decrees that gave the office of Chancellor more and more power.

In March of 1933 Hitler persuaded the German parliament to pass the Enabling Act, which made the Chancellor dictator of Germany and gave him more power than the President. Two months later Hitler began "cleaning house"; he abolished trade unions and ordered mass arrests of members of rival political groups. By the end of 1933 the Nazi Party was the only one allowed in Germany. In June of 1934 Hitler turned on his own and ordered the purge of the now radical SA--that he now saw as a potential threat to his power--which was led by one of his oldest friends, a thug and street brawler named Ernst Röhm. Röhm's ties to Hitler counted for nothing, as Hitler ordered him assassinated. Soon President Hindenburg died, and Hitler merged the office of President with the office of Chancellor. In 1935 the anti-Jewish Nuremburg laws were passed on Hitler's authorization. A year later, with Germany now under his total control, he sent troops into the Rhineland, which was a violation of the World War I Treaty of Versailles. In 1938 he forced the union of Austria with Germany and also took the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia near the German border with a large ethnic German population, on the pretext of "protecting" the German population from the Czechs. In March 1939 Hitler overran the rest of Czechoslovakia. On 23 August 1939 Hitler and Joseph Stalin made a non-aggression treaty. In September of 1939 Hitler and Stalin invaded Poland. France and the British Commonwealth and Empire declared war on Germany. In 1940 Germany occupied Denmark, Norway and the Low Countries, and launched a major offensive against France. Paris fell and France surrendered, after which Hitler considered invading the UK. However, after the German Air Force was defeated in the Battle of Britain, the invasion was canceled. The British had begun bombing German cities in May 1940, and four months later Hitler retaliated by ordering the Blitz. In 1941 German troops assisted Italy, which under dictator Benito Mussolini was a German ally, in its takeover of Yugoslavia and Greece. Meanwhile, in Germany and the occupied countries, a program of mass extermination of Jews had begun.

On June 22, 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union. In addition to more than 4,000,000 German troops, there were additional forces from German allies Romania, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Spain and Finland, among others. Hitler used multinational forces in order to save Germans for the future colonization of the Russian lands. Following the detailed Nazi plan, code-named "Barbarossa," Hitler was utilizing resources of entire Europe under Nazi control to feed the invasion of Russia. Three groups of Nazi armies invaded Russia: Army Group North besieged Leningrad for 900 days, Army Group Center reached Moscow and Army Group South occupied Ukraine, reached Caucasus and Stalingrad. After a series of initial successes, however, the German Armies were stopped at Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad. Leningrad was besieged by the Nazis for 900 days until the city of 4,000,000 virtually starved itself to death. Only in January of 1944 was Marshal Georgi Zhukov able to finally defeat the German forces and liberate the city, finally lifting the siege after a cost of some 2,000,000 lives. In 1943 several major battles occurred at Kursk (which became the largest tank battle in history), Kharkov and Stalingrad, all of which the Germans lost. The battle for Stalingrad was one of the largest in the history of mankind. At Stalingrad alone the Germans lost 360,000 troops, in addition to the losses suffered by Italian, Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, Croatian and other forces, but the Russians lost over one million men. By 1944--the same year the Western allies invaded occupied Europe--Germany was retreating on both fronts and its forces in Africa had been completely defeated, resulting in the deaths and/or surrender of several hundred thousand troops. Total human losses during the six years of war were estimated at 60,000,000, of which 27,000,000 were Russians, Ukrainians, Jews and other people in Soviet territory. Germany lost over 11,000,000 soldiers and civilians. Poland and Yugoslavia lost over 3,000,000 people each. Italy and France lost over 1,000,000 each. Most nations of Central and Eastern Europe suffered severe--and in some cases total--economic destruction.

Hitler's ability to act as a figurehead of the Nazi machine was long gone by late 1944. Many of his closest advisers and handlers had already fled to other countries, been imprisoned and/or executed by the SS for offenses both real--several assassination attempts on Hitler--and imagined, or had otherwise absented themselves from Hitler's inner circle. For many years Hitler was kept on drugs by his medical personnel. In 1944 a group of German army officers and civilians pulled off an almost successful assassination attempt on Hitler, but he survived. Hitler, by the beginning of 1945, was a frail, shaken man who had almost totally lost touch with reality. The Russians reached Berlin in April of that year and began a punishing assault on the city. As their forces approached the bunker where Hitler and the last vestiges of his government were holed up, Hitler killed himself. Just a day earlier he had married his longtime mistress Eva Braun. Hitler's corpse was taken to Moscow and later shown to Allied Army Commanders and diplomats. Joseph Stalin showed Hitler's personal items to Winston Churchill and Harry S. Truman at the Potsdam Conference after the victory. Hitler's personal gun was donated to the museum of the West Point Military Academy in New York. Some of his personal items are now part of the permanent collection at the National History Museum in Moscow, Russia.

Günter Meisner was born on 18 April 1926 in Bremen, Germany. He was an actor and director, known for Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), The Boys from Brazil (1978) and In a Glass Cage (1986). He was married to Gisela Albrecht Meisner. He died on 5 December 1994 in Berlin, Germany.

In the cast list of The Magnificent Seven (1960), you will find several names that doubtless you know well: Charles Bronson, Steve McQueen, and Yul Brynner. But there is one name that you will have difficulty pronouncing, let alone identifying as an actor you have seen before. That man is Horst Buchholz, and he was one of the few German actors to have a considerable success in both Hollywood and in Europe. One would hardly guess that he was sought out to act in one of the most famous films of all time, only to have to turn it down due to a scheduling conflict - Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Horst Buchholz was born in Berlin, Germany, in the year 1933. His father was a German shoemaker, while his mother was born to Danish parents. Buchholz was put in a foster home in Czechoslovakia after World War II broke out in Europe, but he returned to Berlin the moment he had the chance. Realizing his talent in acting, Buchholz dropped out of school to perfect his acting skills. After moving from East Berlin to West Berlin, he became well-known for his work in theatre and on the radio. In 1952 he turned to film, and after a series of small roles, he found a larger one in the Julien Duvivier film Marianne of My Youth (1955). He was praised for his role in the romantic/drama film Sky Without Stars (1955) by Helmut Käutner, but it was the lead role in the comedic Confessions of Felix Krull (1957) that made him an established German actor.

He followed this breakthrough role with the romantic film Two Worlds (1958) and the thriller Wet Asphalt (1958), where the handsome young actor plays a former criminal who associates himself with a journalist. Now a familiar face in his country, Buchholz pursued making foreign films. His first non-German film was the British film Tiger Bay (1959). The film is about a girl who witnesses a seaman named Korchinsky (Buchholz) murder his girlfriend. The film won praise in both Germany and Britain, but it was Buchholz' next foreign film that secured his name in the history of classic films. This film was the epic western The Magnificent Seven (1960) directed by John Sturges. Buchholz played Chico, the inexperienced Mexican youth that wants to be a gunman and abandon his past. Buchholz starred alongside such legends as Charles Bronson and Yul Brynner. both of whom had strong European roots. The film was a hit, first in Europe, then was re-distributed in the States to a much higher profit. The film gained massive popularity, and even now is treasured as a classic.

Buchholz could now find good and steady work nationally and internationally, which is something few actors could do at the time. He worked on the romantic film Fanny (1961), which is based on a trilogy of plays written by legendary writer Marcel Pagnol. Buchholz plays the role of Marius, a passionate but unsure youth who must choose between the girl he loves, and the life at sea he has always wanted. The film was a fine success, nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Charles Boyer (who plays Buchholz' onscreen father).

It was at this point in his film career where he was sought as the first choice to play the role of Sherif Ali in David Lean's legendary film Lawrence of Arabia (1962). However, Buchholz had to turn it down, as he had already signed up for another film, which turned out to be the Oscar-nominated comedy One, Two, Three (1961) (directed by Billy Wilder). The film was once again a fine success to add to Buchholz' career, but ultimately gained nowhere near as much of a status as David Lean's film. Buchholz also made the Italian film The Empty Canvas (1963) in which he plays an untalented artist who begins a love affair with a young model. Throughout his in the early 60s, Buchholz had made a name for himself, acting in one Oscar-nominated film after another and showing off his talent as an actor. However, the success he had reached was not to last.

Buchholz continued with film, including the James Bond spoof That Man in Istanbul (1965) and the crime film Johnny Banco (1967). He starred in the B-movie failure that was The Young Rebel (1967). Buchholz rebounded with the fiery film The Saviour (1971) in which he plays a man who claims to be organizing resistance against the Nazis. He also played Johann Strauss in the Golden Globe-nominated musical The Great Waltz (1972). which was sadly another failure.

The rest of the 1970s and the early 1980s were spent mostly on television and movies released for television, whether it be foreign (Dead of Night (1977), Return to Fantasy Island (1978)) or German (Derrick). Buchholz found mild success again when he returned to the big screen with the WW II espionage film Code Name: Emerald (1985) in which he plays alongside such stars as Ed Harris and Max von Sydow. After this film, Buchholz returned to European movies, such as And the Violins Stopped Playing (1988) in which a group of gypsies flee Nazi persecutors. After taking a supporting role in the fantasy film Faraway, So Close! (1993), Buchholz acted in one of his most well known films: the Oscar-winning Italian film Life Is Beautiful (1997) which was directed by and starred Roberto Benigni. Buchholz played the role of a doctor who befriends Benigni's character and frequently duels with him in riddles. This choice of role proved to be an echo of Buchholz' taste in choosing his projects in earlier years; the film won best foreign film that year, and was also nominated for Best Picture. Thanks to his gift for languages, Buchholz was able to dub himself in the foreign releases of the film.

Buchholz continued making films and television appearances until 2002, by which time he was sixty-eight years old. He died the next year, in Berlin, of pneumonia. Berlin had been the city of his heart, and was buried there in honour of that fact. Horst Buchholz had been a renowned German actor, and had gained credibility in the United States and other countries. He was a varied performer, acting all kinds of roles in his life, but was always a proud German to the last.

Jacob Grimm was a German folklorist, linguist, and philologist. He and his younger brother Wilhelm Grimm (1786 - 1859) co-operated in collecting, compiling, and revising German folk tales into "Grimms' Fairy Tales" (1812). By its final revised edition in 1857, the collection included 210 unique fairy tales. Grimm also published the historical treatise "Teutonic Mythology" (Deutsche Mythologie, 1835) on Germanic mythology and its impact in modern German folk culture. He spend his last years working on "The German Dictionary" (Deutsches Wörterbuch), the largest and most comprehensive dictionary of High German. It was left unfinished with his death, but was expanded and finished by other scholars. Its first complete edition was published in 1961, nearly a century after Grimm's death.

In 1785, Grimm was born in Hanau, Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel. His father was the lawyer Philipp Grimm (d. 1796). His father died when Grimm was 11-years-old, severely reducing the Grimm family's income and social status. However, Jacob received financial help from a maternal aunt who served as a lady of the chamber to the Landgravine of Hesse.

Grimm was educated at public schools, and enrolled at the University of Marburg in 1802. He was initially only interested in studying law, but he was impressed with the lectures of the historian Friedrich Carl von Savigny (1779 -1861). Savigny awakened in Jacob a love for historical and antiquarian research, and allowed the young man to study Middle High German texts from his personal library.

In 1805, Grimm joined his mentor Savigny in his work at Paris, where he took time to study available medieval texts. In 1806, Grimm found a new job, working in the war office at Kassel. His salary was meager, but provided him with enough free time to pursue his own interests.

In 1808, Grimm was appointed superintendent of the private library of Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia (1784-1860, reigned 1807-1813). He also as an auditor to the state council. His combined salary for these two positions were 4000 francs. Following Jerome's deposition, Grimm served as Secretary of Legation in Hesse-Kassel. He spend a few years trying to claim restitutions of books from Kassel that had been taken by the French Army.

In 1816, Grimm was appointed as the second librarian at the Kassel library, second-in-command for this department. He worked closely with his brother Wilhelm, who was also employed as a librarian at this library. In 1828, the chief librarian died. Both brothers were nominated for promotion, but were disappointed when the vacant seat was occupied by another candidate.

In 1829, the frustrated Jacob accepted an offer to work as both a professor and a librarian at the University of Göttingen. He lectured on legal history, historical grammar, literary history, and diplomatics. He also provided commentaries on Old German poetry and the "Germania" of Tacitus, one of the oldest surviving works on Germanic history and culture.

In 1837, Jacob and Grimm were both included in the Göttingen Seven, academics who protested against the planned abolition of the constitution of the Kingdom of Hanover by the new monarch, Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover (1771-1851, reigned 1837-1851). The academics were all fired by the king, and the Grimm Brothers were exiled. The brothers spend a few years under reduced circumstances in Kassel.

In 1840, Grimm was appointed a professor at the University of Berlin, after accepting an offer of employment Frederick William IV of Prussia (1795-1861, reigned 1840-1861). By the terms of his employment, he was not actually obligated to lecture students. He chose to only lecture on occasion, devoting much of his time to compiling more literary works.

Grimm died in September 1863, while still working in Berlin. He was 78-years-old at the time of his death. He had never married and had no known descendants. His legacy includes a large influence on several fields of scholarship, and frequent adaptations of his fairy tales over the following centuries. He is the originator of "Grimm's law" in linguistics, which is used in the study of the Proto-Indo-European language.

Dieter Laser is a German actor. He is known to English-speaking audiences for his roles: Mantrid in Lexx, Prof. Otto Blaettchen in The Ogre and Dr. Joseph Heiter in The Human Centipede (First Sequence), for which he won Best Actor at the Austin Fantastic Fest. In 1975, he was awarded the German Film Award in Gold in the category of Best Actor for his title role in John Glueckstadt.

He was born in Kiel. On a cold winter afternoon at the age of sixteen, Dieter Laser went to the stage door of the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg at that time the most famous theatre in Germany and he asked the doorman how to become an actor. There was an extra missing for the Christmas fairy tale afternoon-performance for children and 30 minutes later he stood on stage among a bunch of "sailors". That was the beginning of his career as an extra. - He had grown up in a fundamentalist Christian sect where the Theatre was regarded as devil's work. As a brainwashed believer he had to hazard the consequences. Therefore he made a deal with the devil: 'I will become an actor and I'll pay later on - in hell!' - Watching as an extra the famous actors "The Gods" by doing their marvelous work during rehearsals and performances became his "drama school". Gradually he got a word to speak in a play - then two words - even a sentence - a tiny part - another little part - and one day he suddenly got a contract and overnight his dream had come true: he now was a real actor with whom the "Gods" shook hands. - After 14 passionate years on stage and as a co-founder and member of the board of the meanwhile most famous German theatre, the Schaubuehne in Berlin, he decided to become a freelancer and got his first work for the cinema: the title role in John Glueckstadt. For this performance he won the German Film Award in Gold. Since then, and besides countless guest appearances on the most important stages of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Luxemburg, with parts like Don Juan, Valmont, Peer Gynt, Macbeth, Captain Ahab etc. Dieter Laser played in about 65 films, at times co-starring with "Gods" like Burt Lancaster, Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland, Glenn Close, John Malkovich etc..

Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef was born on December 28, 1925 in Ulm, Germany. In 1940, she began to study acting. Even before the fall of the Third Reich, she appeared in several films, but most of them were only released after the war. To avoid being raped by Soviet soldiers, she dressed like a young man and was sent to a camp for prisoners of war. She escaped and returned to war-shattered Berlin, where she played her first parts on stage. The first German movie after World War II, Murderers Among Us (1946), made her a star. David O. Selznick invited her to Hollywood and offered her a contract--with two conditions: Hildegard Knef should change her name to Gilda Christian, and she should pretend to be Austrian instead of German. She refused both and returned to Germany. In 1951 she provoked one of the greatest scandals in German film history when she appeared naked in the film The Sinner (1951). The Roman Catholic Church protested vehemently against that film, but Hildegard just commented: "I can't understand all that tumult--five years after Auschwitz!"

With the support of her first husband, the American Kurt Hirsch, she tried a second time to launch a Hollywood career and changed her surname from Knef to Neff (Americans could not pronounce Knef), but the only worthwhile part she got was a supporting role in the Hemingway adaptation of The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952). She became a leading lady in German, French, and British films. Finally, America offered her another chance, this time on the stage. She achieved a kind of stardom as Ninotchka in the very popular Broadway play "Silk Stockings".

In 1963 she began a new career as a singer, surprising audiences with her typical, deep, smoky voice and the fact that she wrote many of her own song lyrics. In 1970, she wrote the autobiographical bestseller "Der Geschenkte Gaul". She got sympathy from all over the world for her fight against cancer, which she defeated several times.

After the German reunification, Hildegarde Knef moved back to Berlin and died at age 76 of a lung infection on February 1, 2002.

Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859) was a German author and pioneering anthropologist. He was the younger brother of philologist Jacob Grimm.

Wilhelm was born in the town of Hanau, in the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, Holy Roman Empire. His parents were Philipp Wilhelm Grimm and his wife Dorothea Zimmer, respectively a jurist and a housewife. Wilhelm's maternal grandfather was a city councilman in Kassel. Wilhem was one of 9 children born to the couple, but 3 of his siblings died in infancy.

In 1791, the Grimm family moved to the town of Steinau an der Straße, where Philipp Grimm had been appointed as the new Amtmann (district magistrate). They settled in a large house, surrounded by fields. Wilhelm initially did not attend school, but was educated at home by private tutors. He was given a strict, religious education as a Lutheran.

In 1796, Philipp Grimm died in office, due to pneumonia. The Grimm family fell into poverty, and had to relinquish its house and servants. Jacob Grimm (only 11-year-old at the time) legally became the new head of household, and had to undertake some adult responsibilities. The Grimm family was, for the time being, financially dependent on Wilhelm's maternal grandfather and on Wilhelm's maternal aunt, who was serving as a lady-in-waiting at the court of William I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (1743-1821, reigned 1785-1821).

In 1798, the same maternal aunt arranged for both Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm to attend the Friedrichsgymnasium Kassel, a gymnasium (equivalent to preparatory high school) in Kassel. By this time, Wilhelm's maternal grandfather had died, and their aunt was their only protector.

The two brothers Grimm became roommates in their school years, and formed a particularly close relationship which would endure into their adult lives. They relied entirely on each other in most matters. They were both hard-working students, but considered as inferior by several classmates who came from aristocratic families. The two brothers differed in temperament, with Jacob being the more intellectual and introspective, and Wilhelm being slower to grasp new ideas, but acting jovial and out-going. Wilhelm suffered from various illnesses, but his talent for music and storytelling made him more popular with their peers.

In 1803, Jacob Grimm graduated the Gymnasium at the top of his class. In 1804, Wilhelm Grimm also graduated at the top of his class. Both brothers next started college life in the University of Marburg. They became roommates again while they were both college students, and would continue living together for most of their adult lives. They shared their books and other property items.

At the University, the Grimm brothers were subject to class discrimination, disqualified from admission in certain courses in favor of aristocratic students, and denied tuition aid. However, they kept excelling in their studies. While initially interested in legal studies, both brothers were impressed with the teachings of professor Friedrich Carl von Savigny (1779-1861). Savigny was an innovative historian, and awakened in the brothers a new passion for history, philology, and medieval literature. Savigny introduced the brothers to some of his own friends,who were leading romantic writers and intellectuals of the time.

Due to increasing financial problems, Jacob Grimm (who was legally responsible for the financial care of all his siblings), quit school in 1805, and started seeking employment in various German courts. By 1808, Jacob became a librarian in Kassel. Wilhelm at the time suffered from heart and respiratory ailments, and Jacob paid for his medical treatments. Jacob then managed to arrange for Wilhem to be hired as a fellow librarian in Kassel, allowing the brothers to work together. Their salaries were rather small, but they had a steady income and plenty of time for research.

An old acquaintance, the novelist Clemens Brentano (1778-1842) asked the brothers to help him in collecting traditional stories. Brentano was working on a new collection of folk tales, but did not have enough time to search for more tales. For the following few years, the brothers Grimm interviewed storytellers from various social backgrounds and collected 53 individual tales. But when they send their report to Brentano, he had lost interest in the project. Unwilling to waste years of effort, the brothers Grimm prepared to publish the tales under their own name. They worked on revising the various oral tales for a literate audience. In 1812, the first version of Grimms' Fairy Tales was published, containing 86 stories. Wilhelm, the storyteller of the duo, was responsible for many of the revisions to the stories. Over the following decades, the brothers kept revising and expanding their work. By 1857, the 7th edition of the collection, it included 211 individual tales.

Following the success of their first published work, the brothers started producing philological books and studies on various European mythologies, primarily Irish and Norse mythology. They became literary celebrities and earned honorary doctorates from various universities.

In 1825, Wilhelm Grimm married his long-time friend Henriette Dorothea "Dortchen" Wild. Her family had been among those interviewed for Grimms' Fairy Tales, and they had kept in touch for over a decade. Jacob Grimm never married and continued co-cohabiting with his brother and new sister-in-law. Wilhelm and Henriette had four children together: Jacob (April-December 1826), Herman Friedrich (1828 -1901), Rudolf Georg (1830 -1889), and Barbara Auguste Luise Pauline Marie (1832 - 1919).

In 1830, both Jacob and Wilhelm were candidates for the position of head librarian at Kassel, but were overlooked despite their fame. They resigned their positions soon after, and took new jobs as professors at the University of Göttingen, in the Kingdom of Hanover. They pioneered the course of German studies.

In 1837, the Grimms were fired from the University, as part of the so-called "Göttingen Seven". The new king of Hanover, Ernest Augustus (1771-1851, reigned 1837-1851), announced plans to abolish or heavily rewrite Hanover's constitution. Seven college professors opposed the abolition of the constitution and protested. They were all fired and deported from Hanover.

Wilhelm and his brother returned to Kassel, but were now unemployed. They relied on financial support from friends and admirers, while working on a new dictionary. In 1840, their former mentor Savigny convinced new king Frederick William IV of Prussia (1795-1861, reigned 1840-1861) to employ the Brothers Grimm. They gained positions at the University of Berlin, and stipends from the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin. They continued jointly working on their dictionary, but each brother started producing individual works, since their intellectual interests had become much different.

During the Revolutions of 1848, the Brothers Grimm were elected to the civil parliament in Mainz, but they resumed their teaching positions in Berlin at the end of the Revolution. Jacob chose retirement in the late 1840s, but Wilhem continued teaching until 1852. They devoted the rest of their lives to working on their incomplete dictionary.

In 1859, Wilhem died in Berlin, due to an unspecified infection. He was 73-years-old. His brother Jacob survived him, but reportedly became increasingly reclusive following Wilhelm's death.

Jóhann Jóhannsson was born on 19 September 1969 in Reykjavík, Iceland. He was a composer and writer, known for Last and First Men (2020), The Theory of Everything (2014) and Sicario (2015). He died on 9 February 2018 in Berlin, Germany.

Tall, blonde, busty and radiant, Eva Renzi created a sensation when she rose to stardom in her native West Germany in the mid-60s. Born to a 17-year-old French mother and a 49-year-old Danish father, Eva's childhood was everything but happy. Her parents got divorced when she was three, and her mother put her into an orphanage run by nuns. Eva was 14 when she returned to live with her abusive father; she later claimed that "he beat the daylights out of me on a daily basis". Living with her father proved to be so difficult that Eva tried to kill herself twice before she eventually left home at the tender age of 17 to pursue a career in acting. Famous drama coach Else Bongers took her under her wing, and the beautiful teenager supported herself as a model, a phone operator, and a waitress before making her debut on stage in late 1961. She became a member of the Freie Volksbühne Berlin in 1964 when renowned director Erwin Piscator hired her as "Electra".

In early 1965, Renzi was a single mother - her daughter Anouschka Renzi was fathered by a Brazilian bar owner named Raimundo - and a fairly successful stage actress when journalist-turned-director Will Tremper became so fascinated and infatuated with her extraordinary temper and raving beauty that he wrote a movie specifically for her: That Woman (1966), a personality vehicle for Eva Renzi, successfully premiered in 1966. The German press hailed her as "a sensuous mix between Julie Christie and Ingrid Bergman", and the movie itself caused quite a stir with its almost Godard-like atmosphere and international flair. On the set of That Woman (1966), Renzi, then 21, met Paul Hubschmid, 27 years her senior. The Swiss film star and notorious womanizer fell madly in love with Eva, married her in Las Vegas in 1967 and adopted her little daughter Anouschka to raise her as his own child. By that time, Eva's international career was going gangbusters: she was doing two, sometimes three movies a year, alternating between Hollywood, France, Italy, West Germany, and England. Her most successful movies were Funeral in Berlin (1966) alongside Michael Caine (unable to master the English language without an accent, she was dubbed by Nikki Van der Zyl in this one), the charming and underrated The Pink Jungle (1968) with James Garner and George Kennedy, and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) by Dario Argento, a movie that she later labeled "my career-suicide". The Renzi-Hubschmid family lived in Southern France, near Saint Tropez, and on the surface everything seemed happy, happy, happy.

By 1972, however, Eva's momentum was pretty much over, and she got tired of acting, the spotlight, her marriage, and society in general. She rejected a movie offer by Orson Welles and refused to be cast as a Bond girl in a Sean Connery film, passionately hating her sexy-girl image. She later said that, young as she was, she did not value her movie career in the first place and loathed everything about it except the money. After a miscarriage, her marriage was in deep trouble, and her often aggressive outbursts didn't help. She delved into a depression and turned to spirituality and Eastern religions to find answers. One day, she took her then 9-year-old daughter, packed the car and drove 14,000 miles to India. But that trip turned into a nightmare when she found herself in the midst of the Osho-Rajneesh movement. She later told the press about drug abuse and forced group sex experiences and launched a law suit in India against the leaders of the movement. Now in her early 30s, she relocated permanently to France and revived her career with beautifully tailored parts in Das blaue Palais (1974) and Papa Poule (1980). She gave one of her finest, most nuanced and mature performances in a supporting role in The Prodigal Daughter (1981), sensitively directed by Jacques Doillon. Her co-stars were Jane Birkin, Michel Piccoli and Natasha Parry.

Her marriage to Paul Hubschmid was practically over in 1980. The pair continued to work together on stage but lived in separate hotels. The divorce was finalized in 1983 after 16 years of marriage. In the late 1980s, Renzi returned to Germany and had a minor comeback on TV in Das Erbe der Guldenburgs (1987). She continued to act successfully in the 1990s and early 2000s, touring Germany, Austria and Switzerland with a stage production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" and receiving rave reviews for her moving portrayal of a woman coming to terms with herself after her husband's death in the one-woman play "Amanda". One of her final TV appearances was alongside her (then) son-in-law Jochen Horst in Das Schweigen der Hämmer (1995).

A heavy smoker throughout her life, Eva Renzi was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2004. Mistrustful of contemporary treatments, she chose not to have any and died in her daughter's arms at the age of 60 on August 16, 2005.

Susanne Lothar was born on 15 November 1960 in Hamburg, West Germany. She was an actress, known for Funny Games (1997), The Reader (2008) and The White Ribbon (2009). She was married to Ulrich Mühe. She died on 21 July 2012 in Berlin, Germany.

Michael Ballhaus was a German cinematographer. He worked on many American films, including Baby It's You (1983), Old Enough (1984), After Hours (1985), The Color of Money (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Goodfellas (1990), Dracula (1992), The Age of Innocence (1993), Gangs of New York (2002), and The Departed (2006).

Ballhaus was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, for Broadcast News (1987), The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), and Gangs of New York (2002), but never won.

His son Florian Ballhaus is also a cinematographer who worked on Flightplan (2005) and The Devil Wears Prada (2006).

Ballhaus died on 11 April 2017, at the age of 81.

Josef Goebbels, the man who almost single-handedly developed the field of propaganda into an art form, would, for a day, be the leader of World War II Germany. Goebbels was born in the German Rhineland to strict Catholic parents. He was short, standing at 5'5", of small stature and thin build, and had a sharp, prominent nose and an oily, sallow complexion. He was rejected by the German army in World War I on the basis of being a cripple, specifically, he had a club foot for which he wore a brace, contracted after a bout of osteomyelitis. After Germany was defeated, Goebbels joined the National Socialist Workers Party, more infamously known as the Nazi party, which opposed the democratic Weimar Republic that had been set up to govern Germany. Because of his impressive oratorical skills and uncanny ability to slant arguments to his view, Goebbels was considered an ideal leader in the Nazi party. It was there that he met Hitler in 1925. Though they both shared a hatred of Jews, Goebbels, a dedicated socialist, initially tried to expel the relatively capitalistic Hitler, who he saw as simply an opportunist. He would change his tune, however, when Hitler rose in rank to become leader. Hitler rewarded Goebbels with a post as Nazi district leader of Berlin, where he would wage year-round political campaigns that eventually drained the organization of virtually all of its funds. He met and married divorcée Magda Quandt around this time. Though their membership grew, the Nazis didn't manage to attract a sizable enough number of voters - especially in Berlin - to attain any kind of legitimate political power, due to both the rebounding German economy and a distrust of the gang of street thugs within the Nazi party called the Sturm Abteilung (SA). However, after the US stock market crashed in 1929, the European economies took a tremendous hit, and the resulting worldwide economic depression hit Germany especially hard. The dire economic straits of many Germans were tailor-made for a demagogue like Hitler, and, slowly, he began to take power; first as Chancellor in 1933, then as Führer in 1934. Goebbels was named minister of entertainment and propaganda, a position that gave him have sole discretion as to what books, magazines, films, radios, newspapers, etc., could print, say, or show. Knowing the media power where the influencing of people was concerned, he searched for a director to place as the head of UFA, Germany's leading film studio. In a famous meeting, he offered the position to respected German director Fritz Lang, who tried to excuse himself by saying that he had Jewish grandparents, to which Goebbels curtly replied, "We will decide who is Jewish!" Lang promptly fled the country and Goebbels settled on a rising female director, Leni Riefenstahl, as the "official" Nazi filmmaker. She directed two documentaries on the party's Nuremburg rallies of 1932 and 1933. The first was disowned by Riefenstahl because of the little time she had to prepare and the fact that it was never shown publicly because the film featured Ernst Röhm, leader of the SA, who along with many SA leaders, was murdered by the Nazi high command when they moved against the SA, just after the film was completed. Their second attempt, on which Goebbels assisted Riefenstahl extensively, is perhaps the most famous propaganda film ever made: Triumph of the Will (1935). It took almost a year to prepare from the miles upon miles of footage shot. It was a success worldwide, but was not particularly popular in Germany at the time. Goebbels then commissioned Riefenstahl to shoot the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which the Nazi leadership assumed would be dominated by German athletes. The Germans did win the total medal counts, but African-American sprinter Jesse Owens shattered the myth of Aryan dominance by winning gold medals in four different events - more than any other competitor - and was idolized by the German crowds.

After World War II broke out, Goebbels was responsible for creating a massive propaganda body of work by the German government, much of which still remains recorded. He was known to use almost anything for propaganda purposes, such as posters from French and German movies with Jewish stars as examples of the "typical Jew." Even when Germany was crumbling in 1945 and the Allies demanded unconditional surrender, Goebbels used that as a motivational tool to demonstrate that every German needed to fight or face destruction.

As Allied forces began to advance toward Germany, a paranoid and rapidly deteriorating Hitler had many of his assistants executed or imprisoned, but Goebbels was given the title of "Defender of Berlin." Hitler committed suicide by gunshot on April 30, leaving Goebbels as the next in command to take over the faltering government, which, by then, controlled only a small part of Berlin. As both Soviet forces on one side and American and British forces on the other closed in on the capital, Goebbels was well aware of the fate he would meet if he were captured alive. On May 1, 1945, he reluctantly endorsed the plan his wife had conjured, which she had communicated to Albert Speer, and permitted her to drug their six children with morphine and proceed to poison them to death through the administration of a cyanide capsule. Later that day, after requesting a moment of privacy with his wife from the onlooking SS soldiers, he shot her in head, as they had also planned, and then took his own life within seconds. Soviet troops, who Goebbels had always boasted would never get to Berlin, found him and his wife partially burnt and unburied outside the Fuhrerbunker. He was survived only by a stepson from Magda's first marriage.

Sander spent his childhood and youth in Hanover and Kassel. He also went to school there and graduated from high school in 1962. After his military service in the navy, he studied theater studies, German, literature, art history and philosophy until 1967. Sander made his theater debut in 1965 at the Düsseldorf Kammerspiele. He then played roles at the Heidelberg Theater and the Freie Volksbühne Berlin. From 1970 Sander was engaged at the Schaubühne am Hallerschen Ufer in Berlin; He not only performed there, but was also involved in productions. At the same time as his theater work, Otto Sander also started his career in film. In 1965 he played the farmer's son and quarry worker in Roland Klick's "Ludwig" and thus celebrated his screen debut. Sander attended drama school and also appeared on the stage of the Munich Rational Theater. There he showed the best cabaret and received good reviews for his funny, spontaneous and eloquent performances.

In 1971 he married the actress Monika Hansen; he became stepfather to Ben and Meret Becker. In the 1970s, Sander became known nationwide as a film and television actor. He appeared in plays and films such as Heinrich von Kleist's "Prinz Friedrich von Homburg" (1972), the "Optimistic Comedy" (1973) and "The Bakchen" (1974). In 1974 Sander had the role of a war returnee in "Lehmann's Tales" and played the strict Junker in "The Marquise of O." (1975), the musician Meyn in Volker Schlöndorff's "The Tin Drum" (1979) and the Knight's Cross bearer in Wolfgang Petersen's war epic "Das Boot". Sander received the Ernst Lubitsch Prize in 1982 for his leading role in Hartmut Schmiege and Christian Rateuke's "The Man in the Pajamas". He didn't just concentrate on acting, but was also actively involved with his friend and colleague Bruno Ganz in the realization of the actor's portrait "The Memory" about Curt Bois.

He consistently continued his work in the 1980s and 1990s and was repeatedly seen in films, for example in "The Sky over Berlin" (1986) and "In the Far Away So Close" (1993) - both with Bruno Ganz. Sander also worked as a presenter, dubbing and radio speaker and appeared at readings. He also often appeared in front of the camera together with his foster children Ben Becker and Meret Becker - including in the films "Marlene" (2000) and "Sass" (2001). In 2005 he appeared in "Little Spoon" directed by Régine Provvedi. In 2007 he played on the stage of the Renaissance Theater in Berlin in "The Last Band" by Samuel Beckett and in Bochum in the play "The Ignorant and the Madman" by Thomas Bernhard. As a narrator, he designed the cinema productions "Perfume" and "Krabat" in 2006 and 2008. In 2012 he shone again in the comedy film "Until the horizon, then to the left!" by Bernd Böhlich. "Soko Wien" and "Polizeiruf 110" (2013) were his last TV productions.

Otto Sander died on September 12, 2013 in Berlin.

Birol Ünel was born on 18 August 1961 in Silifke, Mersin, Turkey. He was an actor, known for Head-On (2004), Enemy at the Gates (2001) and Soul Kitchen (2009). He died on 3 September 2020 in Berlin, Germany.

Son of Austrian parents, born into an atmosphere of theater. His father was Max Reinhardt's associate. Came with a "Kindertransport" to England, later went to Ireland to study art. His first experience was with a Belfast repertory company. During the war, he served with the Irish Fusiliers, after his London West End debut in "The Perfect Woman" (1948), there followed dramatic and revue credits and twenty film roles. Moved in 1957 to the States, had a lot of Broadway and off-Broadway appearances in New York, won 1959 Clarence Derwent - and 1964 Obi Award. He has been visiting professor at Yale, Boston University and Carnegie Mellon. Long time resident of California, television audiences have seen him in a variety of dramatic and comic roles, film credits include featured and co-starring roles. Hurst returned to Germany in the early 1990s to collaborate with director and play writer George Tabori. He lived in Vienna, Austria and his city of birth, Berlin and retired in 2000. He died after suffering a stroke and pneumonia.

Tilo Prückner was born on 26 October 1940 in Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany. He was an actor, known for The NeverEnding Story (1984), Iron Sky (2012) and Der Willi-Busch-Report (1979). He was married to Ute Paffendorf and Brigitte. He died on 2 July 2020 in Berlin, Germany.

Greta Schröder was a German actress. She is best known for the role of Thomas Hutter's wife in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu. In the fictionalized 2000 film, Shadow of the Vampire, she is portrayed as having been a famous actress during the making of Nosferatu, but in fact she was little known.

The peak of her career was during the 1920s, and she continued to act well into the 1950s, but by the 1930s her roles had diminished to only occasional appearances.

Greta Schröder died on 8 June 1980 at the age of 87.

Born and raised in Magdeburg (Germany), Frank Giering gained first stage experience as a background actor at the former known "Maxim-Gorki" theatre Magdeburg". During this time the desire arose to become an actor even though he said at a later time, that this desire was mainly animated due to his hunger to get visible and noticed combined with the unrealistic belief to get more interesting for the womankind.

Nevertheless he started his studies at the "Westfälischen Schauspielschule Bochum" (Germany) but changed short time after to the "Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen" (HFF) in Potsdam Babelsberg (Germany). But again he felt quite uncomfortable with the education methods. Some exercises led him to his physical and mental limits. Furthermore he failed on his teacher's demands to "fill up the space of the theatre". As he realized that he clenched more and more as soon as he got instructions to "give more" or to become "louder" he decided to break off.

His last public theatre performance before leaving the HFF Potsdam in summer 1994 was the turning point. He gained the attention of an assistant director, which gave him the possibility to attend a casting for the television film Der Verräter (1995), in which he starred an instable young man searching for acceptance and affection who got into the claws of a neo-Nazi gang.

Finally - in front of the film camera - he was able to live out his own belief of acting which was the opposite of the requirements at school. He loved to reduce and to express feelings solely by glances and a minimum of gestures and facial expression. According to his teachers in the theatre he was only able to catch the first row. But now he met the facility - not to gain the last rows by broaden himself - but to bring them closer using the camera. At last he felt like coming home.

With his first role he gained the attention of the Austrian director Michael Haneke, who cast him for two of his productions. After the Kafka adaption The Castle (1997), Giering starred the cine film Funny Games (1997). With the figure of the sadistic murderer he became popular over night.

The final breakthrough followed 1999 with his performance as Floyd in Gigantic (1999) by Sebastian Schipper, a small but particular film about friendship, longing and farewell and a very last but magic night in Hamburg. For a short time he was announced as one of the promising up-and-coming actors of Germany. Comparisons were drawn with James Dean, much less due to similarities in visual nature but due to an aura of "lostness" and lonesomeness which both actors surrounded.

Giering felt quite overstrained to live up this expectation. He described himself as extremely shy and uncertain, full of feelings of inferiority and melancholia. Only in front of the camera he felt really free and secure. Aside of the camera he suffered from fear of loss and anxiety about the future, which also led to the break of several relationships. Actually he said once that he couldn't believe in being loved by someone. Due to the fact that he never had faith in the skills he owned but only in those he lacked.

His alcohol consumption - to compensate his uncertainties and the emptiness between the films - raised more and more a problem. In 2001 he decided for a half-yearly rehab. In the following he always stood by his struggle against alcoholism (and his very own demons) in a quite public way, also to give impulses and courage for people in the same situation, something he sadly missed in his own setting.

Giering attended twice at the film festival Berlinale (Berlin, Germany), 2002 starring Andreas Baader in Baader (2002), 2004 with the Jon Fosse adaption Die Nacht singt ihre Lieder (2004). Both films were failed by the bigger part of the press and leads to controversial discussions.

Especially the production of "Die Nacht singt ihre Lieder" (about the shattering of a love affair and the cruelty of silence in occasions something rather should have been said) was a matter close to his heart due to some parallels in his own vita. After this negative experience Giering mainly gave up the cinema business and focused on television productions. In his opinion he was much less attackable on the smaller screen.

From 2006 until his death in June 2010 Giering played - next to Christian Berkel - the role of "Kommissar Henry Weber" in the TV series Der Kriminalist (2006). After his sudden death during the current production, the figure of Henry Weber died, too. For paying deep respect and sympathy the production company decided not to impute a fictional ending. For that reason episode 7.3 "Tod eines Begleiters" opened with the funeral of Henry Weber.

In many obituaries was read - due to the quantity and deficient diligence by selecting his roles - Giering undersold himself and burned out by less important featured parts. Indeed he seemed not to care about what he was acting as long as he was acting and able to forget his fears and lonesomeness for just that moment.

Just as many times it was mentioned that scarcely anybody else in Germany was able to act with such an intensity and depth. Due to the fact that he never ever played (simulate) emotions but lived it in the moment of acting he offered much more of himself than usual and allowed the audience to get adamantly close to him. That and the fact that hardly anyone else ever radiated such a sadness and lonesomeness might be the reason that he was able to deeply move even in his least roles.

Frank Giering died on 23th of June 2010. The official cause of dead is given by multiple organ failure due to an acute bilious colic. On 9th of July 2010 he was buried at the "Neustädter Friedhof" in Magdeburg (Germany).

Helga Sommerfeld was born on 5 March 1941 in Dresden, Germany. She was an actress, known for Code Name: Jaguar (1965), Man on the Spying Trapeze (1966) and Da Berlino l'apocalisse (1967). She died on 28 September 1991 in Berlin, Germany.

Blonde, blue-eyed Karin Baal was born as Karin Blauermel in Berlin. She grew up fatherless, raised by her mother who toiled as a seamstress and factory worker. After completing secondary school at age sixteen, Karin commenced training as a fashion illustrator. By pure chance, she learned that the director Georg Tressler was in the process of casting for a 'Marina Vlady'-type as the female lead for his new film Teenage Wolfpack (1956). Without any formal acting training whatsoever, Karin passed her audition and was selected for the coveted role as one among 700 other hopefuls. Due to her lack of experience, she was dubbed by Brigitte Grothum.

In 1959, Karin completed her acting and voice training under Luise Berger and Ilse Bonger. This opened up roles for her in the theatre. In the course of succeeding decades, she appeared regularly on stages in Berlin, Munich and Zurich. The high point of her performing career were successful tours in plays by Heinrich Böll ('Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum'), Jean-Paul Sartre and Francis Durbridge.

On screen, Karin's role in Teenage Wolfpack set the tone for her subsequent gallery of young rebels, delinquents and temptresses in films like Judge and Juvenile (1960), Die junge Sünderin (1960) (which garnered her a 1960 Bambi as Best Upcoming Actress) and Rosemary (1958). Conversely, she also portrayed 'damsels in distress' in the Edgar Wallace potboilers Dead Eyes of London (1961) and The Horror of Blackwood Castle (1968).

By the 70s, Karin had begun to work increasingly in television. Many of her guest appearances were supporting roles in 'Krimis' (crime shows), like Der Kommissar (1969), Sonderdezernat K1 (1972), Derrick (1974), The Old Fox (1977) and Tatort (1970). She also featured in a trio of Rainer Werner Fassbinder productions: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) (as the niece of Franz Biberkopf, played by Günter Lamprecht), as a resistance fighter in Lili Marleen (1981) and as the mother of madam Lola (1981) (Barbara Sukowa).

Karin's final screen appearance was in 2011. A year later, she published her memoirs under the title Ungezähmt - Mein Leben. In it, she has recounted her tormented personal life, including four failed marriages, problems with depression, alcohol and cocaine addiction and frequent resulting trips to rehab clinics.

By 2016, and on the road to recovery, she confirmed her retirement from acting, saying that everything (in show biz) today felt 'too impersonal' and 'machine-like'. Karin Baal has latterly resided in Berlin-Charlottenburg, subsisting on a modest pension. In 2018, she was honoured with the inaugural Götz-George-Prize for her lifetime contribution to film.

Ernst Ziegler was born on 16 April 1894 in Weilerbach, Palatinate, Bavaria [now Rhineland-Palatinate], Germany. He was an actor, known for Something for Everyone (1970), The Naked Countess (1971) and Josefine M. (1970). He died on 11 April 1974 in Berlin, Germany.

Marie Gruber was born on 11 June 1955 in Wuppertal, Germany. She was an actress, known for The Lives of Others (2006), The Reader (2008) and Frantz (2016). She died on 8 February 2018 in Berlin, Germany.

Eva Braun was the longtime companion of Adolf Hitler and, for less than 40 hours, his wife. Braun met Hitler in Munich when she was a 17-year-old assistant and model for his personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann. She began seeing Hitler often about two years later. She attempted suicide twice during their early relationship. By 1936, she was a part of his household at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden and lived a sheltered life throughout World War II. Braun was a photographer, and she took many of the surviving color photographs and films of Hitler. She was a key figure within Hitler's inner social circle, but did not attend public events with him until mid-1944.

As Nazi Germany was collapsing towards the end of the war, Eva Braun swore loyalty to Hitler and went to Berlin to be by his side in the heavily reinforced Führerbunker beneath the Reich Chancellery. As Red Army troops fought their way into the neighborhood on 29 April 1945, she married Hitler during a brief civil ceremony; she was 33 and he was 56. Less than 40 hours later, they committed suicide together in a sitting room of the bunker, she by biting into a capsule of cyanide, and he by a gunshot to the head. The German public was unaware of Braun's relationship with Hitler until after their deaths.

Joachim Hansen was the 'poster boy' for German movie officers in films of the 1950's and 60's. Masculine and of commanding presence, he portrayed such historical figures as Luftwaffe ace Hans Joachim Marseille in Der Stern von Afrika (1957) and Generaloberst Alfred Jodl in The Winds of War (1983) and War and Remembrance (1988). His many international credits as men in uniform include Captain Baumann in The Bridge at Remagen (1969), a British lieutenant caught up in a sectarian uprising in India in Kali Yug, la dea della vendetta (1963) and a senior SS officer in The Eagle Has Landed (1976).

A teacher's son, Hansen began his working career as an English and French translator. He studied acting at the Max Reinhardt Academy in Berlin and was spotted there by the director Alfred Weidenmann who starred him in his 1956 film debut. Thereafter, he rarely found himself out of uniform, but remained firmly in command just the same, as police inspectors (Das Geheimnis der schwarzen Koffer (1962)), men of impeccable integrity (Via Mala (1961)) or outdoorsy heroes in romantic melodramas (Duel with Death (1959)). Hansen segued into character roles on the small screen during the 1970's and 80's. He emigrated to Canada in 1986, but returned to Germany for occasional theatrical appearances. He died in Berlin after suffering a stroke in September 2007, aged 77.

The son of an accountant, Paul Hubschmid was born, raised and schooled in Schoenenwerd, Switzerland. He trained for an acting career at the Max Reinhardt Seminar of Dramatic Art in Vienna and first appeared on stage at the Vienna Volkstheater in 1937. His motion picture debut took place the following year. He was cast as the titular hero in the patriotic Swiss production Füsilier Wipf (1938), which was directed by that nation's pre-eminent film maker of the time, Leopold Lindtberg. The role opened the doors for the tall (1.92 m), wavy-haired and handsome actor and he soon moved on to a more lucrative career in Germany. After a stint with the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, he slipped effortlessly into a succession of romantic leads opposite established stars such as Luise Ullrich (Der Fall Rainer (1942)) and Hilde Krahl (Meine Freundin Josefine (1942)).

His presence in German films during the Nazi period (though mostly in light entertainments without significant political content) did not prove detrimental to his spell in Hollywood, which began with a seven-year contract in 1948. Having almost no perceptible trace of an accent, he fitted right into the role of 'Paul Christian', the stage name which was assigned to him for the handful of films he made in tinseltown. Some were outright stinkers, like No Time for Flowers (1952), which veered uneasily between silly comedy and fruity melodrama. Best of the bunch was the cult sci-fi The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), which started the cycle of giant monster films in the 1950's and featured the work of renowned special effects expert Ray Harryhausen. The film cost a mere $200,000 to make and grossed in excess of $ 5 million. With the audience attention firmly fixed on the dinosaur, the cast seemed at times redundant. Paul, in the leading role of scientist Tom Nesbitt, did the best he could with the clichéd script. Since no better parts were forthcoming, Paul dissolved his contract after just four years and returned home.

Back in Germany, he was considerably better served in the role of composer Franz Liszt in the Franco-German co-production Ungarische Rhapsodie (1954); and in a trilogy of hugely popular escapist adventure films, exotically set in India: The Tiger of Eschnapur (1959), The Indian Tomb (1959) and Journey to the Lost City (1960). Paul had aged remarkably well and was able to carry off his romantic leading man image into the 1960's. From the beginning of the decade, he also moved into character acting, playing Professor Higgins in "My Fair Lady" more than 2000 times on stage, most frequently at Berlin's Theater des Westens. On screen, he now appeared more frequently as bon vivants, reprobates or villains, most memorable as double agent Johnny Vulkan in Funeral in Berlin (1966), the second of Len Deighton's Harry Palmer trilogy. In 1980, he was awarded the German Filmband in Gold. During the 1980's he scaled down his workload, confining himself to guesting in made-for-television movies and series. He retired from acting in 1992 and died nine years later in Berlin at the age of 84 of a pulmonary embolism.