Grethe Weiser

File:Grethe Weiser.jpg

German stamp issued in 2000 in the Women in German history series

File:Grethe Weiser-Schwerin.jpg

The Grave of Grethe Weiser and her husband Dr Hermann Schwerin in Berlin in 2006.

Grethe Weiser (27 February 1903 – 2 October 1970) was a German actress.

Biography

Born in Hanover, she spent her childhood in Dresden. She escaped from her dominant and sometimes violent father by marrying a Jewish confectionery manufacturer in 1920. Her only child, a son, was born in 1922. Quite quickly she established herself in the cabaret scene in Berlin, especially after her husband became a leaseholder of a nightclub on the Kurfürstendamm. Her film debut came soon after in 1927.

Weiser had a lifelong relationship with Hermann Schwerin, an UFA film producer, which began in 1934, but the couple were not married until 1958. Her previous marriage had been dissolved in 1934. Weiser, unusually for an actress, avoided becoming a member of the Nazi Party. She managed to finance and arrange for her previous husband and her son to survive the Nazi years in Switzerland, as well as at the same time continue her career in Germany.

She died after a road traffic accident, aged 67, in Untersteinbach near Bad Tölz in Bavaria and is buried in an "Ehrengrab" (Honorary Grave) at the Heerstraße Cemetery in Berlin.

Selected filmography

• Gretel Wins First Prize (1933)
• Just Once a Great Lady (1934)
• Bashful Felix (1934)
• His Late Excellency (1935)
• Fräulein Veronika (1936)
• Hilde and the Volkswagen (1936)
• Men Without a Fatherland (1937)
• My Friend Barbara (1937)
• The Divine Jetta (1937)
• Women for Golden Hill (1938)
• Woman at the Wheel (1939)
• We Make Music (1942)
• The Buchholz Family (1944)
• The Master Detective (1944)
• Somewhere in Berlin (1946)
• Tromba (1949)
• Love '47 (1949)
• Gabriela (1950)
• The Mine Foreman (1952)
• The Empress of China (1953)
• The Rose of Stamboul (1953)
• The Cousin from Nowhere (1953)
• It Was Always So Nice With You (1954)
• My Leopold (1955)
• Fruit in the Neighbour's Garden (1956)
• Just Once a Great Lady (1957)
• Aunt Wanda from Uganda (1957)
• The Legs of Dolores (1957)
• Freddy and the Melody of the Night (1960)
• Freddy and the Millionaire (1961)

Further reading

• Hans Borgelt: Grethe Weiser. Herz mit Schnauze. (Sonderausgabe.) Schneekluth, München 1983 ISBN 3-7951-0769-5

External links

• Grethe Weiser at the Internet Movie Database
• Photographs and bibliography