Grethe Weiser was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 actress.

Biography

Born in Hanover

Hanover

Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...

, she spent her childhood in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

. 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

Cabaret

Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...

 scene in Berlin, especially after her husband became a leaseholder of a nightclub on the Kurfürstendamm

Kurfürstendamm

The Kurfürstendamm, known locally as the Ku'damm, is one of the most famous avenues in Berlin. The street takes its name from the former Kurfürsten of Brandenburg. This very broad, long boulevard can be considered the Champs-Élysées of Berlin — full of shops, houses, hotels and restaurants...

. Her film debut came soon after in 1927.

Weiser had a lifelong relationship with Hermann Schwerin, an UFA

UFA

Ufa is a city in Russia.UFA or Ufa may also refer to:*Ufa River, a river in Russia*Ufa, Ethiopia, a town in Ethiopia*Ultra flat architecture, a network architecture design for LTE 4G mobile telecommunication networks...

 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 in Untersteinbach near Bad Tölz

Bad Tölz

Bad Tölz is a town in Bavaria, Germany, and administrative center of the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen.- History :Since the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the Ice Age, archaeology has shown continuous occupation of the site of Bad Tölz...

 in Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

 and is buried in an "Ehrengrab

Ehrengrab

An Ehrengrab is a distinction granted by certain German, Swiss and Austrian cities to one of their citizens for extraordinary services or achievements in their lifetime. If there are no descendants or institutions to care for the gravesite, the communities or cities will take responsibility for...

" (Honorary Grave) at the Heerstraße Cemetery in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

.

Further reading

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

External links

• Photographs and bibliography