Kirsten Heiberg

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kirsten Heiberg in the 1930s.

Kirsten Heiberg (born April 25, 1907 in Kragerø , Norway , † March 2, 1976 in Oslo ) was a Norwegian singer and actress . She was a UFA star and femme fatale of German films in the Third Reich .

Life

Kirsten Heiberg grew up in an artistically oriented, middle-class family. After attending schools and boarding schools in Lausanne, Dijon and Paris, she went to study in Great Britain to study English at Oxford. Her father wanted her to get an education so that she could earn a living. Instead of working in his wood factory, she preferred to become an actress. Since Norway did not have an acting academy at that time, Kirsten Heiberg began to “read” with other actors at the Nationaltheatret in Oslo, which means learning the profession.

Heiberg made his debut on December 17, 1929 in Bergen at the Den Nationale Scene theater . Numerous engagements followed in Bergen and Oslo. In 1937 she went to Vienna to play the leading role in the revue operetta Pam-Pam at the Theater an der Wien . Originally she was supposed to take on the role of Zarah Leander in the play Axel at Heaven's Door , which she declined. In Vienna she met the composer Franz Grothe , who attended the piece. After finishing her engagement at the Theater an der Wien, she went to Berlin with Grothe in December 1937. The couple married on May 30, 1938 in Oslo. Grothe had been a member of the NSDAP since 1933 .

After she had already been in front of the camera in her Norwegian homeland in 1934 in Syndere i sommersol , two more Norwegian and three Swedish films followed. In 1938 Grothe introduced her to Curt Goetz , who hired her for the role of Fiffi in his film Napoleon is to blame for everything . Her appearance with the song Why did Napoleon ... was the beginning of her film and record career in Germany.

The UFA made her the "erotic ambassador of the far north". Her role in the film Women for Golden Hill (1938 with Viktor Staal ) became a prime example of the sophisticated diva appearance . This was followed in 1939 by Alarm on Station III with Gustav Fröhlich and Der Singende Tor (a German-Italian co-production with Beniamino Gigli  - in Italy La casa lontana ). As a classy “femme fatale” she appeared in adventure and spy films and sang her way into the hearts of the audience as a chansonnière , especially with songs from her husband Franz Grothe. Her dark timbre and her erotic charisma gave her presentation a special charm. In the propaganda films Warning! Enemy hears with! (1940), counterfeiters (1940) and The Golden Spider (1943), as a seductive "angel noir", tore men to their ruin.

From April 1, 1939, she was a member of the Kameradschaft der Deutschen Künstler (KddK), an organization responsible for the dissemination of National Socialist art and founded by the "Reich stage designer" and SS member Benno von Arent . Heiberg was also in the Wehrmacht - troops care very active. She traveled through Germany and abroad, especially in 1941, to maintain the troops.

Kirsten Heiberg was never a party member. After the war, Heiberg claimed that she refused to join the party, expressed her displeasure with the occupation of her Norwegian homeland, and for this reason had been banned from performing for two years. However, no documents have yet been found in German or Norwegian archives to support these claims. Rather, Heiberg's name is on the payrolls of the German film industry from 1940, when she became a member of the Reichsfilmkammer , until 1945.

In 1943 she played leading roles in both the revue film Love Premiere as well as in Titanic . After her participation in the Philharmonic , she had expressive appearances in Die Schwarze Robe (1944) and Eine Tages (1945) (in the latter also musically with Ich stand 'alone ), but lost the hero (both Richard Häussler ) to the German heroines Magda Schneider or Lotte Koch . Your last film, Riddle of the Night (1945), was shot at the end of the Second World War , but was still uncut . It was only performed in East Berlin in 1950 .

In February 1945 Kirsten Heiberg and Franz Grothe traveled to Radstadt in the Hohe Tauern in Austria to film. In the course of the collapse, the couple traveled via Munich to Murnau in April , where they saw the American invasion on April 29, 1945. After a performance ban, presumably until the summer of 1946, during which she appeared with her husband and other artists in front of American troops and sang to an audience through the western zones, she can officially perform and work again by autumn 1946 at the latest due to her denazification. At the end of 1946 at the end of the war, she worked as a voice actor in Tenningen near Freiburg and lent her voice to Marlene Dietrich in the German version of the film Martin Roumagnac . In 1948 Heiberg took part in a major revue in Hamburg . After the war she made three films in Germany: Amico (1949), Hafenmelodie (1949) and Sacrifice of the Heart / Furioso (1950).

After her marriage to Franz Grothe broke up, Heiberg returned to her home country in 1951, but was labeled a traitor to the fatherland because of her role in Nazi Germany and no longer received any film offers. However, she got a job as an actress at Trøndelag Teater in Trondheim , where she played a variety of roles with great success, both in modern comedies as well as in classic plays by Shakespeare and Ibsen . In 1960 she moved to Oslo, where she wanted to continue her career. However, she was boycotted there and only received five minor roles from 1960 to her death in 1976.

In 1954 she returned to Germany one last time for her appearance in the film It was always so nice with you . It was contractually agreed beforehand that this film should not be shown in Norway. However, the film was also shown in Norwegian cinemas a few weeks after its German premiere. Kirsten Heiberg sang the chanson So or so is life ; his last words ("I have never regretted it") brought her again a negative press from her compatriots. After that she only appeared in front of the camera once again: in 1966 she played a small supporting role in the Norwegian production Broder Gabrielsen .

In 2008, a theatrical monologue about her life was performed at the Haugesund film festival . In 2014, the author Björn-Erik Hanssen published Glamor for Goebbels, a biography about Kirsten Heiberg, which unfortunately strings together many unproven and false claims. In June 2019, on the occasion of Franz Grothe's 110th birthday, an event with Grothes works and discussions with contemporary witnesses and his biographers was held in his former home in Bad Wiessee, at which the life and work of Heiberg was also illuminated.

Filmography

Discography (selection)

  • Evenings at the piano, 1937 (duet with Fritz Spielmann )
  • Invisible Tears, 1937
  • Like the snow from last year, 1937
  • Don't ask about the past, 1937
  • Why did Napoleon, 1938
  • I am what I am, 1938
  • Close your eyes and dream
  • Don't Show Your Heart To The World, 1938
  • On the wings of colorful dreams, 1938
  • Very quietly, 1938
  • My dear friend, you are invited today, 1939
  • Yes and no, 1939
  • Give me 24 hours of love, 1939
  • Walloon folk song, 1940
  • I love all men, 1940
  • When a young man comes, 1940
  • For an hour of passion, 1942
  • Serenade from the Pied Piper, 1942
  • Come on, magic of the night, 1943
  • I am free today, gentlemen, in 1943
  • My heart is trapped in your hand, 1943
  • I stand 'alone', 1945
  • It stays between us, 1945
  • Didi Song , 1949
  • The Song of the Outgoing Ships, 1949
  • The Morality of the Prodigal Son, 1949
  • Valse bleue in minor, 1950
  • Come on, gypsies take the violin, 1950
  • One way or another, life is 1954

Available CDs

  • Successes 1937–1943 , fpr music 2005
  • Syngende Skuespillere (Singing Actors) , 2009, NOMCD3043 - two songs from Heiberg's only Norwegian shellac record

Available films / DVDs

  • Titanic
  • Napoleon is to blame for everything ( Edition Filmmuseum , Munich)
  • Hafenmelodie (Edel, 2016)

literature

  • Arild Bratteland, Klaus Krüger: Elegant by nature, wicked against will. Kirsten Heiberg - her life, her career. In: Fox on 78th issue 13, 1994, pp. 12-16
  • Björn-Erik Hanssen: Glamor for Goebbels - histories from Kirsten Heiberg . Aschehoug Verlag, Oslo 2014, (in Norwegian)
  • Alexander Hess: Kirsten Heiberg - muse and 'vamp against will'. In: Theresa Henkel and Franzpeter Messmer (eds.): Franz Grothe. Composers in Bavaria. Volume 64, Munich 2019, pp. 39–53

Web links

Commons : Kirsten Heiberg  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alexander Hess: Kirsten Heiberg - Muse and Vamp against Will ". In: Franz Grothe (Composers in Bavaria, Volume 64), pp. 40–42.
  2. ↑ member directory KddK, German National Library, Leipzig.
  3. ↑ Kirsten Heiberg's troop support contracts, Federal Archives Lichterfelde, Berlin
  4. ↑ Alexander Hess: Kirsten Heiberg - Muse and Vamp against Will ". In: Franz Grothe (Composers in Bavaria, Volume 64), p. 51.
  5. ^ Wage lists for German film actors, Federal Archives Lichterfelde, Berlin.
  6. ↑ Alexander Hess: Kirsten Heiberg - Muse and "Vamp again sake". In: Franz Grothe (Composers in Bavaria, Volume 64), pp. 47/48.
  7. ↑ Alexander Hess: Kirsten Heiberg - Muse and "Vamp again sake", p. 48/49.
  8. ↑ Alexander Hess: Kirsten Heiberg - Muse and Vamp against Will ", p. 49.
  9. ↑ see Hess (2019) in: Theresa Henkel and Franzpeter Messmer (eds.): Franz Grothe. Composers in Bavaria. Volume 64, Munich 2019, pp. 39–53
  10. ↑ https://www.vhs-trk.de/index.php?id=92&kathaupt=11&knr=191-85301&kursname=Leben+und+Werk+Franz+Grothe&wbt3_redirect=warkorb
  11. ↑ http://www.fox-auf-78.de/FOX-auf-78/Ververzeichnis.html
personal data
SURNAME Heiberg, Kirsten
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian singer and actress
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Kragerø , Norway
DATE OF DEATH March 2, 1976
Place of death Oslo , Norway