Marga Behrends

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Marga Behrends (born October 9, 1907 in Berlin ; † May 20, 2010 ibid) was a German dancer and dance teacher who was repeatedly referred to in the media as the "last tiller girl ". From around 1992 to 2006 she performed regularly on stages even in old age.

Life

Dancer in the Admiralspalast

Against the will of her father, who was a moral policeman , Marga Behrends took dance lessons. She applied to the Admiralspalast as a "Tillergirl", so as a revue dancer, and was also accepted. She performed there until 1933. Her father initially forbade her further appearances when he spotted her on an advertising column on a poster advertising the palace . For a while Marga Behrends worked at a men's tailor shop until her parents finally accepted her appearance. She played small roles in feature films, for example in Das Mädchen vom Spittelmarkt with Grete Mosheim . As a dancer in the Admiralspalast she met Otto Dix , Fritz Kortner , Kurt Weill , Adele Sandrock , Billy Wilder and Paul Lincke , for example . She was also friends with the still unknown Marlene Dietrich .

At the age of 20 she had an illegitimate son, Hans. Gerda, her sister, and her parents took care of the son. After the Admiralspalast was closed in 1933, she appeared on various stages until she married her husband Ludwig in 1939, who, however, forbade her to be an artist. She and her husband temporarily moved to Prague , protected pregnancy in order to avoid working in an arms factory, and made a living by maintaining German troops. In World War II, her father and her sister Gerda came around: Your sister was of Russian soldiers raped and the father shot dead as he tried to rush to his daughter's aid. Gerda later committed suicide .

After the Second World War

After the end of the war, she lived with her husband Ludwig on Borkum until 1947 , where they ran a café and a dance school. In 1947 both returned to Berlin, where Marga Behrends retired to private life until 1980.

Between 1980 and 1992, Behrends earned money as a toilet lady in the "i-Punkt" restaurant at the Europa Center in Berlin , in addition to his tight pension . (According to some sources, she and her husband leased the toilet or even the entire restaurant, but this is very likely an embellished version.)

Return to the stage

In 1991 she played a small extra role in the film Das Haus am See next to Hildegard Knef . Her husband Ludwig died in 1992. Soon after, she happened to meet Rachelina Giordano's singer Rachelina Giordano from Rachelina and the Maccheronies in a bakery , with whom she soon appeared together. She often sang the self-composed song All Men Are Camels . She later met the pianist Frank Augustin, with whom she performed songs by Zarah Leander and Marlene Dietrich. She also got to know the director Thomas Nennstiel , who hired her for his TV series Motzki and who became a good friend of Behrends. Their birthdays were often celebrated in Berlin restaurants with numerous guests, sometimes including the Berlin mayor .

In 2006 she performed at the reopening of the Admiralspalast.

With interruptions, Behrends spent her entire life in Berlin-Kreuzberg . She was born on Tempelherrenstrasse and then lived on Fürbringerstrasse.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Biography of Marga Behrends . Retrieved January 17, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Behrends, Marga
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German dancer and singer
DATE OF BIRTH October 9, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 20, 2010
Place of death Berlin