Hans Söhnker

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Hans Söhnker (1946)
Hans Söhnker (right) in To the golden anchor by Marcel Pagnol , Schlossparktheater Berlin (1946) - with Hans Leibelt (left)

Hans Albert Edmund Söhnker (born October 11, 1903 in Kiel , † April 20, 1981 in Berlin ) was a German actor .

Life

Hans Söhnker was the son of the trained carpenter and later bookseller Adolph Edmund Söhnker (1865–1939) and his wife Maria Magdalene, née. Stölting (1868 / 69-1967); he had four older sisters and one younger brother. He attended middle school and higher commercial school in Kiel, but developed an inclination for the theater early on . He took acting lessons from Clemens Schubert and received his first engagement at the Kiel Theater in 1922 . His first major role was that of Hermann Kasimir in Frank Wedekind's Marquis von Keith . In 1924 he moved to Frankfurt (Oder) and in 1925 to Gdansk , where he worked in musical comedies participated. Söhnker took lessons in singing to themselves as operettas - Tenor to be trained - which in 1929 almost on a nodule on the vocal cords failed.

After the successful healing, which had prevented him from singing for several months, he performed in Baden-Baden , Danzig , Chemnitz and Bremen . Finally, Söhnker was discovered in 1933 by Viktor Janson for the film The Tsarevich and thus for Ufa . Söhnker starred in the films Every Woman Has a Secret (1934), The Model Husband (1937), Frau nach Maß (1940), A Man with Principles (1943), The Angel with the String Game (1944) and Great Freedom No. 7 (1944).

During the time of the Third Reich , Söhnker, in cooperation with other film people, repeatedly hid Jews from the National Socialists , which resulted in him being blacklisted by the Gestapo several times . In 2018 he was posthumously awarded the Righteous Among the Nations award, which his great-niece, the actress Anneke Kim Sarnau , accepted. On the other hand, Söhnker also participated in some propaganda films such as Blood Brotherhood .

The much younger Hardy Krüger said in 2018 at the age of ninety that Söhnker had become “the most important person” in his life in 1943, “because he had the courage to tell an Adolf Hitler student that his demigod is a criminal. And that the war is lost ”. Kruger was allowed to act in the Nazi propaganda film Junge Adler ; In the hall next door in Berlin- Babelsberg he saw Söhnker and Hans Albers filming Große Freiheit No. 7 . Söhnker then became "a little" his "surrogate father".

After the Second World War , Söhnker was one of the first actors to resume theater life in Berlin at the Schlossparktheater with Boleslaw Barlog . Söhnker continued his film career alongside Hildegard Knef and Willy Fritsch in 1948 with the successful post-war production Film Untitled , which he later described as one of his favorite films . He also played in Hallo Fräulein! (1949), White Shadows (1951), The Stronger (1953), Highness Let Ask (1954), What We Are Talking About (1958), Sherlock Holmes and the Collar of Death (1962) and in other films. In contrast to the first half of his film career, when he was always the elegant charmer, after the war he often played characters whose faces showed the fateful experiences.

From the early 1960s, Söhnker appeared in numerous television productions. The series Der Forellenhof (1965), in which the actor was seen as a hotel owner, and Salto Mortale (1969–1971), where he appeared as a ringmaster, were very successful . He had great success with the 13-part family series My Sons-in-Law and I (1968). The series It does not always have to be Schlager (1967), which was broadcast on the ARD evening program, was very well received by viewers and met with positive press coverage. Söhnker occupied the role of the charming grand seigneur and was one of the most popular television stars of the 1960s and 1970s.

In addition to his work as an actor, the charming conversationalist Söhnker was employed as a conférencier and presenter . In his films, Söhnker was also given the opportunity to sing, and many of the songs he performed in film productions (but also many other titles) appeared on records.

In 1968 Söhnker was appointed state actor . In 1973 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit and in 1977 the gold film ribbon for his life's work. He published his memoir in 1974 under the title … and not a day too many .

Söhnker married the actress Charlotte Berlow (born May 28, 1898 in Berlin, † 1960) in 1928/29 and, in 1959, her second marriage was Ingeborg Knoche-Lücken.

Hans Söhnker died in 1981 at the age of 77 in Berlin-Grunewald . His urn was according to his wish in the Baltic Sea before Travemünde buried .

Filmography

Songs

  • 1934: Baden-Baden (duet with Eugen Rex )
  • 1934: Love has a touch of romance (with the Five Parodisters )
  • 1934: I sing myself into your heart
  • 1934: Every woman has a secret
  • 1934: A kiss after the store closes
  • 1934: You look at a girl
  • 1935: Dear comrade, give me your hand (with the Metropol Vocalists )
  • 1935: Be good to me again, little woman
  • 1936: fruits that are banned
  • 1936: A beautiful woman belongs to the car
  • 1936: You can say such beautiful things to each other in tango
  • 1936: stupid little thing
  • 1936: One morning, one at noon, one kiss in the evening
  • 1936: Under the pine trees of Argentina
  • 1936: The defiant head
  • 1936: I think it's time
  • 1937: Women are my fate
  • 1937: Who does a woman make herself beautiful for?
  • 1937: On the Rue Madeleine in Paris (duet with Anny Ondra )
  • 1937: I have no castle and you have no palace (duet with Anny Ondra)
  • 1937: Who will your heart belong to next Sunday, Miss? (Duet with Magda Schneider )
  • 1937: Music for you

Radio plays (selection)

synchronization

As a voice actor he lent his voice to Rex Harrison (Die Ungetreue) , Laurence Olivier (Visit to the Night) and Michael Wilding (An Ideal Husband), among others .

Awards

literature

Web links

Commons : Hans Söhnker  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography of Adolph Edmund Söhnker in the district newspaper SPD Kiel-Süd PDF, p. 5
  2. ^ "Hans Söhnker 60 years old" in the Pforzheimer Zeitung of October 10, 1963, p. 7
  3. ↑ English database entry. In: Database of the Righteous Among the Nations. Yad Vashem, accessed February 3, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Israel honors Hans Söhnker as "Righteous Among the Nations". In: Jüdische Allgemeine. October 31, 2018, accessed November 4, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Conversation by Ijoma Mangold with Krüger in the series That was my rescue , in: weekly newspaper Die Zeit , Hamburg, No. 31, July 26, 2018, supplement Zeit-Magazin , p. 46
  6. ^ Andreas Zemke: Actors in conversation. 1976 Interview with Hans Söhnker. Deutsche Welle, December 5, 2011, accessed on April 11, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Charlotte Berlow - IMDb
personal data
SURNAME Söhnker, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Söhnker, Hans Albert Edmund (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiel , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1981
Place of death Berlin , Federal Republic of Germany