Manja Behrens

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Manja Behrens in
1954 in Berlin

Manja Behrens , married. Manja von Appen , (born April 12, 1914 in Dresden , † January 18, 2003 in Berlin ) was a German actress .

Life

Behrens, daughter of a lawyer and notary and the royal Saxon court actress Maria Lichtenegg , initially studied English in Prague, but had to end the course early due to financial worries in the family. She worked as a dental assistant until 1935 and, at the same time, from 1930 took private acting lessons with Waldemar Staegemann and later with Erich Ponto . In 1935 she made her debut as an actress at the Dresden State Theater in the play Und Pippa tanzt! where she became a sought-after actress overnight. "The way Ms. Behrens speaks, I would like to be spoken," said Gerhart Hauptmann after the theater premiere of the play.

From 1935 to 1953 she was engaged - with brief interruptions - at the Dresden State Theater, initially as a youthful lover and naive in tabloids , later increasingly in classical roles. With the help of Adolf Wohlbrück , an Austrian actor, Tobis offered Behrens a film contract for 2,000 Reichsmarks for Stronger Than Paragraphs , which appeared in 1936. This was followed by a better-paid contract for her second feature film Susanna im Bade and further feature film planning, whereby her two-year contract provided for fees of 12,000 and 18,000 Reichsmarks. After both roles, however, there was a break with Joseph Goebbels , who courted her, but was rejected by her. Behrens himself described the situation in the documentary series Hitler's Helpers as “a very unpleasant encounter with Mr. Goebbels” and continued: “Before I do something like that, I would rather scrub stairs. I may have been a little abusive and he said, 'I'll take you off the list of films with a red pen' ". She returned to the theater in Dresden. At a film ball in 1940 she met Martin Bormann , with whom she had an affair. This was tolerated by Bormann's wife. In the last year of the war, Behrens worked as a screwdriver in a factory.

Manja Behrens' grave in Dresden

After the end of World War II Behrens came into contemporary pieces in Dresden and in 1952 in the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm before 1953 at the Volksbühne Berlin changed where it until 1967, a commitment was. It was here that Behrens met her future husband, the set designer Karl von Appen , whom she married in 1958. Several DEFA film productions followed , such as Konrad Wolfs Sonnensucher in 1957 and Frank Beyer's Carbide and Sorrel in 1964 . She became a sought-after character actress.

In the mid-1960s, her love affair with Martin Bormann was discovered by the British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper , who examined Bormann's diaries and who could only identify Behrens, who appeared there as "M." The magazine Bunte reported extensively on this "secret" relationship in an issue. A film ban for almost 20 years followed.

The actress moved to the Maxim Gorki Theater in 1967 , where she was on stage for almost 25 years until the reunification. Despite the film ban, which was in place until around 1980, she occasionally took part in small film roles in television productions of the DFF . Since 1980, major film roles followed in GDR television films as well as in German television films. In addition, she also took on guest roles at the Burgtheater Vienna, the State Theater Bern and the Stadttheater Ingolstadt. “She is one of the actresses who are essential for German theater,” wrote Der Tagesspiegel on the occasion of her 85th birthday. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, she devoted herself to theater performances, among other things, to lecture tours.

After the death of her husband, she administered his estate and, among other things, preserved the model of the sutler's car from Brecht's mother Courage , which was pulled by Helene Weigel . Behrens died in Berlin in 2003 and was buried next to her husband in the Weißer Hirsch forest cemetery in Dresden.

Filmography

theatre

Awards

literature

Web links

Commons : Manja Behrens  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b On the death of the actress Manja Behrens [excerpts from a conversation with Lothar Ehrlich in July 1992]. In: Dresdner Latest News , January 24, 2003, p. 8.
  2. ↑ a b quot. after Hanns-Georg Rodek: Bormann's lover. The actress Manja Behrens loved Bormann and spoiled it with Goebbels . In: Die Welt , March 15, 2003, p. 29.
  3. ↑ Hanns-Georg Rodek: Bormann's beloved. The actress Manja Behrens loved Bormann and spoiled it with Goebbels . In: Die Welt , March 15, 2003, p. 29.
  4. ↑ Heinz Fiedler: Much gloss and a dark chapter . In: Sächsische Zeitung , September 6, 2013, p. 8.
  5. ↑ Never tired. For the 85th birthday of actress Manja Behrens. In: Der Tagesspiegel , April 11, 1999, p. 26.
  6. ↑ Irma Weinreich: "Obsessive Theater Animal". Actress Manja Behrens turns 85 . Swiss dispatch agency, April 5, 1999.
personal data
SURNAME Behrens, Manja
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Appen, Manja from (married name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actress
DATE OF BIRTH April 12, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH January 18, 2003
Place of death Berlin