Sybille Schmitz

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Sybille Schmitz

Anna Maria Sybille Schmitz married Petersson (born December 2, 1909 in Düren , † April 13, 1955 in Munich ) was a German actress .

First years

Sybille Schmitz grew up in a middle-class environment. Her grandmother owned a pastry shop in Düren, her father Joseph was a master confectioner, mother Anna, née Dahmen, came from the family of a mattress manufacturer. After attending the Catholic Lyceum in Düren, Sybille was sent to boarding school in 1920, to the monastery school in Lohr am Main . Here her morally strict mother had already been taught by nuns. Sybille, of strong stature, was often given trouser roles in the theater group . After three years she left Lohr and, at the request of her father, attended a business school in Cologne at the age of 14 .

At the intercession of the actress Louise Dumont , she was then accepted into the training class of the Cologne theater . When she was allowed to play her first small roles there two months later, there was trouble with envious classmates. After only three months, Sybille left the training.

Career

With a letter of recommendation from Louise Dumont to the acting agent Otto Merten and 100 Marks travel budget, Sybille Schmitz set off for Berlin at the age of 17 to start her career as an actress. Merten got her an appointment for an audition at the Deutsches Theater , which was led by the actor and director Max Reinhardt . The fact that she did not have a completed acting training did not bother: Max Reinhardt had never enjoyed one himself. After first minor roles, Sybille Schmitz received a three-year contract as a member of the theater company in 1927 with a monthly salary of 250 Reichsmarks.

In 1928 she stood in front of a film camera for the first time - for the SPD advertising film Freie Fahrt , directed by Ernő Metzner . The film failed, and her portrayal as a pregnant working woman received critical acclaim. Her career now rose sharply.

Sybille Schmitz around 1930

After an engagement at the Hessian State Theater and other film roles, Schmitz was one of the most famous character actresses in German film in the 1930s. Unlike many of her colleagues, she mastered the transition from silent film to sound film without difficulty. She convinced in leading roles alongside the most popular actors of the time such as Hans Albers , Willy Birgel , Gustav Fröhlich or Heinz Rühmann . Among other things, she could be seen: 1928 in police report robbery , 1932 in Vampyr - The Dream of Allan Gray , 1934 in Der Herr der Welt und in Abschiedswalzer , 1935 in An ideal husband , 1936 in the experimental heathen drama Fährmann Maria , 1937 in The detours of beautiful Karl , in 1938 in Tanz auf dem Vulkan , in 1939 in The Woman Without a Past and in 1943 in Titanic .

The actress tried to keep her private life under wraps. Despite this, her bisexuality became known. From 1940 to 1945 she was married to the screenwriter Harald G. Petersson . The couple temporarily withdrew to Krimml in the Salzburg region.

time of the nationalsocialism

Despite popular success, Sybille Schmitz did not have it easy during the Third Reich . In the film industry, word got around that Propaganda Minister Goebbels , who checked all the cast lists, did not appreciate Sybille Schmitz. She did not correspond to his ideal of a Nordic woman. Directors who wanted to employ them received a clear indication that Goebbels preferred another cast of the role. Gustaf Gründgens, for example, needed some persuasive power so that Schmitz could play a leading role at his side in the film Tanz auf dem Vulkan . In Goebbels' diary from 1937 there is a note: Sybille Schmitz comes with tax concerns. I violate her opinion. She has no discipline, neither in life nor in work. She stayed on UFA's payroll until 1945.

After 1945

After the end of the war , the Allied military authorities imposed professional bans on many people involved in National Socialist propaganda films , including Sybille Schmitz. When she was allowed to play again after a while, she no longer received many role offers. Erich Pommer and Gyula Trebitsch were among those who employed them . But the breaks between filming became longer and longer. Sybille Schmitz increasingly suffered from depression and alcohol addiction .

In 1953 she suffered from facial neuralgia and a doctor prescribed a morphine supplement for the pain, on which she became increasingly dependent. The actress neglected herself outwardly. Actress Olga Chekhova , owner of a cosmetics company, offered her a free beauty treatment. Schmitz declined with the words: Thank you for wanting to help me. But there is no more that can be done. After several hospital stays and unsuccessful suicide attempts, she killed herself in 1955 with an overdose of sleeping pills . In her farewell letter, she wrote: “I tried to get connected again, but I am no longer needed.” Her grave is on Munich's Ostfriedhof , grave 166b-U2-32. Thousands came to her funeral, including many prominent colleagues such as Winnie Markus , Erich Pommer and Olga Chekhova.

The process

A lawsuit against her Munich doctor, who had prescribed excessive medication for her for years, revealed details of the human tragedy. The doctor had taken the actress in as a subtenant in her apartment at Karl-Theodor-Strasse 15 and sold her vast quantities of morphine preparations for 100 times the legal price. In financial distress, Sybille Schmitz had brought jewelry, furs and carpets to the pawn shop. The doctor was sentenced to four months suspended prison sentence.

Further effect

Rainer Werner Fassbinder took the last years of Sybille Schmitz's life in 1982 as inspiration for his multi-award-winning film Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss . Rosel Zech played the actress.

On the occasion of her 100th birthday in 2009, the Haus der Stadt in her native Düren dedicated an exhibition to her.

Filmography

Silent films

Sound films

literature

  • Friedemann Beyer : More beautiful than death. The life of Sybille Schmitz. 2nd improved edition. belleville, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-923646-72-0 .
  • Brigitte Tast, Hans-Jürgen Tast: So close to light and shadow. From the life of Sybille Schmitz. (= Googly eyes - visual communication , No. 46.) Schellerten 2015, ISBN 978-3-88842-046-7 .
  • Brigitte Tast, Hans-Jürgen Tast: Ferryman Maria. A Heide drama by Frank Wysbar with Sybille Schmitz. Kulleraugen, Schellerten 2018, ISBN 978-3-88842-052-8

Web links

Commons : Sybille Schmitz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ File: Schmitz death certificate.jpg
  2. ↑ The actress Sybille Schmitz in Munich , Land and People series from May 8, 2016, Bayerischer Rundfunk , Bayern 2 (article and audio)
  3. ^ Friedemann Bayer: The life of Sybille Schmitz. More beautiful than death , Verlag belleville, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-923646-72-0 , p. 9ff.
  4. ↑ Berliner Festspiele GmbH (Ed.): Preussen im Film-attempt a balance , Verlag Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3 499 34005 4 , p. 68
  5. ^ Friedemann Beyer: The life of Sybille Schmitz. Page 40 ff and page 161 ff.
  6. ↑ Curt Riess : That only happened once. The book of the most beautiful films of our lives . Bertelsmann-Lesering, Verlag der Sternbücher, Hamburg 1956, p. 483.
  7. ^ Friedemann Bayer: The life of Sybille Schmitz. P. 113
  8. ↑ On the history of cinema in the Nazi era. Retrieved August 25, 2015 .
  9. ^ Friedemann Beyer: Das Leben der Sybille Schmitz , page 177, 182.
  10. ↑ Friedemann Beyer, Radio Bayern 2 from May 8, 2016
  11. ^ Bayerischer Rundfunk Friedemann Beyer: Sybille Schmitz: Most mysterious face of German film . May 8, 2016 ( br.de [accessed February 23, 2020]).
  12. ↑ Friedemann Beyer: The life of Sybille Schmitz , page 177 ff.
  13. ^ Aachener Nachrichten , November 19, 2009
personal data
SURNAME Schmitz, Sybille
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schmitz, Anna Maria Sybille (full name); Petersson, Sybille (married name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actress
DATE OF BIRTH December 2, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Düren , Germany
DATE OF DEATH April 13, 1955
Place of death Munich , Germany