Hildegard Knef, actress and writer, died on February 1st, aged 76

Hildegard Knef

Hildegard Knef | Obituary | The Economist

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Obituary

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WHEN Hildegard Knef started out as an actress Germany was still ruled by Hitler. She recalled that at her first audition she had to pretend to be “a joyous German maid in the summer wind”. Josef Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief, who had a liking for pretty young women, invited her to dinner, privately. She says in her autobiography “The Gift Horse” that she avoided Goebbels's attentions; she was anyway much too smitten by a film producer who promised to make her a star, although his views were not much different from those of Goebbels. He believed in “the master race, in the mission, in Germany's vocation, in those called upon to govern, to dictate”. He told Miss Knef he despised the “small-minded, the greedy who called themselves democrats and communists”. 

In her book Miss Knef takes care not to endorse these incorrect views. She was 18 at the time of her adventure and so impressionable that she dressed as a soldier and followed her lover to the front when he fought against the Russians as they approached Berlin (and was killed). She could not argue with him, she said. She sought to explain to Germans of a later generation what it was like to be a young person in the time of Hitler, with “no idea what it was like before”. 

Most Germans saw her point. Like Germany itself, they said, she had successfully bridged the period between dictatorship and democracy; from being a golden, blue-eyed symbol of Aryanism to becoming the best-known German actress of the post-war period, the star of more than 50 films; admired more even than Marlene Dietrich, who was never quite forgiven in Germany for supporting the Americans in the war. The German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, said Miss Knef had earned her place in history. The mayor of Berlin said she was the voice of his city. 

Few of Hildegard Knef's films are memorable. They are unlikely to be revived as masterpieces on minority television channels. They were competently made, gave pleasure and all but a few were then forgotten. “The Murderers Are Among Us” (1946), in which she played the former inmate of a concentration camp returning home, has archive interest because it was the first film made in Germany after the war. “The Sinner” (1950) was attacked by church leaders because Miss Knef briefly exposed a breast, and was consequently very successful commercially. 

Hollywood summoned her, described her as the new Garbo, and unsuccessfully tried to remake her in its own image. She refused to change her name to Gilda Christian, but agreed under pressure to spell her name Neff. She refused to say she was Austrian rather than German. The Austrians had Nazis, too, she told a publicity man. “Nobody knows that here,” he said. 

She described her first meeting with David Selznick, a producer. 

Hildegard Knef wrote well. She also sang well. In “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (1952) she sang three songs by Cole Porter, who was so captivated by her rendering of “You Do Something to Me” that he offered her a leading role in a Broadway musical, “Silk Stockings”, which ran for years.

Her singing, if not her films, may be remembered. Some say that she did not really sing, that her husky voice bordered more on speaking. Ella Fitzgerald said she was “the greatest singer in the world without a voice”. Whatever it was, Miss Knef created a new style of putting over a song that has been much copied.

Critics said she diffused her talents too much. She could have acted in better films; in her early days she had worked in the theatre and showed promise in classic roles. She could have written more. “But success is greatly overrated,” she said. “Failure, too, but it gives you a whole lot more to talk about.” She talked about her two divorces, of a savaging in the German press for “selling out to Hollywood”; and in the American press for her wartime experiences. She spoke of her struggle against cancer and the difficulty of giving up smoking. 

German doctors were among the first to spot a link between smoking and cancer, their findings stretching back to the Hitler period. “I smoked all my life,” Miss Knef said. Sometimes 50 or perhaps 60 a day: she never counted. Her health-minded fans counted at least five films in which she was seductively smoking. She tried to appease them by giving up smoking, frequently, and, as she said with a wan smile, “suffering for it”. In a second book about her life, “The Verdict”, she wrote of her fears about cancer. Probably smoking contributed to her death. She put up a long struggle against a lung infection. She said that the only thing she ever really learned in her life was ways to survive.

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Hildegard Knef

Hildegard Knef, actress and writer, died on February 1st, aged 76

From the February 9th 2002 edition

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