Hans Steinhoff (10 March 1882 – 20 April 1945) was a German film director, best known for the propaganda films he produced in

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

Life and career

Steinhoff started his career as a stage actor in the 1900s and later worked as a stage director. Following a decline in popularity of theater after World War I, he transitioned to the film industry. He directed his first silent film, '' Clothes Make the Man'', the adaption of a novel by Gottfried Keller, in 1921. Steinhoff went on to direct several other popular commercial films before transitioning to his career as a propagandist. Steinhoff was a convinced Nazi and directed many propaganda films; he sometimes even wore his Nazi Party membership button on the film set. His most notable films were perhaps '' Hitlerjunge Quex'' (1933), an influential propaganda film for the

Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth ( , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth wing of the German Nazi Party. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. From 1936 until 1945, it was th ...

, and '' Ohm Krüger'' (1940), for which he won the Mussolini Cup at the 1941

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the ...

. On April 20, 1945, during the last war days, Steinhoff tried to escape from Berlin on the last scheduled

Lufthansa Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), trading as the Lufthansa Group, is a German aviation group. Its major and founding subsidiary airline Lufthansa German Airlines, branded as Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. It ranks List of largest airlin ...

flight. The plane, a Junkers Ju 52, was shot down by the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

, and all but one of the passengers died.

Reception

Billy Wilder Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an American filmmaker and screenwriter. His career in Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and ver ...

, who wrote some screenplays for Steinhoff during the early 1930s, said about him: "A man without any talent. He was a Nazi, even a Hundred-percent-one. But there were also many Nazis who had talent. I would never say that Leni Riefenstahl didn't have talent ... But I say about Steinhoff, that he was an idiot, not because he was a Nazi, but also a bad director." Steinhoff was also very unpopular with many of his actors. Hans Albers called him "the greatest asshole of the century", while O. W. Fischer referred to him as "browner than Joseph Goebbels and blacker than

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...

.Géza von Cziffra: „Kauf dir einen bunten Luftballon.“ Erinnerungen an Götter und Halbgötter. Herbig, München und Berlin 1975, , S. 304–305.

Selected filmography

* '' The False Dimitri'' (1922) * '' Inge Larsen'' (1923) * '' Man Against Man'' (1924) * '' Countess Maritza'' (1925) * '' The Man Who Sold Himself'' (1925) * '' Sons in Law'' (1926) * '' Vienna - Berlin'' (1926) * '' The Master of Death'' (1926) * '' Family Gathering in the House of Prellstein'' (1927) * '' The Tragedy of a Lost Soul'' (1927) * '' The Bordello in Rio'' (1927) * '' Angst'' (1928) * '' When the Guard Marches'' (1928) * '' The Alley Cat'' (1929) * '' The Three Kings'' (1929) * '' Love's Carnival'' (1930) * '' Everybody Wins'' (1930) * '' My Leopold'' (1931) * '' Headfirst into Happiness'' (1931) * '' The Paw'' (1931) * '' The True Jacob'' (1931) * ''

Scampolo ''Scampolo'' is a 1958 German film directed by Alfred Weidenmann and starring Romy Schneider, Paul Hubschmid, and Georg Thomalla. Schneider plays the title role. Plot Scampolo is a young, poor girl who lives on the island of Ischia. She falls ...

'' (1932) * '' Madame Wants No Children'' (1933) * '' Love Must Be Understood'' (1933) * '' Hitlerjunge Quex'' (1933) * '' Decoy'' (1934) * '' The Island'' (1934) * '' Enjoy Yourselves'' (1934) * ''

Mother and Child A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gestat ...

'' (1934) * '' The Old and the Young King'' (1935) * '' The Valley of Love'' (1935) * '' A Woman of No Importance'' (1936) * ''Ein Volksfeind'', adaptation of '' An Enemy of the People'' (1937) * '' Gestern und heute'' (1938) * '' Dance on the Volcano'' (1938), with Gustaf Gründgens as Jean-Gaspard Deburau * '' Robert Koch'' (1939) * '' The Vulture Wally'' (1940) * '' Ohm Krüger'' (1941) * ''

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...

'' (1942) * '' Gabriele Dambrone'' (1943) * ''

Melusine Mélusine () or Melusine or Melusina is a figure of European folklore, a nixie (folklore), female spirit of fresh water in a holy well or river. She is usually depicted as a woman who is a Serpent symbolism, serpent or Fish in culture, fish fr ...

'' (1944)

References

External links

* 1882 births 1945 deaths People from Marienberg People from the Kingdom of Saxony Film directors from Saxony German civilians killed in World War II Nazi Party members {{germany-film-director-stub German Nazi propagandists German silent film directors German propaganda film directors