Thread: Hildegard Knef (1925-2002) was a German actress, who in 1945 had quite the experience during the Battle of Berlin.

Photo: DEFA-Stiftung, Eugen Klagemann, from the 1946 film 'Die Mörder sind unter uns'.

On 1st April 1943, Knef began work as an apprentice illustrator in the UFA studios in central Berlin. Later on 14th August, she signed a contract to train as an actress with the Staatliche Filmschule Potsdam-Babelsberg; and by May 1944, she had starred in her first 2 films.

It was in June 1944 that she began to have a romantic affair with the head of production for the Tobis film company, Ewald von Demandowsky. Von D. also served as Reichsfilmdramaturg (Reich's dramatic adviser for films) under Goebbels and Propaganda Ministry (RMVP).

1945: von D was conscripted into the Volkssturm. Knef, determined not to leave her lover, dressed in a WH uniform to accompany him. This certainly brought with it many issues. At her Kurfürstendamm house, an SS Kommando sought to hang her for desertion, before realising her sex.

The Battle of Berlin raged. Again donning a uniform, Knef assumed the pseudonym 'Heinz' and accompanied von D during the defence of Schmargendorf. Their plan, however, was to escape. Their destination was Knef's mother's temporary home in Luneburg Heath, nearly 300km west.

They made it 64km. In Friesack, they were captured by Polish partisans and sent to a POW camp in Poland with c.40,000 inmates. As she was a woman, she was placed in solitary confinement. She also caught typhus, and a Soviet soldier fractured her jaw with his machine gun butt.

Somehow, with the aid of other inmates, she managed to escape the camp and was back in Berlin by June. There she was taken in by actor and director Viktor de Kowa. An NSDAP member, de Kowa directed the propaganda film "Kopf hoch, Johannes!" (below) in 1941.

Mind-blowingly, despite her experiences, on 16th June 1945, she returned to the stage in the 'Heute Abend um sechs' cabaret at the Tribüne theatre, Berlin.

Ewald von Demandowsky was released from Polish captivity in 1945 & returned to Berlin. In 1946 he was rearrested by US MPs, who transferred him to the Soviets. A subsequent Soviet military tribunal found him guilty of producing propaganda & he was executed by firing squad 7/10/46

After the war, Hildegard Knef enjoyed a very successful career as an actress, a singer, and an author, both in Germany and the USA. She was 19 when she endured the Battle of Berlin.

The vast majority of the information in this thread came from a very thorough website dedicated to her life and work: https://www.hildegardknef.de/index.html