Theatre and Film, Johnny Carson School of
Date of this Version
2003
Citation
“Promise Me Nothing on Heroes’ Square: Marianne Hoppe’s Twentieth Century,” New England Theatre Journal XIV (2003): 59-80.
Abstract
On the occasion of Marianne Hoppe=s death in Siegsdorf, Bavaria on October 23, 2002, obituaries in several German newspapers recalled her as one of the great stars of the Third Reich. Most recalled her rise under the Nazis, and some inferred that she attained stardom largely for the wrong reasons. Her marriage to Hermann Goering's favorite actor and director, Gustaf Gründgens (1899-1963), was a political cloud that hovered over her until her death. Her frank admission that she was aware of the regime=s persecution, terror, and concentration camps did little to dispel persistent misgivings about her, even as she continued to act on stage, screen and television for decades after her divorce from Gründgens in 1946.