Hannelore Schroth

Born in Berlin in 1922, she was the daughter of popular stage and film actors Heinrich Schroth and Käthe Haack. Her older half-brother was actor and film director Carl-Heinz Schroth (1902–1989), who was the product of Schroth's father's earlier marriage to Else Ruttersheim.

Schroth began her career as a child actress, and made her film debut at the age of nine in 1931's Max Ophüls' comedy Dann schon lieber Lebertran opposite her mother. Until age sixteen she attended drama school in Lausanne, Switzerland. Her early film successes include Spiel im Sommerwind (1938), Weisser Flieder (1939) and Kitty and the World Conference (1939) - the latter of which was her first leading role.[2]

During World War II, Hannelore Schroth continued performing in films. Unlike her father, Heinrich Schroth, who was by then appearing in Nazi propaganda films such as the notorious 1940 anti-Semitic Jud Süß, she avoided overtly political films, such as her appearance in 1945's romantic drama Under the Bridges. After the war, she continued her work extensively in film and returned to the theatre, with engagements in Vienna, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Berlin and Munich.

In addition to theatre and appearing in German films as an actress, in the 1950s Schroth began a career as a voice actress, dubbing many English language films into German. Some of which include Jane Wyman's character of Carolina Hill in Just for You (1952), Shirley MacLaine in Irma La Douce (1963), Elizabeth Taylor's role as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and Ingrid Bergman's role as Golda Meir in A Woman Called Golda (1982).[3]

In her later years, Schroth began appearing on West German television, as well as appearing on stage and in film.

For her stage work, she received the 1969 Großen Hersfeld-Preis, and for work as an actress she was awarded the Filmband in Gold in 1980.

Schroth was first married to German stage and film actor Carl Raddatz; the union ended in divorce. Her second marriage was to the Austrian deep sea diver Hans Hass, which produced a son, Hans Hass Jr. (1946–2009) who became an actor and pop singer. Her third marriage to lawyer Peter Köster produced a son, Christopher Kantapper Köster (1953–2012). Both of her sons committed suicide.

Grave of Schroth, her mother Käthe Haack, and son Christopher Kantapper Köster, at Friedhof Heerstraße in Berlin-Westend

Schroth died in 1987 at the age of 65 and was interred at the Friedhof Heerstraße cemetery in Berlin.

• Hannelore Schroth at IMDb
• LIFE magazine: Adolf Hitler: Up Close. Beauty Amid the Beasts