Hertha Thiele
| Hertha Thiele | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Hertha Thiele 8 May 1908 Leipzig, German Empire |
| Died | 5 August 1984 (aged 76) Berlin, East Germany |
| Occupation | actress |
| Spouse(s) | Heinz Klingenberg |
| Awards | Art Prize of East Germany, National Prize of East Germany, Fatherland Service Order |
Hertha Thiele (8 May 1908 – 5 August 1984) was a German actress. She is noted for her starring roles in then controversial stage plays and films produced during Germany's Weimar Republic and the early years of the Third Reich. After the post-war partition of Germany, Thiele became a television star in East Germany. She is best remembered for her portrayal of Manuela in the lesbian-themed film Mädchen in Uniform (1931).
One of her early drama teachers told Thiele, "Either you'll have a great stage career or nothing at all. You have a Botticelli face but one which suggests depravity". Thiele began her professional acting career in 1928 as a stage actress in Leipzig. In 1931 she was given the lead role in the film adaptation of a play she had done there, Gestern und heute but now called Mädchen in Uniform, a tale set in a Prussian boarding school for girls. The film had an all-female cast and Thiele played Manuela, a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl deeply infatuated with her teacher, Fräulein von Bernburg who was played by Dorothea Wieck. Mädchen in Uniform was distributed internationally and briefly made Thiele a star. She received thousands of fan letters, mostly from women.
In 1932 she starred with Ernst Busch in Bertolt Brecht's Kuhle Wampe. In 1933 Thiele had a leading role in Kleiner Mann, was nun? and was reunited with Dorothea Wieck in another lesbian-themed film, Anna and Elizabeth, which was banned by the Nazis soon after it opened and which she later said was the most important work of her career. She also continued to work in theatre during the early 1930s, including productions with Max Reinhardt (Harmonie, 1932) and Veit Harlan (Veronika, 1935).
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