Gustav von Wangenheim

Gustav von Wangenheim was born on February 18, 1895 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany as Ingo Clemens Gustav Adolf Freiherr von Wangenheim.

The actor Gustav von Wangenheim was born as the son of the legendary actor Eduard von Winterstein and the actress Minna Mengers. After the suicide of his mother in 1899 his father Eduard von Winterstein got married again, this time with the actress Hedwig Pauly.

Introspective leading actor, trained in Berlin 1912-14. On stage after military service in World War I. Had powerful socialist leanings. During the 1920's, member of the communist party (KPD). Founded and toured with his own worker's theatrical troupe. Forced to flee from Germany after Hitler's rise to power in 1933. Became a Soviet citizen in 1940 and made propaganda radio broadcasts on behalf of his adopted country. Returned to Germany in 1945, active primarily as a stage director and producer.

He already made his film debut in 1914 with "Passionels Tagebuch".

In 1917 he wrote the play "Der Mann Fjodor" and finally he came in touch with the politic and he joined the USPD. Moreover he also founded the Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland (NFKD).

A member of the Communist Party of Germany since 1921, von Wangenheim founded the Communist theatre company Die Truppe '31 in 1931. Die Truppe '31 produced three plays, authored and directed by Wangenheim, before it was shut down by order of the Nazi regime in 1933.

He was an actor and director, known for Nosferatu (1922), Der Auftrag Höglers (1950) and Der Kampf (1936). He was married to Inge von Wangenheim.

Wangenheim fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and found refuge in the Soviet Union. While living in exile at Moscow's Hotel Lux, he continued writing and producing movies, such as Der Kampf (1936), an anti-Nazi protest film, and was the head of the German language Cabaret "Kolonne Links".

Gustav von Wangenheim was married with the actress Inge von Wangenheim née Franke, from 1931 to 1954, when the marriage was annulled.

In 1936, during the Stalinist purges, he denounced his colleagues Carola Neher and Anatol Becker as Trotskyites. Becker was executed and Neher died in the Gulag system after five years in prison. Von Wangenheim's son later stated the accusations that his father denounced Neher and Becker were one-sided and inaccurate. Gustav von Wangenheim's son claimed his father, after being arrested by the NKWD and a lengthy interrogation, signed a statement that implicated Carola Neher as being "anti soviet" but had in fact explicitly refuted the accusation that Neher and her husband Anatol Becker had planned to murder Stalin.

When the Soviet Union entered World War II in 1940 he served for the 7th Political Division where he also realized fliers.

After the end of war he returned from the Sovjet Union to Germany in 1945.

In the 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, which depicted the production of Nosferatu, Eddie Izzard portrayed von Wangenheim.