Berlin (dpa) – Marlene Dietrich, Germany’s movie legend who remained a source of bitter controversy in the homeland she put behind her, is finally to be honoured in her native Berlin.
Next month, (September 26) when the capital’s new Film Museum is opened at the Sony Centre on the Potsdamer Platz, three of its 15 rooms will highlight items from the star’s lifetime possessions, acquired by the Berlin authorities for five million marks (2.5 million dollars) in 1993.
Included among them will be a selection of the fabulous dresses and costumes she wore in some of her best-known movies; numerous of her handbags, characteristic hats and gloves; a violin she used to play when she was a Berlin schoolgirl, and some of her cases and trunks.
Dietrich was a notorious hoarder, who it seems always got a thrill out of viewing her wardrobe, crammed with glittering dresses and furs, some of which in later years she had long ceased to wear.
The museum will also feature a collection of letters the star exchanged with her many friends, and also lovers – author Erich Maria Remarque (“All Quiet on the Western Front”), and movie great Jean Gabin among them – as well as a rich assortment of photos and Hollywood pin-ups, depicting virtually every step of her life.
In addition, visitors will, via more than 100 monitors, be able to see not only all Marlene Dietrich’s movies, but also key excerpts from a vast range of German made films.
Dietrich, who became a world star after her stunning performance as Lola Froehlich in Josef von Sternberg’s 1930 “Blue Angel” movie, turned her back on Germany afterwards, horrified by the sudden surge of Nazi activity in her home town.
A few years after the war, the star was persuaded to pay a brief visit to Berlin, but the trip proved a disaster. At a city hall gathering in west Berlin, Willy Brandt was full of praise for the glamorous star’s resolute anti-Nazi stance.
Crowds turned out to see her. But not all people were friendly. She was booed and hissed at times, and found herself being rebuked for wearing an American uniform during the war when entertaining U.S.troops in Europe, and for “turning her back on the country.”
Dietrich, deeply offended, decided she would never return to Berlin again. But later she softened her judgement.
When she died in Paris in 1992, it was at her express wish that her body should be sent back to Berlin for burial alongside her mother, Josefine von Losch, in a local cemetery.
The sheer quantity and diversity of Dietrich’s affects – a plaster of paris model of her legendary legs among them – are likely to prove a tourist magnet at the Potsdamer Platz location.
For Hans Helmut Prenzler, the museum’s director, the Film Museum is a life’s work. Ever since 1979, he has been working on the plans. “I’m thrilled to see the museum being integrated into the Sony Centre,” he says.
Visitors, will be able to view 100 years of film history at the museum, he claims.
Over 1,500 square metres floor space, costumes, documents, and movie scripts will be displayed, along with numerous other items belonging to famous German personalities in film and theatre, such as Heinz Ruehmann, Fritz Lang, Asta Nielsen, Henny Porten, Emil Jannings and Ernst Lubitsch.
