GOEBBELS ABANDONED
CZECH ACTRESS LIDA BAAROVA
AFTER GIVING HER CHILDREN BORN
1914 SEPTEMBER 7
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Lída Baarová (7 September 1914 – 27 October 2000) was a Czech actress and mistress of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
| Lída Baarová |
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| Born | Ludmila Babková
7 September 1914
Prague, Austria-Hungary |
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| Died | 27 October 2000 (aged 86)
Salzburg, Austria |
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| Nationality | Czech |
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| Years active | 1931-1970 |
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| Spouse(s) | Jan Kopecky (1947-1956)
Kurt Lundvall (1969-1972) |
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Biography[edit]
Born Ludmila Babková in Prague, she studied acting at the city's Conversatory and got her first film role in the Czechoslovak film Pavel Čamrda's Career (Kariéra Pavla Čamrdy) at the age of 17.
Her mother sang in choir and appeared in several theatre plays; her younger sister, Zorka Janů (1921–1946), also became a film actress. In 1934 Baarová attended contest at the Ufa film studios for the film Barcarole and won and left Prague for Berlin.
Career[edit]
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Baarová starring in Patriots (1937)
In Berlin she made a successful appearance in the film Barcarole (1935), side by side with the German actor Gustav Fröhlich (1902–1987). She and Fröhlich, meanwhile divorced from the Hungarian opera singer Gitta Alpár, became lovers and starred together in several films.
Baarová also performed on stage at the Deutsches Theater and the Volksbühne. She received several job offers from Hollywood studios. She turned them down under pressure from the Nazi authorities, but later regretted it and claimed to her biographer, Josef Škvorecký: "I could have been as famous as Marlene Dietrich."
After her engagement to Fröhlich, the couple moved to Schwanenwerder island on the outskirts of Berlin, where their house was close to the residence of Minister Joseph Goebbels, a leading member in the Nazi government of Adolf Hitler with a decisive voice in German film production and Nazi cinema. Baarová, still working for the Ufa studios, met him when Goebbels visited Fröhlich's home in 1936. Gradually, they became closer and, under the urging of Goebbels, started a relationship that lasted over two years.
Their love affair caused serious complications between Goebbels and his wife Magda. When the minister began to show up in public with his mistress, Magda Goebbels in turn began an affair with Goebbels' state secretary Karl Hanke and eventually asked Hitler for permission to divorce her husband. According to Baarová's own statements, she herself, fearing Goebbels' wounded pride, approached the dictator for help.
Hitler intervened on 16 August 1938 and rebuked his minister, stating that in view of his "perfect marriage" as well as the coming annexation of the Sudetenland, his affair with a Czech actress was an impossibility. Baarová was told by the Berlin chief of police Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff, that she had to quit her relationship with Goebbels immediately and was prohibited from performing on Hitler's direct order
.[1][2][3] Her recently completed film A Prussian Love Story which depicted the love affair between Wilhelm I and the Polish princess Elisa Radziwill was banned. Baarová fled back to Prague in 1939, where she temporarily was allowed to perform under German occupation and, in 1942, moved to Italy, where she starred in such films as Grazia (1943), La Fornarina (1944), Vivere ancora (1945) and others.
After Allied troops occupied Italy, she had to return to Prague. In April 1945, Lída Baarová left Prague for Germany. On the way, she was taken into custody by the American military police, imprisoned in Munich, and later extradited to Czechoslovakia.
Post-war years[edit]
In Czechoslovakia, 1945, Baarová and her family were taken into custody on suspicion of collaboration with the Germans during the war. Her mother died under interrogation; her sister Zorka committed suicide in 1946. She herself was released after 18 months of custody due to lack of evidence. She had never been convicted or sentenced. While in custody, she was often visited by the puppeteer Jan Kopecký and they eventually married on 27 July 1947.
Kopecký was a close relative of a prominent politician in the post-war government of Czechoslovakia. Kopecký's prominent relative did not approve of the marriage and Kopecký lost his job as a result of that.
This was one of the reasons why Jan Kopecký and Lída Baarová decided to emigrate in 1948. Kopecký emigrated to Argentina, leaving Lída behind to recuperate in the sanatorium of Dr. Lundwall.[citation needed]
In Austria, Lída attempted a comeback, but when the Austrian-British actor Anton Walbrook withdrew from a film where he was cast with her, she left for Argentina to escape the resulting negative media.
Living in extreme poverty, she decided to return to Italy. Her husband stayed in Argentina and they were divorced in 1956.
Back in Italy, she appeared in several films, including Fellini's I Vitelloni (1953), where she played the wife of a rich merchant. In 1958, she moved to Salzburg, where she again performed on stage.
She married Austrian physician Kurt Lundwall in 1969 (d. 1972).[4]
After the fall of Communism in Europe[edit]
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In the 1990s Baarová re-appeared on the cultural scene of the Czech Republic. She published her autobiography and a film, Lída Baarová's Bittersweet Memories, appeared in 1995 and won an award at the 1996 Art Film Festival in Trenčianske Teplice, Slovakia.
Baarová suffered from Parkinson's disease and died in 2000 in Salzburg, while living alone on the estate she inherited after the death of her second husband, Dr. Lundwall. If she ever felt guilt about her past, she rigorously suppressed it. "There's no doubt that Goebbels was an interesting character," she observed in 1997, "a charming and intelligent man and a very good storyteller.
You could guarantee that he would keep a party going with his little asides and jokes."
Her ashes were interred in Prague's Strašnice Cemetery, where she rests with her parents and her sister Zorka.
In 2015 her life was set to film in Devil's Mistress (Lída Baarová) by Filip Renč, with Tatiana Pauhofová starring as Baarová and Karl Marcovics as Goebbels.
Filmography[edit]
Obraceni Ferdyše Pištory (Conversion of Fred Pištora, 1931)
Kariéra Pavla Čamrdy (Pavel Čamrda's Career, 1931)
Zapadlí vlastenci (Forgotten Patriots, 1932)
Lelíček ve službách Sherlocka Holmese (Lelíček in Sherlock Holmes' Service, 1932)
Šenkýřka u divoké krásky (Waitress at the Wild Beauty's Bar, 1932)
Růžové kombiné (The Pink Slip, 1932)
Malostranští mušketýři (Prague's Musketeers, 1932)
Funebrák (The Undertaker, 1932)
Jsem děvče s čertem v těle (Funky Girl, 1933)
Madla z cihelny (The Brickmaker's Daughter, 1933)
Okénko (The Window, 1933)
Sedmá velmoc (The Seventh Superpower, 1933)
Její lékař (The Physician, 1933)
Pokušení paní Antonie (Antonia's Temptation, 1934)
Pán na roztrhání (Man in Demand on All Sides, 1934)
Na růžích ustláno (Easy Life, 1934)
Zlatá Kateřina (Golden Kate, 1934)
Dokud máš maminku (As Long as your Mother is Alive, 1934)
Grandhotel Nevada (1934)
Einer zuviel an Bord (The Fifth-Wheel, 1935)
Leutnant Bobby, der Teufelskerl (Lieutenant Bobby, the Daredevil, 1935)
Barcarole (Barcarolle, 1935)
Verräter (The Traitor, 1936)
Die Stunde der Versuchung (The Hour of Temptation, 1936)
Švadlenka (The Seamstress, 1936)
Komediantská princezna (The Comedian's Princess, 1936)
Patrioten (Patriots, 1937)
Lidé na kře (People on the Floating Ice, 1937)
Panenství (Virginity, 1937)
Die Fledermaus (1937)
Der Spieler (The Gambler, 1938)
Preußische Liebesgeschichte (A Prussian Love Story, 1938) (Was banned by censors (due to the Goebbels-affaire), came in the cinemas in 1950)
Maskovaná milenka (The Masked Lover, 1939)
Ohnivé léto (Fiery Summer, 1939)
Artur a Leontýna (Arthur and Leontine, 1940)
Život je krásný (Life Is Beautiful, 1940)
Dívka v modrém (Girl in Blue, 1940)
Za tichých nocí (In the Still of the Night, 1941)
Paličova dcera (Arsonist's Daughter, 1941)
Turbina (Turbine, 1941)
Grazia (The Charming Beauty, 1943)
Ti conosco, mascherina! (Masked Girl, Recognised!, 1943)
La Fornarina (1944)
Il Cappello da prete (Priest's Hat, 1944)
L'Ippocampo (The Sea-Horse, 1944)
Vivere ancora (Still Alive, 1944)
La sua strada (1946)
La bisarca (1950)
Gli amanti di Ravello (The Lovers of Ravello, 1950)
Carne inquieta (Restless, 1952)
La vendetta di una pazza (Revenge of a Crazy Girl, 1952)
I Vitelloni (1953)
Gli innocenti pagano (What Price Innocence? 1953)
Pietà per chi cade (Compassion, 1954)
Miedo (The Fear, 1956)
La Mestiza (The Mestiza, 1956)
Viaje de novios (Honeymoon, 1956)
We're All Necessary (1956)
Rapsodia de sangre (Ecstasy, 1957)
El batallón de las sombras (The Battalion in the Shadows, 1957)
Retorno a la verdad (The Truth Will Set You Free, 1957)
Il cielo brucia (The Sky Burns, 1958)
Života sladké hořkosti Lídy Baarové (Lída Baarová's Bittersweet Memories, 1995)
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Goebbels mistress tells tales from the grave
THEIRS was one of the most dramatic and dangerous love affairs of the Third Reich. A glamorous Czech actress who became Josef Goebbels's mistress and fled Germany after his wife denounced them to Hitler has described her turbulent relationship with the Nazi propaganda chief for the first time.
In her autobiography, The Sweet Bitterness of My Life, to be published posthumously in Germany next month, Lida Baarova writes of life in the Nazi upper echelons, where elegantly dressed ministers mingled with the film world elite.
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Hitler and his half niece,
whom he thought Baarova
resembled Photograph: Ullstein |
The actress, who died alone in poverty in November aged 86, reveals that Goebbels's wife, Magda, proposed a ménage à trois to save her marriage but Hitler ordered an end to the two-year affair on the grounds that it could damage the Nazis' image as guardians of traditional family values.
It was Hitler who first fell for Baarova, then 20, during a visit in 1934 to a film set in Berlin. Three days later she was summoned to tea at the chancellery. He said she reminded him of somebody both "beautiful and tragic" in his life. To her horror, she later realised this was Hitler's former lover and half-niece, Angela Raubal, who was found dead in her Munich flat in 1931, aged 23, after shooting herself in the heart with a pistol.
Several more meetings followed, despite the protests of Gustav Fröhlich, a jealous actor with whom Baarova was living. But the Führer did not press himself on her.
Hitler and Geli Raubal
Hitler and his half niece, whom he thought Baarova resembled Photograph: Ullstein
She and Goebbels first met in 1936 during the Berlin Olympics in the city's opulent Schwanenwerder suburb, where Goebbels had rented a villa near Fröhlich's. Baarova was attracted immediately.
"His voice seemed to go straight into me," she said. "I felt a light tingling in my back, as if his words were trying to stroke my body."
There were other meetings on Goebbels's yacht Baldur, and he invited her to hear him speak at a Nazi congress. He promised to touch his face with a white handkerchief during the speech as a sign of his devotion.
BaaorvaPanicking, Baarova decided to leave town. But as her train waited at the station, a messenger arrived with roses and the minister's picture. "He was a master of the hunt, whom nobody and nothing could escape," she said.
For months Goebbels pursued her relentlessly, inviting her for trips in his chauffeur-driven limousine or visits to his log cabin on the shores of Lake Lanke outside Berlin.
Although their relationship was platonic for a long time, she tried to hide it from Fröhlich. When Goebbels rang he left messages as Herr Müller and hung up if the actor answered. One winter evening in the cabin, however, before a blazing fire he kissed her for the first time, saying: "I have never in my life been so in-flamed with love for a woman."
They met whenever he could get away from his wife. Baarova recalled his mood swings dramatically. Sometimes he amused her with Hitler impressions, at others he expressed doubts about Nazi ideology.
Rumours of their relationship spread after Goebbels bailed out one of Baarova's films. Then Fröhlich arrived home to find them on the road to the villa. He berated Goebbels and left Baarova soon afterwards.
BaarovaHis impertinence did not go unpunished. Goebbels later took revenge by removing his exemption from military service and sending him to war.
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| There is nothing in this article that is not related in the biography Goebbels. Mastermind of the Third Reich by David Irving, who interviewed Baarova at length in 1993 |
In the autumn of 1938, however, Goebbels had telephoned Baarova, saying he had confessed to his wife, and wanted the two women to meet. Magda Goebbels was distraught when they were introduced, and suggested sharing her husband.
"I am the mother of his children, I am only interested in this house in which we live," she said. "What happens outside does not concern me. But you must promise me one thing: you must not have a child by him."
Goebbels appeared with gifts of jewellery for both women as if to cement the love triangle. But Magda told Hitler and Goebbels was summoned to the Führer. "My wife is a devil," he told Baarova.
Early the next morning he rang again, weeping. Hitler had refused his request for a divorce and forbidden him to see her. "I love you, Liduschka," he said. "I cannot live without you."
The propaganda machine swung into gear. Newspapers published pictures of the Goebbels family, and Goebbels rehabilitated himself with Hitler by orchestrating Kristallnacht, an orgy of violence in November 1938 when Jewish property across Germany was destroyed.
Baarova was called to a police station and told she was barred from appearing in films or plays and even from attending social functions. She was pursued by the Gestapo, who organised hecklers to shout "Whore", when she defiantly attended the premiere of her film, Der Spieler (The Player).
Baarova returned to Prague, disobeying an order from Hitler's adjutant to remain in Germany. She was on a Nazi blacklist, however, and it became more difficult for her to work. In 1942 she moved to Italy and resumed her career.
She saw Goebbels one last time at the 1942 Venice film festival. He ignored her. "He must have recognised me, but he did not make a single movement," she said. "He was always the master of self-control."
In 1945 Baarova was arrested by the Americans and briefly imprisoned for collaboration. Goebbels and his wife stayed with Hitler in his bunker, taking their own lives and those of their six children on May 1 as the Russians swept into Berlin.
After two failed marriages, her career faded as Czechs refused to forgive her. She continued to deny the Goebbels relationship until the 1990s, when Richard Kettermann, a German publisher, encouraged her to write about it. Although she was in her eighties when they met, Kettermann said last week he was struck by the warmth she exuded. When she looked back at her relationship with Goebbels, however, her overwhelming emotion was regret.
David Irving interviews Lida BaarovaWebsite comment: There is nothing in this article that is not related in the biography Goebbels. Mastermind of the Third Reich by David Irving, who interviewed Baarova at length in 1993. [Free download of book].
