“Martha Liebermann – A Stolen Life”: Thekla Carola Wied shines as a historical figure

“Martha Liebermann – A Stolen Life”
Thekla Carola Wied shines as a historical figure

Most recently, actress Thekla Carola Wied (78) as one of the two eccentric grandmothers – the mother of Gundula (Andrea Sawatzki, 59) and Hadi (Stephan Grossmann, 51) who knows everything better – was responsible for the great success of the popular TV series “Bundschuh family ” (since 2015). After six episodes, however, she left, much to the regret of fans.

The artist, who was born in Breslau in what is now Poland in 1944, also achieved cult status with her role in a family series. From 1983 to 1986, Thekla Carola Wied played the single parent Angelika “Angi” Graf in “I Marry a Family” for 14 episodes.

Now the TV broadcast of the historical drama “Martha Liebermann – A Stolen Life” (October 10th, 8:15 p.m., the first one) is coming up, in which she embodies the title role.

That’s what “Martha Liebermann – A Stolen Life” is about

Berlin during the war of 1943. The 85-year-old Jewess Martha Liebermann (Wied) is faced with the decision of her life: Should the bourgeois widow of the world-famous and highly revered painter Max Liebermann (Rüdiger Vogler, 80) continue to hope for an exit permit from the Nazis, or with help flee to Switzerland from Hanna Solf (Fritzi Haberland, 47) and her resistance group? Because Martha knows that the fame and fortune of earlier times will not protect her from deportation to the concentration camp for much longer. With a heavy heart, she decides to leave her beloved homeland illegally and thus leave her deceased husband’s works to the Nazis.

While Hanna and her friends are preparing to flee, Gestapo commissioner Rudolf Teubner (Franz Hartwig, 36) sets a perfidious trap for the Solf group, which also puts Martha’s housekeeper Luise Wagner (Lana Cooper, 41) in serious danger. In order to save Luise and her other helpers, Martha makes an extremely courageous decision…

International success for “Martha Liebermann” and Thekla Carola Wied

The drama premiered in June at the Monte Carlo TV Festival in Monaco. At the event, Thekla Carola Wied was awarded a Golden Nymph as “Best Actress” and the film “Martha Liebermann – A Stolen Life” as “Best TV Film”. In addition to an Austrian Romy as “Best Actress” in 1991, it is the first international honor for the actress.

“I felt very lucky to keep Martha’s life and destiny in people’s minds. The price was the icing on the cake,” she told the broadcaster. Actually, the award was for Martha and Max Liebermann, she pushed afterwards. “This international award also means a lot to me because the film’s laconic narrative style apparently succeeded in depicting an exemplary fate from the darkest time in our history,” Thekla Carola Wied continued.

The real people and their destinies

“Martha Liebermann – A Stolen Life” is based on true events. The film combines Liebermann’s story with the previously little-known story of the Solf circle.

These are the facts:

Martha (1857-1943) and the Jewish painter Max Liebermann (1847-1935) were married from September 1884 until his death in 1935. Martha was his sister-in-law’s sister. In August 1885 their daughter Marianne Henriette Käthe Liebermann, given the name Käthe, was born. Martha Liebermann took her own life, but remained in a coma for five days before she died on March 10, 1943.

Martha’s housekeeper Luise Wagner from the film is a fictional character. According to the production, Maria Hagen and Alwine Walter took care of her in real life. “Both survived National Socialism without being captured,” says the film’s credits.

The Solf Circle was a resistance group led by women. Johanna Solf (1887-1954), founder of the dissident association, was imprisoned for more than a year from January 1944. “Although she was repeatedly tortured, she did not betray anyone”. She survived the Nazi regime and died in Starnberg in 1954. Her daughter, Countess Lagi von Ballestrem (1909-1955) – portrayed in the film by Johanna Polley (30) – was also involved in the resistance group, was arrested and did not betray anyone. However, she died at the age of only 46 as a result of her imprisonment (1944/1945).

The diplomat and resistance fighter Edgar Baron von Uexküll (1884-1952) – in the film Arnd Klawitter (54) – also tried to help Martha Liebermann escape. The real Baron was arrested in 1944 in connection with the assassination attempt by resistance fighter Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (1907-1944). The imprisonment, which lasted only a few weeks, is said to have broken him.

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