Joachim Gottschalk

Joachim Gottschalk (10 April 1904 Calau – 6 November 1941 Berlin) was a European movie star during the 1930s, a romantic lead in the style of Leslie Howard. He starred in a series of German films opposite the popular German actress Brigitte Horney.

Life and work

Gottschalk, who was born in Calau, Brandenburg, Germany, married a Jewish woman, Meta Wolff, shortly before Hitler came to power, and they had a son, Michael. The Gottschalks managed to avoid the anti-Semitic Nuremberg laws and rising tide of anti-semitic violence in Nazi Germany. Then, Gottschalk took his Jewish wife to a social function and introduced her to some of the prominent Nazis who were present. Although the Nazis were charmed, the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels (a virulent anti-Semite) learned about this incident, and decreed that Gottschalk would be required to separate from his Jewish wife. When Gottschalk refused, Goebbels ordered Gottschalk's wife and child transported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Gottschalk insisted on accompanying Meta and Michael to Theresienstadt, but Goebbels ordered Gottschalk inducted into the German Army, the Wehrmacht.

In November 1941, minutes before the expected arrival of the Gestapo, Gottschalk and his wife committed suicide by gas poisoning after sedating their son, who died with them. They are buried at the Südwestkirchhof Stahnsdorf ("Berlin South-Western Cemetery") of Berlin.

Goebbels ordered no further mentions of Gottschalk in the German newspapers, but word got out anyway and millions of German women mourned his death. Because of Nazi censorship, most of his devoted fans did not learn the awful circumstances of his death until after the war.

Filmography

• You and I (1938) (with Brigitte Horney)
• Uproar in Damascus (1939) (with Brigitte Horney)
• A Woman Like You (1939) (with Brigitte Horney)
• Flucht ins Dunkel (1939)
• Ein Leben Lang (1940)
• The Girl from Fano (1941) (with Brigitte Horney)
• The Swedish Nightingale (1941)

References

• Hull, David Stewart. Film in the Third Reich: Art and Propaganda in Nazi Germany, Simon and Schuster, 1973.
• Smith, Howard K. Last Train From Berlin: An Eye-Witness Account of Germany at War, Phoenix Press, 2001.

External links

• Joachim Gottschalk at IMDb
• Joachim Gottschalk - Postcards and Tobacco cards