Steinhoff started his career as a stage actor in the 1900s and later worked as a stage director. Following a decline in popularity of theater after World War I, he transitioned to the film industry. He directed his first silent film, Clothes Make the Man, the adaption of a novel by Gottfried Keller, in 1921. Steinhoff went on to direct several other popular commercial films before transitioning to his career as a propagandist.[1]
Steinhoff was a convinced Nazi and directed many propaganda films; he sometimes even wore his Nazi Party membership button on the film set. His most notable films were perhaps Hitlerjunge Quex (1933), an influential propaganda film for the Hitler Youth, and Ohm Krüger (1940), for which he won the Mussolini Cup at the 1941 Venice Film Festival.
On April 20, 1945, during the last war days, Steinhoff tried to escape from Berlin on the last scheduled Lufthansa flight. The plane, a Junkers Ju 52, was shot down by the SovietRed Army,[1] and all but one of the passengers died.
Reception
Billy Wilder, who wrote some screenplays for Steinhoff during the early 1930s, said about him: "A man without any talent. He was a Nazi, even a Hundred-percent-one. But there were also many Nazis who had talent. I would never say that Leni Riefenstahl didn't have talent ... But I say about Steinhoff, that he was an idiot, not because he was a Nazi, but also a bad director."[2]
^Vgl. Joe Hembus, Christa Bandmann: Klassiker des deutschen Tonfilms, 1930–1960. Goldmann, München 1980, p. 86.
^Géza von Cziffra: „Kauf dir einen bunten Luftballon.“ Erinnerungen an Götter und Halbgötter. Herbig, München und Berlin 1975, ISBN3-7766-0708-4, S. 304–305.
