Acting
Feb 7, 1926
Eichwalde bei Berlin, Germany
Sonja Ziemann
Acting
Biography
Sonja Ziemann (February 8, 1926, Eichwalde near Berlin – February 17, 2020, Munich) was a German actress, dancer, and singer. She was one of the most popular German film stars of the 1950s, best known for her leading roles in the Heimatfilm classics The Black Forest Girl (Schwarzwaldmädel, 1950) and Green Is the Heath (Grün ist die Heide, 1951), frequently appearing opposite Rudolf Prack. Trained as a dancer and actress, she began her film career during World War II and successfully continued after the war. In later years, Ziemann expanded into more dramatic roles and appeared in international productions such as The Secret Ways (1961) and The Bridge at Remagen (1969). After the 1970s, she worked only occasionally in film and television. She died in 2020 at the age of 94.
Feature Films (81)
Vienna, 1956. After Soviet tanks crush the Hungarian uprising, soldier-of-fortune Michael Reynolds is hired to help a threatened Hungarian scientist escape from Budapest.
The Secret Ways
The film depicts the first month of 1945 when the Russian Red Army broke into the eastern part of Germany and forced millions of civilians to flee in the coldest of winter. While the Russians invaded Ostpreussen hundred of thousands of civilians were evacuated by ships. Gotenhafen was the last open port and ships left the town almost by the minute, overloaded by refugees. One of the last ships to leave Gotenhafen was the 'Wilhelm Gustloff', a former 'Kraft durch Freude' pleasure cruiser designed for 1000 passengers. Until today it is unknown how many people were on board but it is said to be around 10.000. The ship sunk without a trace and only a handful of people survived this hellish nightmare.
Darkness Fell on Gotenhafen
In the winter of 1943, against the background of battle scenes, a young German Lieutenant who increasingly distrusts the inhuman Nazi ideology struggles with the concept of war.
Stalingrad: Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever?
The film focuses on life in a World War II German penal battalion camp somewhere in Russia. The convicts include a heroic doctor unjustly convicted of avoiding military service, an officer who retreated against orders, and common criminals. It shows their life in the camp, clearing mines, living in trenches on the front line.
Punishment Battalion
The vagabonds Tünnes, Nachtigall, and Hans come upon a small town during their travels, where they use the first unoccupied house they find as a place to sleep. When the homeowner, Georg Straaten, unexpectedly returns from a long journey, the vagabonds are relieved to find that they are not arrested, but instead hired as help at the inn run by the young Inge Bachner.
Am Brunnen vor dem Tore
After the end of World War II Lüder Lüdersen, the former owner of a feudal estate in the East, and his daughter Helga arrive as refugees in the Lüneburg Heath. While living a seemingly happy life on the estate of his cousin, Lüdersen hides a dark secret: he is a poacher.
The Heath Is Green
Juliane Thomas is an ambitious but unemployed young writer. After breaking up with her lover she works at a dentist friend to make ends meet. One day she instantly falls in love with one of the patients (Jean Berner) and promptly writes a movie script about the encounter in which she projects her own fantasies about how things will turn out eventually. By coincidence this movie script is picked up by a film director who happens to be Berner's closest friend and from then on things become very complicated...
The Zurich Engagement
The painter Hans Hauser falls head over heels in love with the "Black Forest girl" Bärbele Riederle. He travels to her home village and soon the two realize that they are made for each other.
The Black Forest Girl
On his journey through the Flemish province, Don Fernando, the king's stadtholder, passes through the small, bourgeois community of Terbrügg. There, he meets Antje, the mayor's wife. To impress the beautiful lady, he gives her his bathtub. It's a sensation in the small town, which has never seen such a tub before. Out of envy and resentment, Antje is pilloried for her "immoral" passion for bathing and becomes the laughingstock of the town...
Das Bad auf der Tenne
Based on a book by Vicki Baum, all of the action takes place in one day in a luxury hotel in Berlin. Grusinkaya is a ballerina staying at the hotel, other guests include Baron von Gaigern a sophisticated thief, Otto Klingelein a dying man, Preysing a businessman, and a stenographer. Events intertwine the lives of these strangers, bringing them together for some dramatic moments.
Grand Hotel
Music seller and singer on occasion, Jacques Gardel learns from master Jérôme Quilleboeuf that he inherits oil fields located in Big Bend in Texas.
Serenade of Texas
Television & Series (19)
This documentary takes an entertaining and informative look at the German Heimatfilm phenomenon. The first part examines the history of the genre since the 1950s, while the second part presents crowd favorites of the genre.
Heimat - Deine Filme
Der Kommissar is a German television series about a group of detectives of the Munich homicide squad. All 97 episodes, which were shot in black-and-white and first broadcast between 1969 and 1976, were written by Herbert Reinecker and starred Erik Ode as Kommissar Herbert Keller. Keller's assistants were Walter Grabert, Robert Heines, and Harry Klein who, in 1974, was replaced by his younger brother Erwin Klein.
The Commissioner
Guten Morgen, Mallorca was a German television series set on the island of Majorca.
