Gustaf Gründgens

Born in Düsseldorf, Gründgens attended the drama school of the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus after World War I and started his career at smaller theaters in Halberstadt, Kiel, and Berlin.

In 1923, he joined the Kammerspiele in Hamburg, where he changed his first name to Gustaf and appeared as a director for the first time. In 1925, Gründgens wrote to Klaus Mann to propose a Hamburg production of Mann’s play Anja and Esther. Mann agreed, and Anja and Esther was performed in Hamburg with Gründgens directing and playing the role of Jakob. Mann played the role of Kaspar, while his sister Erika and his fiancée Pamela Wedekind played the lead roles of Anja and Esther. The play marked the beginning of Gründgens’ collaborations with the Mann siblings and Wedekind, as well as the beginning of his romantic relationship with Klaus Mann.

In 1928, he moved back to Berlin to join the renowned ensemble of the Deutsches Theater under the director Max Reinhardt. Apart from spoken theatre, Gründgens also worked with Otto Klemperer at the Kroll Opera, as a cabaret artist and as a screen actor, most notably in Fritz Lang's 1931 film M, which significantly increased his popularity. From 1932 he was a member of the Prussian State Theatre ensemble, in which he first stood out in the role of Mephistopheles.

Gründgens' career continued after the Nazi party came to power. In October 1934, he became the Intendant, or artistic director, of the Prussian State Theatre and, on 6 May 1936, Prussian Minister President Hermann Göring appointed him to the recently reconstituted Prussian State Council. He also became a member of the Presidential Council of the Reichstheaterkammer (Theatre Chamber of the Reich), which was an institution of the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture). In 1941, Gründgens starred in the propaganda film Ohm Krüger; he also played the title role in the fictional biographical film Friedemann Bach, which he also produced.

After Goebbels's total war speech on 18 February 1943, Gründgens volunteered for the Wehrmacht but was again recalled by Göring, who had his name added to the Gottbegnadeten list (Important Artist Exempt List).

Gründgens became romantically involved with Klaus Mann while the two of them were performing in the Hamburg production of Mann's play Anja and Esther. In 1926, while in a relationship with Klaus, Gründgens married Klaus's sister Erika Mann, who was herself in a relationship with Klaus's fiancée Pamela Wedekind. By 1927, Erika and Gründgens were separated. They officially divorced in 1929, around the time that Gründgens's relationship with Klaus ended. Gründgens eventually became the basis of several characters in Klaus Mann's fiction, including the character of Gregor Gregori in Treffpunkt im Unendlichen and the character of Hendrik Höfgen in the infamous novel Mephisto.

From 1936 to 1946, Gründgens was married to the famous German actress Marianne Hoppe. He had a son with her in marriage, Benedikt Johann Percy Gründgens, born in 1946, whose biological father was the British journalist Ralph Izzard. Despite these lavender marriages, Gründgens was widely known as homosexual. While other homosexuals were persecuted and sent to concentration camps during the Third Reich, Gründgens was tolerated by the Nazi elites because of his high reputation as an actor.