German postcard. VEB Progress Film-Verleih. DEFA-Wunsch 3107 15. The card hints at Von Winterstein's DEFA films Die Sonnenbrucks, Das verurteilte Dorf, and Genesung.
Eduard von Winterstein (born 1 August 1871 in Vienna; died 22 July 1961 in Berlin, real name: Eduard Clemens Franz Freiherr von Wangenheim) was a German film and theatre actor. His German film career spanned from the 1910s to the late 1950s, from the Wilhelminian cinema to the cinema of the GDR.
Winterstein's parents were the landowner Hugo von Wangenheim and his second wife, the Hungarian-born actress Aloysia (Luise) Dub. After taking acting lessons from his mother, Winterstein joined the stage in Gera in 1889, where, according to his memoirs of his youth published in 1942, he was able to experience an "undeservedly forgotten man", the actor Theodor Lobe. At the opening of the theatre in Annaberg on 2 April 1893, he played the title role in Egmont there. "I was reborn in Annaberg, I had become a completely different person. I had only really become an actor in this small town. [...] Thus the Annaberg period became one of the most beautiful in my profession," he wrote in his autobiography. At this theatre he also met the actress Minna Mengers, whom he married in 1894 at the Wartburg (their son was the actor Gustav von Wangenheim, 1895-1975). The theatre in Annaberg-Buchholz today bears the name Eduard von Winterstein Theatre. From 1895 Winterstein played at the Schillertheater, later at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. On his move, he enthused about his adopted home with the following words: "Berlin! In those days, much more than today, it was the much longed-for paradise to which every German actor aspired with all his might. [...] Here in this city of millions, a lively theatre life flourished. The Theatre Almanac of 1895 lists twenty-four theatres in Berlin. [...] I had found temporary accommodation with my family in Großbeerenstraße. [...] I was happy that I was to make my debut in Berlin in this very role (as Tellheim in Minna von Barnhelm)."
From 1913 Winterstein also took on film roles, in which the stocky actor soon became the ideal cast of energetic respecters such as generals, judges, landowners and directors. Unlike in the theatre, however, Winterstein's appearances in film were usually limited to supporting parts. Yet, already his second film, Schuldig (Hans Oberländer, Messter 1913) had him in the lead. From 1915, Winterstein performed in several films starring Henny Porten, mostly as evil antagonists, such as in the two-part Die Faust des Riesen (Rudolf Biebrach, 1917) and Die Claudi vom Geiserhof (Biebrach, 1917). In the late 1910s he acted in films by e.g. Rosa Porten (Die Erzkokette, 1917), Arthur Wellin (Erborgtes Glück, 1918; Pique Dame, 1918; Der Ring der drei Wünsche, 1918) all with Alexander Moissi, Richard Oswald (Der lebende Leichnam, 1918; Die Prostitution, 2. Teil - Die sich verkaufen, 1919), Robert Reinert (Opium, 1918-19), Jaap Speyer (Das Schicksal der Margarete Holberg, 1918), E.A. Dupont (Die Maske, 1919), and Rudolf Meinert (Das Kloster von Sendomir, 1919) with Ellen Richter. He had the lead in In den Krallen des Vampyrs (Wolfgang Neff, Heinz Sarnow, 1919), the two-part Der gelbe Tod (Carl Wilhelm, 1919), Nerven (Reinert, 1919), and Maria Magdalene (Reinhold Schünzel, 1919). He also was the male antagonist in a few films with Hedda Vernon, directed by Hubert Moest (Blondes Gift, 1919; Die Hexe von Norderoog, 1919; Lady Godiva, 1920; Das Frauenhaus von Brescia, 1920; Das fränkische Lied, 1922). In Ernst Lubitsch' Madame Dubarry (1919) he played count Jean Dubarry, who concocts the plan to marry Louis V's mistress Jeanne (Pola Negri) to his brother.
Winterstein remained extremely active in the early 1920s in such films as Der Reigen (Oswald, 1919-20) with Asta Nielsen, Die Tänzerin Marion (Fredric Féher, 1920), Maria Tudor (Adolf Gärtner, 1920) with Ellen Richter (many more films with Richter and Gärtner would follow), Das Martyrium (Paul Ludwig Stein, 1920) with Pola Negri, Das Haupt des Juarez (Johannes Guter, 1920) in which he had the lead, Hamlet (Svend Gade, Heinz Schall, 1920-21) with Asta Nielsen as Hamlet and Winterstein as Claudius, Die Beute der Erinnyen (Otto Rippert, 1921) with Werner Kraus, and Danton (Dimitri Buchowetzki, 1921) starring Emil Jannings as Danton and with Winterstein as general Westermann. In F.W. Murnau's Der brennende Acker (1921-22) he is count Rudenburg who unknowingly hires golddigger Johannes as secretary. from 1921 he also acted in the Fridericus Rex films (1922-23) , as Leopold Fürst von Anhalt-Dessau in the first and second part Sturm und Drang and Vater und Sohn, on the youth of Frederick the Great, played by Otto Gebühr. In part 3 and 4, Schicksalswende and Sanssouci, he played Fürst Moritz von Anhalt-Dessau. In addition to many supporting parts in the early 1920s, Winterstein had the male lead in Das Diadem der Zarin (Richard Löwenbein, 1922), Der Weg zu Gott (Franz Seitz Sr., 1923), Gott, Mensch und Teufel (Oskar Schubert-Stevens, 1923), In den Krallen der Schuld (Fred Rommer, 1924), Fräulein Josette - meine Frau (Gaston Ravel, 1926), Elternlos (Franz Hofer, 1927), Stolzenfels am Rhein. Napoleon in Moskau (Richard Löwenbein, 1927), Ein Tag der Rosen im August ... da hat die Garde fortgemußt (Max Mack, 1927).
When sound cinema set in, Winterstein was the school director in Der blaue Engel (Josef von Sternberg, 1929-30) with Emil Jannings and Marlene Dietrich, while he had another supporting part opposite Jannings in Liebling der Götter (Hanns Schwarz, 1930). In Rosenmontag (Hans Steinhoff, 1930) he is the commander-in-chief of Mathias Wieman who has an adulterous affair with Lien Deyers. In the early 1930s Winterstein played in several spy and secret service films, a.o. by Harry Piel, Gerhard Lamprecht a.o., while he continued to act in many period pieces. After the Nazi takeover in 1933, he continued acting in films. As he now was of a certain age, he would often play the father of the male or female lead, e.g. Brigitte Horney's father in Der König des Montblanc (Arnold Fanck, 1933/34) or Ivan Petrovich's father in Die Korallenprinzessin (Victor Janson, 1937), or elder military, judges, commissionaries, priests, and aristocrats. By the late 1930s many parts by Winterstein were small and uncredited. Instead, he had the male lead in the rural comedy Für die Katz (Hermann Pfeiffer, 1940), as a rich farmer who has a hate-love-affair with an innkeeper (Lina Carstens), which explodes when he shoots her cat who has killed his chicken. In the anti-British war propaganda film Ohm Kruger (Hans Steinhoff, 1941), Winterstein played Cronje, one of the Boer army commanders opposite Jannings as Paul Krüger. Several minor parts followed during the war years. During the National Socialist era, he was placed on the Gottbegnadeten list at the end of the war by the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, so he wasn't sent to war.
After the war Winterstein was one of the people filmed for the 1946 newsreels Augenzeuge. From 1948 he worked for DEFA himself. initially in small parts, but from Die Jungen von Kranichsee (Arthur Pohl, 1950) he got substantial supporting parts. He starred in Die Sonnenbrucks (George C. Klaren, 1950-51) as an apolitical professor who keeps aside during the Third Reich, but is confronted with an escaped camp prisoner. His daughter helps the refugee but is killed herself. The professor, defamed by colleagues, meets the refugee at a conference in the GDR. The film won Winterstein the award for Best Actor at the Karlovy Vary film festival. Another important part Winterstein had as a village priest in Das verurteilte Dorf (Martin Hellberg, 1951-52), in which villagers protest against the removal of their town to make place for an US army base. Winterstein had the lead in Heimliche Ehen (Gustav von Wangenheim, 1955-56), also with Paul Heidemann, comedian from the silent era, and a young Armin Mueller-Stahl. In Konrad Wolf's Genesung (1955/56) Winterstein was a professor of medicine, confronted with a promising student of medicine (Wolfgang Kieling), who however has a dubious past. Winterstein's last (bit) part was in the Polish-German science-fiction film Der schweigende Stern (Kurt Maetzig, 1960). Eduard von Winterstein appeared in over 160 films.
Winterstein also scored various spoken-word records, including the ring parable from Nathan der Weise for the GDR record label Eterna even in his old age. In the period after the Second World War, Winterstein belonged to the ensemble of the Deutsches Theater. There he played the role of Nathan almost four hundred times. Winterstein consciously chose to live in the GDR, a circumstance that the GDR's cultural policy took advantage of. After his death, the Neue Deutschland devoted a special page to him, which included a text by Winterstein entitled "Wahl des Besseren" (Choosing the Better). Its concluding passage reads: "I have experienced many transformations: under three emperors, the First World War, the pseudo-democracy of the Second Reich, the Weimar Republic, the terrible twelve years of National Socialism and the complete collapse of the German Reich brought about by it, until, breathing a sigh of relief, I joined the new progressive spirit of my own free decision and will, and now proudly call myself a citizen of the German Democratic Republic, and this out of insight, reasons, choice of the better." During the 1950s Winterstein got several awards for his stage and screen work, including Best DDR actor. Winterstein is buried in the family grave at the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery. Winterstein was married to actress Minna Mengers since 1894. Their son was the actor and director Gustav von Wangenheim (1895-1975).
Winterstein was on stage as an actor for a total of more than seventy years. His work is closely linked to German theatre history of the 20th century and especially to the history of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. He earned his greatest merits as a performer of roles from Lessing's plays. Winterstein stands for the concept of realistic theatre art advocated by Max Reinhardt and Otto Brahm. (Source: German Wikipedia, Filmportal, IMDb)