Rememberig Wilhelm Koch-Hooge

Wilhelm Koch-Hooge was born on February 11, 1916, in Potschkau, Germany. He was the eleventh of thirteen children. His father was a master chimney sweep. After high school graduation Wilhelm wanted to become an actor but his father wanted him to find a stable profession. He followed in his father’s footsteps and became a chimney sweep and then went to Hamburg and found work as a sailor. He attended the Deutsches Theater in Berlin and made his stage debut in 1938 at the Municipal Theater of Kaiserslautern. As a stage actor he also appeared in Heidelburg and the City Theater Magdeburg before being drafted in 1942 into the army during World War II. Seriously injured and after he recovers he is sent to fight with the armored infantry in Africa. He is captured in Tunisia and sent to a prisoner of war camp in Mississippi. Here he writes theater plays. In 1946 he is returned to Magdeburg, Germany. In 1950 he settled in East Berlin and for years played in the Berlin Ensemble. His break-through as an film actor came in the 1954 movie “Stärker als die Nacht”. Numerous film and TV appearances followed in both Germany, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia where he became one of the most popular East German actors. During this time he appears in his only Euro-western the DEFA film “Fatal Error” (1969). Wilhelm remained active until the end of the 1980s. After the fall of the GDR he retired and passed away on September 2, 2004 in Berlin. Today we celebrate what would have been Wilhelm Koch-Hooge’s 95th birthday.