Klaus Kinski, the repulsive beast who abused his daughters and hated everyone

 El Mundo

By Dario Prieto

November 23, 2021

November 23^th marks the 30th anniversary of the death of the German actor, protagonist of 'Fitzcarraldo' and 'Aguirre', and father of Nastassja and Pola Kinski, who were two of his many victims.

[Klaus Kinski (1926-1991), photographed in 1982 in Los Angeles.]

"I am like a beast with nails. If I was not an actor, I would have become a murderer or a martyr." When Klaus Kinski (1926-1991) died at his home in California, virtually no one cried for him. In the same way, Tuesday November 23rd marked the 30th anniversary of his death there will be few tears in his memory. Not even those of his daughters, who in their testimonies confirm the monster image that he always prided himself on showing.

His work as an actor is there and there is no one to move it: 'Doctor Zhivago' (1965), 'For a Few Dollars More' (1965), his theatrical monologue on Jesus Christ (1971), 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God' ( 1972), 'Fitzcarraldo' (1982) ... And his undesirable human dimension also remains, captured by the filmmaker Werner Herzog (who directed him in his five most acclaimed films) in his documentary 'My Best Friend' (1999) and for Kinski himself in his memoirs, which in Spanish and English carried the disconcerting title of 'I Need Love' (1988).

"Yes, within me there is violence, but it is not negative. When a tiger tears its tamer to pieces, it is said that that tiger is violent and a bullet is put in its head. My violence is the violence of being free, which is refuses to submit. Creation is violent. Life is violent. Being born is a violent process. A storm, an earthquake are violent movements of nature. My violence is the violence of life. It is not an unnatural violence, like the violence of the State that sends your children to slaughter, brutalizes your minds and exorcises your souls!".

The previous paragraph is a sample of the style of the book: egomaniac, aggressive and boastful. The other great pillar is missing, the sexual component (in Spain it was published in the erotic literature collection 'The vertical smile'), which is constantly present: throughout its almost 400 pages, Kinski maintains relationships with thousands of women. Hirsute and hairless, beautiful and horrible, almost old women and 13-year-old girls, prostitutes and millionaire heiresses. A sexually ill person who did not respect his daughters. The eldest, Pola, came to the world after her relationship with the singer Gislinde Kühlbeck. The actor thus justified the choice of name: "Pola is the girl from 'Crime and Punishment' who follows Raskolnikov and hugs and kisses him. Even though he is a murderer."

Although her father had his way when Pola was three years old, she denounced in her autobiography (published in 2013), that she forced her into an incestuous relationship over time. In 'I need love', Kinski himself did not hide it: "I am left alone with Pola. Now she is almost 13 years old, and I am in love with her as much as I can". His other daughter, Nastassja , the fruit of a second marriage to actress Ruth Brigitte Tocki, confirmed her father's predatory nature and applauded her sister's bravery.

Rape is a constant in the memoirs of Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski, his real name. Thus of, Ira de Fustenberg he says: "I would like to have met her when I was 15 years old and made her pregnant for the first time."

For him there were no limits, neither age, nor family nor resistance of the other person. On one occasion, he slept with a French actress and portrayed the 'intercourse' like this: "She is hysterical, and she continues to resist even after I have been F****d and unloaded inside her. She is married and, while we are f*****g, she spouts nonsense like ' rape ',' adultery 'and' scoundrel ' ... but his ravishing ass is approaching me so horny I'm sure he's willing to commit adultery. "

Between scenes of this type, Kinski allows himself to give speeches against animal abuse. Thus, after being invited to dinner at the home of a hunter, he was outraged: "And how can you sleep peacefully? You never have nightmares, never, after treacherously throwing nets on lions, gorillas and leopards , or taking to the babies after killing the mothers, to sell them to the zoos, condemning them to 'perpetual agony' in the punishment cells of the zoos !? ".

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Another of his vices were automobiles. "I have changed cars again. Of seven Ferraris, I have loaded four, and now I am about to change my sixth Rolls for another Ferrari," he boasts on another page of his book. "In the four years that I have been in Rome I have bought and changed 16 cars."

And then, of course, their hatred for the world of cinema, from the critics ("the more time passes without anyone coming and exterminating them with rodenticide, the more shameless those grumpy mutts become") to the directors ("those showmen who try to pimp me with their flaccid cocks . Those haughty, arrogant and neurotic braggarts who insist on getting music out of me and do nothing but challenge me. I don't need a guide dog! That impotent Kubrik can repeat a take 80 or 120 times! " ). But above all, by Herzog: "Just as dirty and halting as ever, he's still just as impertinent and gluttonous at the expense of others: he's the same bundle of trash he's always been."