Zarah Leander was a Swedish singer and actress whose greatest success was in Germany between 1936 and 1943, when she was contracted to work for the state-owned Universum Film AG (UFA). Although no exact record sales numbers exist, she was probably among Europe's best-selling recording artists in the years prior to 1945. Her involvement with UFA caused her films and lyrics to be identified as Nazi propaganda. Though she had taken no public political position and was dubbed an "Enemy of Germany" by Joseph Goebbels, she remained a controversial figure for the rest of her life. As a singer Leander was known for her confident style and her dark, veiled voice.
Willy Birgel, born Wilhelm Maria Birgel, was a German theatre and film actor.
The Rudolf-Diesel-Medaille is an award by the German Institute for Inventions in memory of Rudolf Diesel for inventions and the entrepreneurial and economical implications accounting to the laureate. Since 1953 the award has been presented yearly until 1969 and then irregularly every two or three years.
Erich Gustav Otto Engel was a German film and theatre director.
The Traitor is a 1936 German film directed by Karl Ritter.
Faded Melody is a 1938 German drama film directed by Viktor Tourjansky and starring Brigitte Horney, Willy Birgel and Carl Raddatz. Horney and Birgel play characters engaged in a troubled transatlantic romance, with she based in New York City and he in Berlin. The film was made by Germany's largest studio of the era UFA.
Maria Ilona is a 1939 German historical drama film directed by Géza von Bolváry and starring Paula Wessely, Willy Birgel, and Paul Hörbiger. The film is set in Austria during the reign of Ferdinand I. It is an adaptation of Oswald Richter-Tersik's novel Ilona Beck.
Captain Wronski is a 1954 West German spy film directed by Ulrich Erfurth and starring Willy Birgel, Elisabeth Flickenschildt, and Antje Weisgerber. A Polish officer works undercover in 1930s Berlin to discover Nazi Germany's plans against his homeland.
Robert Koch is a 1939 Nazi propaganda film directed by Hans Steinhoff and starring Emil Jannings, Werner Krauss and Viktoria von Ballasko. The film was a biopic of the German pioneering microbiologist Robert Koch (1843-1910). It was shot at the Johannisthal Studios in Berlin and premiered at the city's Ufa-Palast am Zoo. The film was made by the Tobis Film company, and was also distributed in the United States by the largest German studio UFA.
Don't Ask My Heart is a 1952 West German drama film directed by Paul Martin and starring Willy Birgel, Heidemarie Hatheyer and Maria Holst. It was shot at the Tempelhof Studios in West Berlin. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Hans Jürgen Kiebach and Gabriel Pellon
Secret Code LB 17 is a 1938 German thriller film directed by Victor Tourjansky and starring Willy Birgel, Hilde Weissner and Bernhard Minetti.
The Noltenius Brothers is a 1945 German drama film directed by Gerhard Lamprecht and starring Willy Birgel, Karl Mathias and Hilde Weissner. Released in Berlin on 7 April, it was, by most accounts, the last of the twelve films released in Nazi Germany in 1945, before capitulation on7 May.
