Trivia

She received a burial at sea in the North Sea .

Her only son was killed in action in WW-2.

Brittle-voiced German actress, often seen in maternal roles. On stage from 1911. Long theatrical residencies in Leipzig (1915-19; 1937-44) and Berlin (1945-49). She was the first actress to play "Mother Courage" in the play by Bertold Brecht. In films from 1922, leading roles by the mid-1930's. Reached her peak as a character actress in the post-war period, culminating with her performance in Lina Braake (1975). A noted voice-over artist, she also synchronised for English-speaking players like Margaret Rutherford, Florence Bates and Sybil Thorndike.

After World War II she continued her theater career and impersonated among others the role of mother Courage on a German stage for the first time.

In 1939 she was named a state actor by Joseph Goebbels.

The actress Lina Carstens was especially as a theater actress an institution. She already began her career in 1911 at the Hoftheater in Karlsruhe and worked at different theaters in Leipzig, Hamburg, Munich and Berlin in the next years.

In contrast to the theater where she often interpreted leading roles, she only got offered support roles in the German post-war film as ever.

She began her film career 1922. The director Douglas Sirk gave her various leading roles.

She also worked extensively as a voice actor and was dubbed over Margaret Rutherford (Passport to Pimlico), Françoise Rosay (Le Joueur) and Helene Thimig (Decision Before Dawn).

In 1972 she won the Film Award for her many years of service, in 1975 she was the same award for their outstanding performance in Lina Braake honored.

In the 60's and 70's her works for cinema and television alternated besides the theater.

She was married to the author Otto Ernst Sutter until his death in 1970.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Carstens also appeared on the radio as a reciter and as part of the radio stage (from which the independent literary genre of the radio play developed).

She died in a Munich hospital and was buried at sea in the North Sea.

At the Koblenz Theatre in 1945, she played the first Mother Courage on a German stage in Bertolt Brecht's play of the same name. Afterwards, she worked at the Stuttgart New Theatre, but in March 1949, following a dispute over the performance of Fritz Hochwälder's drama "Das heilige Experiment", she moved to the Bavarian State Theatre. From 1958 onwards, she worked as a freelance actress.