- Born
- Died
- Birth nameBeata Margareta Kristina Söderbaum
- Nicknames
- Reichswasserleiche
- Blond Ambition
- Blonde Bitch of Goebbels
- The Queen of UFA
- Perpetually Raped
- The Rape Queen
- Kristina Söderbaum was born on 5 October 1912 in Stockholm, Sweden. She was a professor's daughter from Djursholm, Stockholm, Sweden. After graduation she went to Paris to learn French and by chance got a role in the short film Hur behandlar du din hund? (1934). In 1935, she studied history of art in Berlin and attended acting classes. There she got to know her future husband Veit Harlan. During WWII Kristina Söderbaum played the main parts in popular Nazi propaganda movies under the direction of her husband Veit Harlan. Between 1939 and 1945 they made together the successful films Covered Tracks (1938), The Immortal Heart (1939), The Trip to Tilsit (1939), Die goldene Stadt (1942), Immensee (1943), Opfergang (1944) and Burning Hearts (1945). The most infamous was Jud Süß (1940), a strong antisemitic propaganda film. Three years after "Jud Süss" she became an honoury student at Uppsala University, Sweden. Söderbaum said after the war that she regretted the films, but she never made a comeback as a popular actress. She didn't work until Harlan was allowed to direct again in 1950 and then appeared mostly in his films and on German TV until the 1990s. After Harlan's death in the 1964, she also established herself as a fashion photographer in Munich, Germany and wrote her memoirs, "Nichts bleibt immer so", in 1983. On 12 February 2001, she died in Hitzacker, Lower Saxony, Germany.
- IMDb mini biography by: Peter Rydén - Kristina Söderbaum was born on 5 October 1912 in Stockholm, Sweden. After graduation she went to Paris to learn French and by chance got a role in the short film Hur behandlar du din hund? (1934). In 1935, she studied history of art in Berlin and attended acting classes. There she got to know her future husband Veit Harlan, with whom she made several movies, most of them antisemitic propaganda films such as Jud Süß (1940). After the war, she didn't work until Harlan was allowed to direct again in 1950 and started a second career as fashion photographer in Munich. On 12 February 2001, she died in Northern Germany.
- IMDb mini biography by: fippi2000
- SpouseVeit Harlan(April 5, 1939 - April 13, 1964) (his death, 2 children)
- Children
- RelativesUlla Söderbaum(Sibling)
- Often portrayed naive innocent girls who were in the end driven to suicide (usually by drowning) after being violated by unscrupulous male characters.
- Golden curls, bright blue eyes, and pink cheeks.
- Cherubic facial features.
- Considered the prototype of an "Aryan woman" during the Nazi regime. As two of the characters she played on her husband Veit Harlan's melodramatic movies committed suicide by drowning, the audience gave her the nickname "Reichswasserleiche" (literally for "most prominent water corpse in the Reich").
- Daughter of Henrik Gustaf Söderbaum (1862-1933), Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1923-1933.
- Her last film was with Hugh Grant in the thriller Night Train to Venice in 1994.
- Director and husband Harlan and Söderbaum made ten films together under Joseph Goebbels.
- The actress Kristina Söderbaum experienced a very successful film career in Germany but her participation in some propaganda movies, among them "Jud Süss" directed by her husband Veit Harlan, led to a speedy end of her career after the war.
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