DORSCH, KÄTHE

(1890-1957)

   Actress. Dorsch began her career as an operetta soubrette at age 18 in the mold of Marie Geistinger and Josephine Gallmeyer, working initially in Mainz and soon thereafter in Berlin. There she performed regularly in the Admiralspalast Theater, becoming one of that theater's most appealing sopranos. In 1927 she decided on a career change and began accepting serious roles at the Volkstheater in Vienna, and later at the Burgtheater. The change served to extend her career as a performer, and by the 1930s she was hired for several roles in plays by Gerhart Hauptmann, George Bernard Shaw, and Henrik Ibsen, culminating in her much-praised portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in Friedrich Schiller's Maria Stuart.She even convinced Heinz Hilpert and Carl Zuckmayer in 1931 to adapt Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms so she could play the sentimentally tragic Catherine Barkley, doomed to die in childbirth. During the Third Reich, Dorsch played several doomed heroines, none more ill-fated than Marguerite Gautier in Gustaf Gründgens's popular 1937 production of Camille. Through her suffering, she seemed to attain a magisterial dignity, a quality on full display in the 1941 film Komödianten (The Comedians), a biography of the legendary Caroline Neuber.

   Dorsch exploited her friendship with Hermann Goering during the 1940s to save dozens of lives. She had once been engaged to marry Goering when he was an air force lieutenant during World War I; he retained a sentimental attachment to her, of which she took full advantage for the sake of many former colleagues in prison or in concentration camps. She arranged for the escape of several Jewish families, whom she sometimes supported abroad from her own funds. Nazi authorities referred to her as "the Jewish mother" in the early years of the regime, but as the terror against Jews worsened, her tactics became more brazen. Dorsch came ever more fully to rely on the quixotic protection of Goering. Hers was a career like that of Gründgens — one fully immersed in political intrigue—yet her courage was based on inner conviction and a sublimity that often seemed to radiate from her on stage in performance.

   Her postwar career included summer tours throughout West Germany and revivals of Maria Stuart. On the occasion of her retirement in 1953, she received numerous awards, including the Art Prize of the City of Berlin.