Therese Giehse, born Therese Gift, was a German actress. Born in Munich to German-Jewish parents, she first appeared on the stage in 1920. She became a major star on stage, in films, and in political cabaret. In the late 1920s through 1933, she was a leading actress at the famous Munich Kammerspiele.
Early career
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Giehse left Germany for Zürich, Switzerland, where she continued to act in exile, playing leading roles in Zürich, including in Erika Mann's acclaimed political cabaret, . During her exile, she traveled throughout central Europe with Pfeffermühle. On 20 May 1936, she married the homosexual English writerJohn Hampson to obtain a British passport and avoid capture by the Nazis. She returned to Germany after World War II, and performed in theaters on both sides of the Iron Curtain, but mostly in her native Bavaria, until her death on 3 March 1975, three days before her 77th birthday.
In exile, Giehse played the first Mother Courage in the world premiere of Bertolt Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children, in 1941 at the Schauspielhaus Zürich. After the war, Giehse returned to Munich and to the Munich Kammerspiele, where, in 1950, she again played the role of Mother Courage, this time directed by Brecht himself. This production became documented as the second "Model production" of Brecht's play. Giehse and Brecht would often converse in their strong Bavarian dialect during rehearsals, making Brecht's wife jealous of their kindred spirit. In the 1950s, Giehse played several roles as a member of Brecht's theatre, the Berliner Ensemble. In the mid-1970s, she returned to the Berliner Ensemble to perform several Brecht Evenings of the poems, plays, and writings of her lifelong friend and colleague. As a member of the Berliner Ensemble and collaborator with Brecht, she was a much-sought-after interpreter of his work and recordings of her reciting and singing his work appeared on records in both East and West Germany.
Other roles
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Giehse continued to perform many lead roles in various theaters in Germany, often using her considerable comic skills to play character roles, as well as great dramatic roles, such as the leads in several landmark productions by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, the world premiere of The Visit in 1956, and The Physicists in 1962. She later worked with Peter Stein's renowned in Berlin. She also appeared in over 20 films and a number of television productions. In 1988, a commemorative stamp was printed in her honor as part of the Women in German history series. In the same year a commemorative exhibition took place at the Deutsches Theatermuseum in Munich
