Heinrich Wilhelm "Heinz" Rühmann (; 7 March 1902 – 3 October 1994) was a German film actor who appeared in over 100 films between 1926 and 1993. He is one of the most famous and popular German actors of the 20th century, and is considered a German film legend. Rühmann is best known for playing the part of a comic ordinary citizen in film comedies such as Three from the Filling Station and The Punch Bowl. During his later years, he was also a respected character actor in films such as The Captain from Köpenick and It Happened in Broad Daylight. His only English-speaking movie was the 1965 Ship of Fools.
Biography Early life Rühmann was born in Essen as the son of a restaurateur. His father Hermann Rühmann moved to Berlin in 1915, where he probably committed suicide a little later. The exact circumstances of death could never be clarified.Anja Greulich, Guido Knopp: Heinz Rühmann. In: Guido Knopp (Hrsg.): Hitlers nützliche Idole. 1. Auflage. C. Bertelsmann Verlag, München 2007 Heinz began his acting career during the early 1920s and appeared in numerous theatres in Germany during the following years. His role in the 1930 movie Die Drei von der Tankstelle (The Three from the Filling Station) led him to film stardom. He remained highly popular as a comedic actor (and sometime singer) throughout the 1930s and early 1940s. He remained in Germany and continued to work during the Nazi period, as did his friend and colleague, Hans Albers.
Career during the Third Reich During the 1933–45 period, he acted in 37 films and directed four. After January 1933, Rühmann did not speak openly about German politics, but instead kept himself as neutral as possible. He never stated a word against or towards the Nazis in the press, although he had been a supporter of democracy. In 1938, he divorced his Jewish wife Maria Herbot, who then left Germany and traveled to Stockholm where she married a Swedish actor. The divorce caused Rühmann to be accused by some of wanting to secure his career; however, the marriage had probably already fallen apart, and some sources say that he wanted to protect his wife with the divorce.Franz Josef Görtz, Hans Sarkowicz: Heinz Rühmann, 1902–1994. Der Schauspieler und sein Jahrhundert. 2001, p. 193. After 1945, Herbot defended her ex-husband against accusations of opportunism.Article at Der Tagesspiegel. His second wife, Hertha Feiler, whom he married shortly after, had a Jewish grandfather, a fact that caused Rühmann problems with the Nazi cultural authorities. Rühmann retained his reputation as an apolitical star during the entire Nazi era.
During the war years, Rühmann, like others, was co-opted by the State in some films. His role as lead actor in the comedy Quax the Crash Pilot was supposed to distract the populace from the war. In 1941, under the direction of Reichsfilmkammer president Carl Froelich, Rühmann played the title role in Der Gasmann, about a gas-meter reader who is suspected of foreign espionage. In 1944, the premiere of Die Feuerzangenbowle was forbidden by the Nazi film censor for "disrespect for authority". Through his good relationships with the regime, however, Rühmann was able to screen the film in public. He brought the film to the Führerhauptquartier Wolfsschanze for a private screening for Hermann Göring and others. Afterward, Göring was able to persuade Adolf Hitler to lift the ban on the film. A nostalgic comedy of mistaken identities, the film was probably the most popular of his career and later became a cult hit among college students. As a "state actor", the highest title for an actor during the Nazi era, Rühmann was not drafted into the Wehrmacht. He did have to take the basic training to become a military pilot of the reserves (as he happened to be a hobbyist pilot anyway), but for the State, Rühmann was more valuable as an actor and he was spared having to take part in the war effort. In August 1944, Joseph Goebbels put Rühmann on the Gottbegnadeten list of indispensable actors.Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main (2007) p. 502
Rühmann was a favorite actor of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank, who pasted his picture on the wall of her room in her family's hiding place during the war, where it can still be seen today. The enormous range of Rühmann's popularity during the Nazi era is illustrated by the fact that he was also a favorite actor of Adolf Hitler and his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
Postwar career Rühmann had a difficult time resuming his career after the war, but by the mid-1950s, the former comedian had established himself again as a star, only this time as West Germany's leading character actor. In 1956, Rühmann starred in the title role of the internationally acclaimed film Der Hauptmann von Köpenick (The Captain of Köpenick), the true story of a Prussian cobbler, Wilhelm Voigt, who dressed up as an army officer and took over the town hall in Köpenick. In the days of the German Empire, the army had an exalted status and Voigt embarrassed the army officers and civil servants who obeyed him without question. Rühmann was also the leading man in the 1960 film version of The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik, after the novel by Czech author Jaroslav Hašek. During the 1960s, he played the popular fictional detectives Father Brown and Inspector Maigret. In 1965, Rühmann was brought to Hollywood by producer Stanley Kramer for a supporting role as a German Jew in his all-star movie Ship of Fools.
His wife Hertha Feiler died in 1970 and Rühmann married his third wife Hertha Droemer in 1974. In his later years, he also worked as a recitator for West German television. His last film was Faraway, So Close! (1993) by Wim Wenders, in which he played an old fatherly chauffeur named Konrad. Rühmann died in October 1994, aged 92 years. He was buried in Berg-Aufkirchen, Bavaria. His popularity with German audiences continues: In 1995, he was posthumously awarded the Goldene Kamera as the "Greatest German Actor of the Century"; in 2006, a poll voted him number one in the ZDF TV-show Unsere Besten – Favorite German Actors.
Awards 1938: Venice Film Festival: Medal for his acting in Der Mustergatte 1940: Appointed Staatsschauspieler by the Third Reich 1940: Honorary Membership in the Danish Flight Club 1957: Golden Gate Award (Best Actor) for Der Hauptmann von Köpenick 1957: Kunstpreis der Stadt Berlin 1957: Filmband in Gold as Best Leading Actor for Der Hauptmann von Köpenick 1959: Ernst-Lubitsch-Preis 1961: Preis der deutschen Filmkritik (Award of German Film Critics) 1961: Filmband in Gold as Best Leading Actor for Das schwarze Schaf 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1978, 1984: A total of twelve Bambi Awards 1965: Großes Verdienstkreuz des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1966: Silberner Bildschirm by the film magazine TV-Hören und Sehen 1967, 1968: Two Goldener Bildschirm by the film magazine TV-Hören und Sehen 1972: Großes Verdienstkreuz des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland mit Stern 1972: Filmband in Gold for his "long and outstanding work" in German Film 1972: Goldene Leinwand (Special Award) for extraordinary merits 1972: Honorary Medal by the Spitzenorganisation der Filmwirtschaft (SPIO) for Lifetime Achievement (withdrawn in November 2025"Rühmann, Riefenstahl wird Ehrenmedaille entzogen". wdr.de, 19 November 2025 (in German). Retrieved 19 November 2025.) 1977: Großes Verdienstkreuz des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland mit Stern und Schulterband 1977: Cultural Honor Prize of the City of Munich 1981: Bayerischer Maximiliansorden für Wissenschaft und Kunst 1982: Chaplin-Stock in Silver by the Association of German Film Critics 1982: Goldene Ehrenmünze der Landeshauptstadt München 1986: Bayerischer Filmpreis: Honorary Award 1989: Appointment as Professor honoris causa by the Kunst und Wissenschaft of North Rhine-Westphalia 1990: Goldene Berolina 1992: Magdeburger Otto for Lifetime Achievement 1995: Goldene Kamera as the Greatest German Actor of the Century (posthumous) 2006: Voted No. 1 in the ZDF TV-show Unsere Besten – Favorite German Actors (results by a poll)
Filmography Film
The Heart of a German Mother (1926) (with Margarete Kupfer) as Oscar The Girl with the Five Zeros (1927, screenplay by Béla Balázs, directed by Curtis Bernhardt) (with Adele Sandrock) The Three from the Filling Station (1930) (with Lilian Harvey, Willy Fritsch, Olga Chekhova, Oskar Karlweis, and the Comedian Harmonists) as Hans Burglars (1930) (with Lilian Harvey, Willy Fritsch, Ralph Arthur Roberts, and Oskar Sima) as Victor Sérigny The Man in Search of His Murderer (1931, directed by Robert Siodmak) as Hans Herfort Bombs on Monte Carlo (1931) (with Hans Albers, Anna Sten, and Peter Lorre) as First Officer Lt. Peter Schmidt My Wife, the Impostor (1931) (with Käthe von Nagy, Fritz Grünbaum, Theo Lingen, and Fritz Alberti) as Peter Bergmann, Bankbeamter The Virtuous Sinner (1931, directed by Fritz Kortner) (with Max Pallenberg and Dolly Haas) as Wittek No Money Needed (1931) (with Hans Moser and Hedy Lamarr) as Heinz Schmidt The Pride of Company Three (1932) (with Anton Walbrook and Rudolf Platte) as Gustav Diestelbeck Things Are Getting Better Already (1932) (with Dolly Haas and Fritz Grünbaum) as Ingenieur Fred Holmer Spoiling the Game (1932) as Willy Streblow, Rennfahrer The Empress and I (1933, directed by Friedrich Hollaender) (with Conrad Veidt, Lilian Harvey and Mady Christians) as Didier Laughing Heirs (1933, directed by Max Ophüls) (with Max Adalbert) as Peter Frank Homecoming to Happiness (1933) (with Luise Ullrich and Paul Hörbiger) as Amadori Three Bluejackets, One Blonde Girl (1933) as Kadett Heini Jäger There Is Only One Love (1933) (with Louis Graveure and Jenny Jugo) as Ballettmeister Eddy Blattner The Grand Duke's Finances (1934, Directed by Gustaf Gründgens) (with Viktor de Kowa, Fritz Alberti, and Theo Lingen) as Pelotard Such a Rascal (1934) (with ) as Dr. Hans Pfeiffer / Erich Pfeiffer (1934) as August Pipin (1934) (with Louis Graveure, Camilla Horn, Adele Sandrock, and Theo Lingen) as Benjamin Cortes, Komponist Heinz in the Moon (1934) (with Annemarie Sörensen, Rudolf Platte, Oskar Sima, and Jarmila Novotná and Hans Moser) as Aristides Nessel Frasquita (Austria, 1934) as Hippolit Heaven on Earth (Austria, 1935) (with Theo Lingen, Hans Moser, Adele Sandrock, Hermann Thimig, Rudolf Carl, and Lizzi Holzschuh) as Peter Hilpert (1935) as Paul Normann, der kleine Angestellte Eva (Austria, 1935) (with Magda Schneider, Hans Söhnker, Hans Moser, and Adele Sandrock) as Willibald Riegele Der Außenseiter (1935), as Peter Bang Ungeküsst soll man nicht schlafen gehn (Austria, 1936) (with Theo Lingen, Hans Moser, and Liane Haid) as Franz Angerer Tomfoolery (1936, directed by Willi Forst) (with Anton Walbrook, Renate Müller, and Jenny Jugo) as David If We All Were Angels (1936) as Christian Kempenich Lumpaci the Vagabond (Austria, 1936, based on a play by Johann Nestroy) (with Paul Hörbiger, Hans Holt, Hilde Krahl, and Fritz Imhoff) as Schneidergeselle Zwirn (Austria, 1937) (with Hans Moser, Theo Lingen, and Gusti Huber) as Toni Mathis The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes (1937, directed by Karl Hartl) (with Hans Albers) as Macky McPherson The Model Husband (1937) (with Leny Marenbach and Hans Söhnker) as Billy Bartlett The Roundabouts of Handsome Karl (1938) (with Sybille Schmitz) as Karl Kramer, Kellner Five Million Look for an Heir (1938) (with Leny Marenbach, , and Oskar Sima) as Peter Pett / Patrick Pett Thirteen Chairs (1938, based on the novel "The Twelve Chairs") (with Hans Moser) as Friseur Felix Rabe So You Don't Know Korff Yet? (1938) (with Victor Janson, Fritz Rasp) as Niels Korff The Leghorn Hat (1939) as Theo Farina Bachelor's Paradise (1939) (with Hans Brausewetter and Josef Sieber) as Hugo Bartels, Standesbeamter