10 October 2012

Joachim Hansen

Blonde and masculine German actor Joachim Hansen (1930 - 2007) was best known for his starring roles in the late 1950s and early 1960s and played in over 70 films and TV series. Later he was often cast in international films in roles portraying German officers.

Joachim Hansen
German postcard by UFA, Berlin-Tempelhoff, no. CK-198. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Arthur Grimm / UFA.

Joachim Hansen
German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhoff, no. FK 4702. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Arthur Grimm.

Maria Perschy and Joachim Hansen in Lebensborn (1961)
German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK-4797. Photo: Joe Niczky / Ufa. Maria Perschy and Joachim Hansen in Lebensborn/Ordered to Love (Werner Klingler, 1961).

Luftwaffe pilot


Joachim Hansen was born as Joachim Spieler in Frankfurt/Oder, Germany, in 1930. He was the son of a schoolteacher and headmaster Alfred Spieler and his wife Agnes, née Radtke. He began his working career as an English and French translator. After following acting classes at the Max-Reinhardt-Schule für Schauspiel in Berlin, Joachim first started a stage career in Rheydt.

Director Alfred Weidenmann then asked him for the lead in the WW II film Der Stern von Afrika/The Star of Africa (Alfred Weidenmann, 1957). This epic about the popular pilots of the German Luftwaffe became the most successful German cinema production of the year and meant a national breakthrough for Hansen and his co-stars Hansjörg Felmy, Horst Frank and Peer Schmidt.

The new star followed his hit with popular films like the adventure Madeleine und der Legionär/Escape from Sahara (Wolfgang Staudte, 1957) with Hildegard Knef, and the war drama Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben/Stalingrad: Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever? (Frank Wisbar, 1958).

He starred in the Heimat-melodrama Und ewig singen die Wälder/Beyond Sing the Woods (Paul May, 1959), the sequel Das Erbe von Björndal/Heritage of Bjorndal (1960, Gustav Ucicky), and Via Mala (Paul May, 1961) with Gert Fröbe and Christine Kaufmann.

Hanson also appeared in one of the popular Edgar Wallace Krimis, Das Geheimnis der schwarzen Koffer/The Secret of the Black Trunk (Werner Klingler, 1962). Between 1957 and 1962 Joachim Hansen played leads in 19 feature films.

Joachim Hansen
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 4314, licency holder for Ufa/Film-Foto in the Netherlands. Sent by mail in 1959. Photo: Ufa.

Joachim Hansen
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden, Westfalen, no. 1071. Photo: Cinelux / Deutsch Cosmopol-film / Haenchen. Publicity still for Der Schatz vom Toplitzsee/The Treasure of Toplitzsee (1959).

Joachim Hansen
German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-178 Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Grimm / Ufa.

Führer, volk und vaterland


From the mid-1960s on Joachim Hansen appeared in such international hits as Paris brûle-t-il?/Is Paris Burning? (René Clément, 1966) starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, and The Bridge at Remagen (John Guillermin, 1968).

He appeared with Romy Schneider in the French films Le vieux fusil/The Old Gun (Robert Enrico, 1975), and Une femme à sa fenêtre/A Woman at Her Window (Pierre Granier-Deferre, 1976).

He often portrayed the German military who believed till the end in ‘Führer, Volk und Vaterland' such as a senior SS officer in The Eagle Has Landed (John Sturges, 1976) starring Michael Caine, and The Boys From Brazil (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1978) with Gregory Peck. He portrayed Lt. Gen. Alfred Jodl in the TV mini-series adaptations of Herman Wouk's The Winds of War (Dan Curtis, 1983) and War and Remembrance (Dan Curtis, Tommy Groszman, 1988) both starring Robert Mitchum.

In Germany, he played in TV films like Operation Walküre (Franz Peter Wirth, 1971) in which he portrayed Graf Claus von Stauffenberg, and he also acted in two TV films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Welt am Draht/World on a Wire (1973) and Nora Helmer (1974). His last film was the romantic comedy Palace (Edouard Molinaro, 1985) with Claude Brasseur.

In 1986, Joachim Hansen emigrated with his second wife, Marion Wolff, to Canada but he returned occasionally to Germany to work on the stage or for TV. Hansen died of a brain haemorrhage in Berlin, Germany, in 2007. He was 77. Hansen had a son, Maximilian.

Marianne Koch, Joachim Hansen
German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhoff, no. FK 3658. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Brünjes / Neue Emelka / Herzog Film. With Marianne Koch, his co-star in Der Stern von Afrika/The Star of Africa (Alfred Weidenmann, 1957).

Joachim Hansen
German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhoff, no. FK 3995. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Marszalek / UFA.

Sabine Bethmann and Joachim Hansen in Morgen wirst du um mich weinen (1959)
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag GmbH, Minden/Westf., no. 895. Photo: DCF / Arthur Grimm. Sabine Bethmann and Joachim Hansen in Morgen wirst du um mich weinen/Black Triangle (Alfred Braun, 1959).

Sources: Stephanie D'Heil (Steffi-line - German), I.S.Mowis (IMDb), Wikipedia (English and German), and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 3 August 2024.

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