Hilde Wolter

Hilde Wolter (1898-1946) was a German silent film actress, active between 1918 and 1923. She had a short but impressive film career in German cinema.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 268/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 359/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Deutsche Mutoskop & Biograph.

A 17-years-old soubrette in Hamburg

Hilde Wolter was born Hildegard Elise Alwine Wollschläger in 1898 in Berlin, Germany.

She began her career at the age of 17 as a soubrette in Hamburg. She also took acting and singing lessons.

After her engagement at Hamburg's New Operetta Theatre, the young artist returned to Berlin during the First World War to take up an engagement at the Residenztheater. Later she also appeared at the Thalia Theatre in Vienna.

In Berlin, Hilde Wolter also made her screen debut at the age of 20. She played the title character in the Neutral-Film production Alraune, die Henkerstochter, genannt die rote Hanne/Sacrifice (Eugen Illés, Joseph Klein, 1918), after a novel by Hanns Heinz Ewers, according to the original film poster.

Jay Salsberg at IMDb: "this movie is a rather conventional ghost story about a woman whose life bears an amazing similarity to that of her ancestor, who was burned as a witch. The ALRAUNE of the title comes from a reference to the mandrake root, which the heroine employs to save her dying child. Aside from that, there is nothing at all to connect this film with the famous Hanns Heinz Ewers novel, upon which historians have mistakenly claimed this film was based."

Anyway, her role as Alraune was the start of a short but impressive career in the German cinema for Hilde Wolter.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 359/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Deutsche Mutoskop & Biograph Film-Ges.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 359/4, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Deutsche Mutoskop & Biograph Film-Ges.

The naïve, the sentimental, and the lover

For Messter Film, Hilde Wolter played parts in two comedies Bräutigam auf Aktien/Groom on stocks (Viggo Larsen, 1918) by and with Viggo Larsen, and Die Hochzeitsreise/The Honeymoon (N.N., 1919) with Arnold Rieck, and the crime film Die Edelsteinsammlung/The Gemstone Collection (Viggo Larsen, 1919).

In 1919, she switched to Paul von Woringen's Deutsche Mutoskop & Biograph. There she had the female leads or supporting parts in 9 films directed by Von Woringen, such as the dramas Eine tolle Kiste/A great box (Paul von Woringen, 1919), Wie das Schicksal spielt/How fate plays out (Paul von Woringen, 1920) and Sybill Morgan (Paul von Woringen, 1920).

Her subject in these films was that of the naïve, the sentimental, and the lover. Her male partner at Deutsche Mutoskop & Biograph was often Karl Beckersachs.

In 1921 she switched to Orplid-Film where Fred Sauer directed her in Die Männer der Frau Clarissa/Mrs. Clarissa's men (Fred Sauer, 1922) with Oscar Marion and Die Schatten jener Nacht/The shadows of that night (Fred Sauer, 1922) with Hermann Picha and Hans Adalbert Schlettow.

Her last performances Wolter gave in the Notofilm production Jenseits des Stromes/Beyond the River (Ludwig Czerny, 1922) and the two-part film Die Welt in Flammen/The world on fire (Nils Chrisander, Josef Stein, 1922-1923) with Nils Chrisander and Rolf Loer.

Hilde Wolter passed away in 1946 in Dresden, East Germany. She was 47.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 400/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Deutsche Mutoskop & Biograph Film-Ges.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 400/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Deutsche Mutoskop & Biograph Film-Ges.

Source: Filmportal, Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.