Photo by Kiesel

Atelier Kiesel was one of the renowned photo studios of Berlin during the 1920s. Little is known about the history of Kiesel but many of the studio's portraits of elegeant Weimar film stars have been preserved through the postcards of Ross Verlag and its Austrian colleague Iris Verlag. Here are 15 examples.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 868. Photo: Kiesel, Berlin.

Ethereally blonde Camilla Horn (1903-1996) was a German dancer and film star. Her breakthrough role was Gretchen in the silent film classic Faust (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1926). She also starred in some Hollywood films of the late 1920s and in a few British and Italian productions.


Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5131. Photo: Kiesel, Berlin.

Colette Brettel (1902-1973) was a British actress on the silent screen.


Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5374. Photo: Kiesel.

Polish actress Irma Green (or Gren) appeared in a handful of silent Polish and German films of the late 1920s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 951/1, 1925-1926. Photo: Kiesel, Berlin.

Elisabeth Pinajeff (1900-1995) was a Russian-Lithuanian actress who starred in German and French cinema in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1950s she was also involved in the notorious scandal of the Ballets roses.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 952/1, 1925-1926. Photo: Kiesel, Berlin.

German singer/actress Charlotte Ander (1902-1969) was a star in the silent era before making the transition to sound. The Nazis broke her successful career because she was not of 'pure blood'.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3089/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Kiesel, Berlin.

Ruth Weyher (1901-1983) was a German actress of the silent cinema, famous for films like Schatten//Shadows (1923), Die keusche Susanne/The Girl in the Taxi (1926) and Geheimnisse einer Seele/Secrets of a Soul (1926).



German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3462/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Kiesel, Berlin.

German film actress Christa Tordy (1904-1945) was discovered while visiting her cousin Mady Christians in Berlin. In the late 1920s, she briefly became a leading star of the German silent cinema before retiring after marrying Harry Liedtke. She was murdered along with her husband by the Soviet Red Army at her home during its invasion of Germany during World War II.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3463/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Kiesel, Berlin.

Pretty Fee Malten (1911-2005) was a popular German film star in the late 1920s and early 1930s. She portrayed uncomplicated, gay girls in several silent and early sound films until her budding career was broken off by the rise of Adolph Hitler.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3464/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Kiesel, Berlin.

German actress Brigitte Helm (1908-1996) is still famous for her dual role as Maria and her double, the evil robot Maria, in the silent SF classic Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). After Metropolis she made a string of over 30 films in which she almost always had the starring role. She easily made the transition to sound films, before she abruptly retired in 1935.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3555/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Kiesel, Berlin.

Yugoslav film actress and beauty queen Ita Rina (1907-1979) was one of the major film stars in Germany and Czechoslovakia in the late 1920s and early 1930s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3648/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Kiesel, Berlin.

Despite her English-sounding name, Mary Parker (1902-?) was a Polish actress who was active in the German cinema of the late silent era.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4028/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Kiesel, Berlin.

Polish-born, German actress Dina Gralla (1905-1994) often appeared as a naïve, sexy dancer in German revues, and in more than 35 silent and early sound films.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4660/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Kiesel. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) was the notorious director of Triumph des Willens (1935), a fascinating propaganda documentary about Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, commissioned by the Nazi government. Before she started directing films, she worked as a dancer and on screen, she became a star in the mountain films, directed by Arnold Fanck.



German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6597/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Kiesel, Berlin.

German actress Marianne Winkelstern (1910-1966) became well-known as a ballerina in Germany and England. In Germany, she appeared in some silent films and early sound films.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 7084/2, 1932-1933. Photo: Atelier Kiesel, Berlin.

German, but Dutch-born film actress Lil Dagover (1887-1980) was an exotic, dark beauty, who featured prominently during the golden age of German silent cinema. She had her breakthrough as the prey of Dr. Caligari's monster in the classic expressionist film Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920). Gradually her fine and evanescent beauty changed and she turned into a ´Salondame´, a lady of the screen. Her career would span nearly six decades.

And please check out our Photo by Kiesel album on Flickr for more postcards.