Josef Peterhans

Josef Peterhans (1882-1960) was a German stage and screen actor of the Weimar period. The physically beefy actor with the massive character head and high forehead peaked in German silent cinema of the late 1910s.


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film-Sterne series, no. 212/1. Photo: Annie Lipschitz, Berlin.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K.3231. Photo: Treumann-Larsen. As far as known, Peterhans did only one film for Treumann-Larsen, Der violette Tod/The Purple Death (Eugen Burg, 1919).


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, no. 2613. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin. Josef Peterhans in the stage play 'Der Katzensteg', based on the eponymous novel (1889) by Hermann Sudermann, which was later transformed into a stage play. The play was also adapted into a film, first in 1915 by Max Mack.

Screen partner of American diva Fern Andra

Josef Thomas Peterhans was born in 1882 in Achern, Germany. He began his acting career at the age of twenty. Peterhans acted for many years with little response in the provinces and in Berlin. After his war service from 1914 to 1917, he got his first film role in Berlin.

In the beginning, Peterhans played leading roles. In 1918, he was the partner of the American screen diva Fern Andra in two films: Frühlingsstürme im Herbste des Lebens/Spring Storms in the Autumn of Life (Fern Andra, 1918) and Um Krone und Peitsche/Crown and Whip (Georg Bluen, Fern Andra, 1918), as well as Andra's film Zwei Menschen/Two People (Fern Andra, 1919).

He also acted opposite Hedda Vernon in ...der Übel größtes aber ist die Schuld.../but the greatest evil is guilt (Hubert Moest, 1918), opposite Ria Jende in Seelenverkäufer/Seller of Souls (Carl Boese, 1919) and Gepeitscht/Whipped (Carl Boese, 1919), opposite Wanda Treumann in Der violette Tod/The purple death (Eugen Burg, 1919), opposite Rita Clermont in Wenn Frauen lieben/When women love (Otto Haerting, 1919), and opposite Helga Molander in Das Lied des Narren/The Song of the Fool (dir. unknown, 1919).

Yet, from 1920 on, he had to be content with supporting parts. While in 1920 he still acted in 9 films, from 1921 onward he would act in only one or two films per year. He acted for instance in Zur Chronik von Grieshuus/Chronicles of the Gray House (Arthur von Gerlach, 1925), in which his son Hanspeter Peterhans had a major part.

Father and son also acted together in Wilhelm Tell (Rudolf Dworsky, Rudolf Walther-Fein, 1923) and Der Wilderer/The Poacher (Johannes Meyer, 1926). Peterhans had a major part as Dary Holm's husband in the Harry Piel film Rätsel einer Nacht/Night of Mystery (Harry Piel, 1927). He also acted in Piel's Panik/Panic (Harry Piel, 1928).


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 532/5. Photo: Eiko Film. Hedda Vernon and Josef Peterhans in Der Übel größtes aber ist die Schuld (Hubert Moest, 1918). The title of the film refers to a line by Cicero, retaken by Friedrich Schiller in the closing lines of his play 'Die Braut von Messina'. Worse than a (self-chosen) death, both claim, is guilt.


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 532/7. Photo: Eiko Film. Hedda Vernon and Josef Peterhans in Der Übel größtes aber ist die Schuld (Hubert Moest, 1918).


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 558/2. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Fern Andra and Josef Peterhans in Frühlingsstürme im Herbste des Lebens/Spring Storms in the Autumn of Life (Fern Andra, 1918).


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 558/3. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Fern Andra and Josef Peterhans in Frühlingsstürme im Herbste des Lebens/Spring Storms in the Autumn of Life (Fern Andra, 1918).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K.3079. Photo: Greenbaum-Film. Josef Peterhans and Ria Jende in Seelenverkäufer/Seller of Souls (Carl Boese, 1919), also with Magnus Stifter. Seelenverkäufer was based on an at the time very popular German novel, 'Seelenverkäufer: Das Schicksal einer Deutsch-Amerikanerin', a fairly autobiographical novel by Margaret[h]e Schuck who under the name of M. Gontard-Schuck published this novel on her life.

Shrinking roles in sound films

In the sound period, Josef Peterhans' roles shrank to batch size. He was a general in the Heinz Rühman comedy Der Stolz der 3. Kompanie/The Pride of Company Three (Fred Sauer, 1932), a forester in Viktoria (Carl Hoffmann, 1935), Marshal Soult in the Napoleon film Hundert Tage/Hundred Days (Franz Wenzler), a priest in Wilhelm Tell/The Legend of William Tell (Heinz Paul, 1934), a member of parliament in Pour le mérite (Karl Ritter, 1938), and a policeman in Frau Luna (Theo Lingen, 1941).

In both of the Prussian stories about Frederick the Great: Fridericus (Johannes Meyer, 1937) and Der große König/The Great King (Veit Harlan, 1942), Peterhans played a general.

After his role in the silent film Indische Rache/Indian Revenge (Georg Jacoby, Léo Lasko, 1920), he played again an Indian in the double feature Der Tiger von Eschnapur/The Tiger of Eshnapur (Richard Eichberg, 1938) and Das indische Grabmal/The Indian Tomb (Richard Eichberg, 1938), starring Frits van Dongen/Philip Dorn and La Jana.

The theatre also hardly needed the actor in later years. Josef Peterhans was last seen on stage in Zurich between 1928 and 1930. To earn a living Peterhans often worked as a dubbing artist from the early 1930s. Peterhans retired from the film business before he was 60 years old and he didn't get a permanent engagement from the theatre for years.

Peterhans was on the 'Gottbegnadeten' list of the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda in 1944. He spent his retirement in Berlin-Steglitz. His wife, to whom he had been married since 1913, died in February 1945 during an air raid on Berlin. Josef Peterhans died in 1960 in Berlin-Steglitz. His written estate is in the archive of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 576. Photo: Fern-Andra-Atelier. Fern Andra and Josef Peterhans in Der Todessprung/Um Krone und Peitsche/Crown and Whip (Georg Bluen, Fern Andra, 1918).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 580. Photo: Fern-Andra-Atelier. Fern Andra and Josef Peterhans in Der Todessprung/Um Krone und Peitsche/Crown and Whip (Georg Bluen, Fern Andra, 1918).


German postcard by Verlag Ross, Berlin, no. 584, 1919-1924. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Fern Andra and Josef Peterhans in the German silent drama Zwei Menschen (Fern Andra, 1919).


German postcard by Verlag Ross, Berlin, no. 585, 1919-1924. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Fern Andra and Josef Peterhans in the German silent drama Zwei Menschen (Fern Andra, 1919).


German cigarette card by Ross Verlag in the Haus Bergmann Farb-Filmbilder series, no. 199. Photo: Terra Film. Fritz Hofbauer as Walter Fürst and Josef Peterhans as Pfarrer Rösselmann in Wilhelm Tell/The Legend of William Tell (Heinz Paul, 1934).

Sources: Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.