German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1847/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3723/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Becker & Maass.
A victim of the butcher she later kills
Hertha von Walther was born Hertha Stern und Walter von Monbary in Hildesheim, Germany in 1903. She was the daughter of the later Prussian Major General Arthur Stern und Walther von Monbary and his wife Clara, née Gabain. Her father had been born Arthur Stern-Gwiazdowski in Poland and was the adopted son of Rudolf Walther von Monbary. Her mother was originally French.
Hertha left the boarding school she had been attending in Wolfenbüttel at the age of 17 and attended drama school in Leipzig on a scholarship. After small roles at the theatre there, she moved to Berlin and was engaged at the Theater am Zoo and later at the Renaissance Theatre. She was given small film roles as early as 1920.
She made her film debut in Destinée (Edmund Linke, 1920), followed by the Luciano Albertini film Julot der Apache / Julot the Apache (Joseph Delmont, 1921) which she co-directed, and Herzog Ferrantes Ende / Duke Ferrante's End (Paul Wegener, Rochus Gliese, 1922). She appeared as an extra in Tragödie der Liebe / Tragedy of Love (Joe May, 1923), which starred Mia May opposite Emil Jannings as the evildoer.
In 1924, Von Walther played the sister of Luis Trenker in the Mountain film Der Berg des Schicksals / The Mountain of Destiny by Arnold Fanck. In G.W. Pabst's classic film Die freudlose Gasse / The Joyless Street (1925) starring Asta Nielsen and the young Greta Garbo, she played Else, one of the victims of the butcher played by Werner Krauss, whom she later kills. In the following years, she acted under Pabst's direction time and again, in the well-known films Geheimnisse einer Seele / Secrets of a Soul (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1926) starring Werner Krauss, Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney / The Loves of Jeanne Ney (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1927) and as Brigitte Helm's dubious friend in Abwege / The Devious Path (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1928).
Von Walther had the female lead in Der Herr des Todes / The Master of Death (Hans Steinhoff, 1926), while she was the weaver's daughter in Die Weber / The Weavers (Frederic Zelnik, 1927), Doña Ines in Paul Czinner's Doña Juana (1927), starring Elisabeth Bergner, and the innkeeper's daughter in the Harry Piel film Mann gegen Mann / Man Against Man (Harry Piel, 1928). Von Walther had another leading role in Das Geständnis der Drei / The Confession of the Three (James Bauer, 1929) as a woman accused of killing her husband, a fraudulent, criminal baron.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 77/3. Photo: Zelnik-Film. Hertha von Walther, Wilhelm Dieterle and Hermann Picha in Die Weber / The Weavers (Friedrich Zelnik, 1927).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1938/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa.
Attempts by the Gestapo to use her as an agent
Typecast as the shady woman, Hertha von Walther played the role of an opium addict in Fritz Lang's film Spione / Spies (1928), and in Lang's early sound film M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder / M (1931) she was a prostitute. In the sound film era, she appeared in many other great films such as the crime film Der Greifer / Night Birds (Richard Eichberg, 1930) which turned Hans Albers into a star, Alfred Hitchcock's German thriller Mary / Murder (1931), and the off-the-wall comedy Die Koffer des Herrn O.F. / The Trunks of Mr. O.F. (Alexis Granowsky, 1931) with Alfred Abel and Peter Lorre.
In addition to major supporting parts, Hertha von Walther also played many minor parts in films. In 1935 she married the director Paul May, who, along with her mother, encouraged von Walther to retire from films. Yet, after her divorce in 1936, she returned to the cinema but was only given minor roles in such films as the exotic-erotic adventure Der Tiger von Eschnapur / The Tiger of Eschnapur (Richard Eichberg, 1938) starring La Jana and Frits van Dongen, Sergeant Berry (Herbert Selpin, 1938), and Ich verweigere die Aussage / I Refuse to Testify (Otto Linnekogel, 1938).
During the Second World War, Hertha von Walther took part in tours to support the troops in France, the Netherlands and Russia. She evaded attempts by the Gestapo to use her as an agent by fleeing Germany in June 1943. She travelled to Portugal and then to Brazil in 1948.
There Hertha von Walther lived with her second husband, the Russian geologist Alexander Scherbina in a remote mining region. She also returned to the theatre at the Deutsche Kammerspiele in Rio de Janeiro. In 1958, she appeared in the West German crime drama Küsse, die töten / Kisses That Kill (Peter Jacob, 1958) with Susanne Korda and Heliane Bei.
In 1960, she returned to Germany alone. She went on tour and made guest appearances at various theatres. She was also given small roles in several films, including Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent Egg / Das Schlangenei (1977) and the first instalment of the Schulmädchen Reports, Schulmädchen-Report - Was Eltern nicht für möglich halten / Schoolgirl Report Volume #1: What Parents Don't Think Is Possible (Ernst Hofbauer, 1970). Her final film was the short drama Liebesblut / Love Blood (Günter Czernetzky, 1983) with Fred Williams. Hertha von Walther died in 1987 in Munich. She was 83.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3620/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Ufa.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4914/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Becker & Maass.
Sources: Ilse Reinhard (IMDb), Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.
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