Martin Kosleck

Martin Kosleck
Kosleck in Hitler (1962)
Born	Nicolaie Yoshkin (1904-03-24)March 24, 1904 Barkotzen, Province of Pomerania, German Empire (now Barkocin, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland)
Died	January 15, 1994(1994-01-15) (aged 89) Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1927–1980
Spouse	Eleonore von Mendelssohn ​ ​ (m. 1947)​ [1]

Martin Kosleck (born Nicolaie Yoshkin; March 24, 1904 – January 15, 1994) was a German film

While in the

In the early 1930s, Hitler and the Nazi Party were growing in power. Kosleck spoke out against both and decided to leave Germany in 1931 for Britain. The following year, he arrived in New York City and then traveled west to Hollywood. In 1933, when Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power, because of his opposition to the Nazis, Kosleck was placed on the Gestapo list of "undesirables".

He appeared in his first American film

agent who had uncovered the network of Nazi organizations throughout the United States. Kosleck, in a small role playing Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, revealed a sinister streak of evil that was sought after in wartime movies to come.

Many other German actors at the time resented being typecast as Nazis; Kosleck, though, reveled in it as a way to get back at the Nazis. He appeared in numerous anti-Nazi films of the early 1940s: Nurse Edith Cavell, Espionage Agent, Underground, Berlin Correspondent, Bomber's Moon, and Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas. However, it was his impression of Goebbels that will remain in the memories of moviegoers, especially in Paramount's 1944 pseudo-documentary The Hitler Gang.

With the end of the Second World War, roles as Nazis declined. Kosleck then moved into horror B movies, such as The Frozen Ghost and The Mummy's Curse (both starring Lon Chaney Jr., whom Kosleck disliked intensely), House of Horrors, and She-Wolf of London, starring June Lockhart. The House of Horrors gave him his best-remembered role beyond Goebbels, as an insane sculptor, Marcel De Lange, who saves a monster from drowning and gets revenge by having the monster kill his critics.^{[citation needed]}

Television

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With fewer film opportunities presenting themselves, Kosleck returned to New York City with his wife, the German-born actress Eleonore von Mendelssohn, a great x3 grand daughter of

In 1970, Kosleck played (Gestapo) General Mueller in the television comedy Hogan's Heroes, episode: "The Gestapo Takeover". He suffered from a heart attack in the 1970s, and thereafter worked only occasionally, mostly in television. During this time, he appeared in Love, American Style; Banacek; and Sanford and Son. In 1980, he appeared in his last film, The Man with Bogart's Face.

Aside from acting, Kosleck was an accomplished painter who supported himself through his work as a portrait artist while waiting for a movie role. An impressionist-style portrait-painter, he painted both Bette Davis and Marlene Dietrich.

Personal life

Kosleck was in a relationship with fellow actor and German emigrant Hans Heinrich von Twardowski from the early 1930s until Twardowski's death in 1958. Their sometimes turbulent relationship is discussed in many letters between Twardowski and his close friend Marlene Dietrich. In 1947, Kosleck married in an unexpected act the German actress Eleonora von Mendelssohn (her only film is Black Hand, 1950), who committed suicide in 1951.^[5]

Kosleck died at age 89, following abdominal surgery, in a

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Martin Kosleck.

• Martin Kosleck at
  IMDb
• Martin Kosleck at the Internet Broadway Database