Grethe Weiser

She escaped from her dominant and sometimes violent father by marrying a Jewish confectionery manufacturer in 1920.

Quite quickly she established herself in the cabaret scene in Berlin, especially after her husband became a leaseholder of a nightclub on the Kurfürstendamm.

Weiser had a lifelong relationship with Hermann Schwerin, a UFA film producer, which began in 1934, but the couple were not married until 1958.

She managed to finance and arrange for her previous husband and her son to survive the Nazi years in Switzerland, as well as at the same time continue her career in Germany.

She died after a road traffic accident, aged 67, in Untersteinbach near Bad Tölz in Bavaria and is buried in an honorary grave at the Heerstraße Cemetery in Berlin.

Weise on stage at the Berlin Wintergarten theatre , 1932
Grave of Grethe Weiser and her husband Dr Hermann Schwerin in Berlin in 2006