In around 1947, rather than go to university, she applied for and got the job of secretary to biologist and diving pioneer, Hans Hass (1919-2013), at the International Institute of Submarine Research in Vienna.

[8] In the 1950s, Hass received several film offers from Hollywood but turned them all down because she wanted to continue supporting her husband in his research.

Firstly, the company Sascha-Film who were producing the documentary, decided that the film would appeal to a wider audience with the inclusion of an attractive female lead.

[17] Secondly, while testing the diving gear in the Port Sudan hotel pool, the expedition’s cameraman collapsed from the heat and was removed from the team.

[18] During dives with Hass, she continued to act as his secretary, taking notes with a stylus on wax “sitting calmly on a rock, several fathoms down.”[19] The resulting documentary Abenteuer in Roten Meer was released in 1950 with Lotte starring under her maiden name.

Hass was unable to join part of a subsequent 1957-8 expedition because she was pregnant, so she asked the on-board zoologist Wolfgang Klausewitz to name a new species of fish in her honour.

He chose a whitecap goby, naming it Lotilia graciliosa, Lotilia meaning “belonging to Lotte.”[24] Hans made over 100 films between 1948 and 1960, with Hass appearing in, and later producing “almost all of them”[25] including: In 1976, she had a supporting role, playing the character Frau Parenge, in episode 29 (The Man from Portofino) of the German detective series Derrick (TV series) [28] In 1970, Hass published her autobiography, Das Mädchen auf dem Meeresgrund: Die Geschichte der Tauchpioniere Lotte und Hans Hass.