Koppenhöfer, Marie

(1901-1948)

   Actress. Koppenhöfer began her career in Stuttgart, but by the early 1920s she was working regularly at the Munich Kammerspiele and the Cologne City Theater, where even as a young actress she developed a reputation for performances in tragic roles by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, and Heinrich von Kleist. In 1923, however, she appeared as Marie in the world premiere of Bertolt Brecht's Im Dickicht der Städte (In the Jungle of Cities) and a year later in his adaptation of Edward II. In 1925 Koppenhöfer moved to Berlin, where she remained for the next 19 years, working either at the Deutsches Theater or at the State Theater with Gustaf Gründgens and Jürgen Fehling. The regime awarded her the title of state actress in 1943. After the war, she returned to Munich, where she appeared in several German premieres of previously banned plays.