Eva-Maria Hagen, a well-known actress in the GDR, passed away on Tuesday, August 16 at the age of 87.
The German actress and singer Eva-Maria Hagen, a well-known figure in the former GDR whom she had to leave due to political reasons, passed away on Tuesday, August 16 at the age of 87, the family confirmed on Friday, August 19. The agency for his daughter, German punk legend Nina Hagen, told AFP that on August 16, 2022, “our adored Eva-Maria Hagen left the earthly realm to join her everlasting motherland.”
Eva-Maria Hagen, who was born on October 19, 1934, in Kolczyn, Poland, had her stage debut in 1953 at the famed Berliner Ensemble in Bertolt Brecht’s play cat ditch, which was later adapted for the big screen. The person we dubbed “Brigitte Bardot of the GDR” has appeared in more than 50 movies in addition to the theater. Especially with the success of the 1957 romantic comedy Don’t forget my Traudel (Don’t forget my little Traudel), produced by the state firm DEFA and centered on a young war orphan who falls in love with a police officer, she rises to become one of the most well-known actresses in East Germany.
Before divorcing the novelist Hans Olivia-Hagen with whom she had been married for five years and marrying the composer Wolf Biermann, she gave birth to a daughter named Nina in 1955. Eva-Maria Hagen and her daughter also fell into shame when the GDR authorities deprived him of his East German passport and barred them from working in their line of work. In 1977, the family relocated to West Berlin from the GDR. Then, Eva-Maria Hagen began a second career that combined singing and theater, which she carried up to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in reunited Germany in the early 1990s.
With her spectacular and confrontational theatrical performances, his daughter Nina has emerged as one of the major stars of the German punk scene. His career combines esotericism, spirituality, activism, and scandal. Cosma Shiva Hagen, the daughter of Nina Hagen, who frequently made public appearances with her mother and grandmother, has also started an acting career.