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Post-war German cinema trends shifted from the glamorous divas and idealized motherhood figures of the 1930s and 40s to simple, wholesome, lively, and perhaps tomboyish girl-next-door types. Traditional Germanic features were no longer essential. Dark-haired, dimple-cheeked Sonja Ziemann, with her gray-green eyes and Bardot-like lips, became the emblem of the new fun-loving heroine in light romantic films and the popular 'Heimatfilm' genre.
Sonja Alice Selma Toni Ziemann was born in Eichenwalde, near Berlin, to a tax advisor. She trained in ballet with Hilde Altmann-Vogt and Tatjana Gsovsky and started her career as a showgirl in revues and operettas, singing and dancing at the Metropol Theater. There, director Peter Paul Brauer discovered her for film. She debuted in a 1942 musical comedy and was nurtured by Germany’s leading film company Ufa, based in Babelsberg, as a promising starlet. After several minor supporting roles and a brief stage return post-World War II, she remained in musicals and comedies with limited impact until The Black Forest Girl (1950) brought her major success. This film, the first color motion picture made in Germany after the war, topped the box office and became the highest-grossing film of the year. Sonja earned her first of two Bambi Awards but was soon typecast. More Heimatfilms and operettas followed, often alongside Austrian matinee idol Rudolf Prack, hailed as Germany’s most beloved screen couple. Grün ist die Heide (1951) was their biggest hit, drawing 16 million viewers nationwide.
“All my roles were kitsch,” she confessed in a 1961 American interview. Many relied on her photogenic looks and distinctive profile. Seeking to break free from her "snow white and marzipan" image, Sonja transitioned to dramatic character roles. Her first was in the Polish-West German co-production The Eighth Day of the Week (1958), based on a story and screenplay by Polish writer Marek Hlasko, whom she married in 1962. Throughout the late 1950s and 1960s, she diversified her roles and genres, working in Germany, England, and the U.S. She starred in realistic wartime dramas based on true events (Stalingrad: Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever? (1959), Strafbataillon 999 (1960), The Bridge at Remagen (1969)), thrillers (Rebel Flight to Cuba (1959), Journey Into Nowhere (1962), Frühstück mit dem Tod (1964)), and crime dramas (Das Messer (1971)). She also appeared in a comedic role, second billed after Terry-Thomas in the MGM production A Matter of WHO (1961), filmed at Elstree.
In the 1970s, Sonja shifted focus from film to stage performances in theaters in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich. After relocating to Switzerland, she was honored as an honorary member of the Zurich Schauspielhaus in 1981. Following the death of Marek Hlasko in 1969, she married actor Charles Regnier three years later. Sonja Ziemann passed away on February 17, 2020, in Munich at the age of 94.
