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The actress, who lived in the Lüneburg Heath, can no longer see anything. (archive picture)
Philipp Schulze/dpa
German actress Ingrid van Bergen has died at the age of 94. She became famous for her cinema and television roles over several decades - and for her eventful life, which kept the public busy time and again.
The German actress Ingrid van Bergen has died at the age of 94. Behind her lies a life that was as dramatic as some of her film roles - characterized by war experiences, great successes, deep falls and a late second spring on stage and screen.
Born in Danzig-Langfuhr in 1931, Ingrid van Bergen grew up in East Prussia until the war tore her family apart. Her father was killed on the Eastern Front in 1941, her mother later fled with her four children across the bombed-out city of Gdansk - a life-threatening journey across the Vistula and the Baltic Sea. One of the ships was sunk and the family barely survived.
In 1945, the flight and the fear only ended in a reception camp in Skagen, Denmark, where van Bergen went to school. The family returned to Germany in 1948, where she completed her A-levels in Reutlingen.
After school, she moved to Hamburg - to drama school and the stage. She became involved in cabaret early on until she was discovered by director Helmut Käutner and brought in front of the camera in 1954. In the 1950s and 60s, she rose to become one of the best-known actresses in German-language film: a distinctive voice, strong presence, often cast as a femme fatale, barmaid or the antithesis of the staid post-war idyll.
She performed in major theaters and appeared in over 200 film and TV productions - also internationally, alongside Christopher Lee, Kirk Douglas, Klaus Kinski and Robert Mitchum. At the same time, she made a career as a singer.
Her life took a dramatic turn in 1977. One night on Lake Starnberg, she shot and killed her lover Klaus Knaths. The case became a national headline and the trial a media spectacle. Van Bergen was sentenced to seven years for manslaughter and released early after four years.
The new start was difficult. Engagements failed to materialize and his reputation was damaged. It was not until the early 1980s that she slowly made her way back - thanks to director Rosa von Praunheim, theater roles and later TV series.
From the 1990s, she worked regularly in front of the camera again, including in "Unser Lehrer Doktor Specht" and "Doctor's Diary". In 2009, she received an unexpected boost in popularity: as a 77-year-old, she won "Ich bin ein Star - Holt mich hier raus!" and became "Jungle Queen Ingrid I". A late triumph - half tongue-in-cheek cult figure, half veteran actress with an impressive life story.
Van Bergen was married four times, lost her daughter Carolin at an early age and later became heavily involved in animal welfare. She lived on Mallorca for many years, then on a farm in the Lüneburg Heath - together with a friend from her time in prison and over a hundred rescued animals.
She described herself as a Buddhist, wrote animal stories and remained present until old age, including in radio play productions. She went completely blind in 2025, but remained - as she herself once said - "brave".
