Anecdotes

Hans H. Zerlett did the lyrics for the Rudolf Nelson -Revue Tam Tam for the song: "Greta Garbo hat mich I'm Traum geküsst... Sung by the Tenor Mr. Raimund Gessner.. ca. 1929 in Berlin.

Some of his directed movies which were finished before the end of World War II came into cinema after the war like "Spuk im Schloss" (1947), "Im Tempel der Venus" (1948) and "Schuss um Mitternacht" (1949).

He initially worked as a theatre actor and served as a soldier in World War I, but had to leave military service early due to illness.

Hans H. Zerlett also realised a lot of movies as a director from 1934 like "Im Schallplattenladen" (1934), Truxa" (1937), "Zwei Frauen" (1938), "Venus vor Gericht" (1941), "Einmal der liebe Herrgott sein" (1942), "Reise in die Vergangenheit" (1943) and "Liebesbriefe" (1944).

Hans Hellmut Zerlett also used the pseudonym Hans Hannes.

Shortly before the Second World War he (as a UFA director) left for Bad Saarow near Berlin and bought his friend Max Schmeling's house (Zerlett had made the 1935 sports film Knockout - Ein junges Mädchen, ein junger Mann with Schmeling and his wife Anny Ondra, along with directing the 1936 documentary Max Schmelings Sieg - Ein deutscher Sieg).

He was the son of a musical director and the brother of the screenwriter Walter Zerlett-Olfenius.

In the 30s he became a busy screenwriter of many well-known movies.

During the 20s he more and more concentrated his activity to the writing and he wrote texts for songs, cabarets and revues. Finally he was able to sell his first screenplay for the movie "Höhere Töchter" (27), it followed other productions like "Der erste Kuss" (1928), and "Der Mann, der nicht liebt" (1929).

He made his directorial debut in 1934 with the Karl Valentin short film Im Schallplattenladen and the comedy Da stimmt was nicht, with Viktor de Kowa and Adele Sandrock. Zerlett's greatest success was the 1936 medical drama Arzt aus Leidenschaft and the 1938 revue film Es leuchten die Sterne, with La Jana.

He made propaganda films, such as the anti-Semitic 1939 musical Robert und Bertram and the anti-'Degenerate Art' Venus vor Gericht (1941).

In the late 1930s Zerlett made friends with prominent sportsmen such as Gustav Jaenecke, Gottfried von Cramm, Rudolf Caracciola, Max Schmeling, along with the actor Hans Albers and the singer Michael Bohnen, who he used to meet regularly at the "Roxy-Sportbar" in Joachimstaler Straße in Berlin. In autumn 1938, however, he broke up with them after a heated argument about the threat of war. His former circle of friends told the Gestapo of the argument, and the next day the landlady of the bar and the actor Rolf von Goth were arrested.

Hans Hellmut Zerlett was a member of the NSDAP and therefore he was arrested by the Russian NKDW and brought to the special camp Jamlitz. It followed several transportation of the prisoners which led him to Mühlberg and in 1949 to Buchenwald. There he died of tuberculosis because of the bad conditions of detention. Therewith he shared the same fate with the actor Heinrich George who already died in Russian arrest in 1946.

His brother was the screenwriter Walter Zerlett-Olfenius.

He made 25 films under the Third Reich, becoming a key figure in Nazi cinema, a member of the Nazi Party and a close friend of the Nazi culture-politician Hans Hinkel.

He screenwriter and director Hans Hellmut Zerlett began his career as a stage actor which was interrupted for a short time during World War I where he served as a soldier.