Trivia

Born at 12:15am-CET

His long-term life-partner is Margarete Körting.

German character actor with powerful left-wing convictions. Member of the Socialist Worker's Youth (USPD) after World War I. Privately tutored in singing and acting. Had a leading role in Slatan Dudow's film "Kuhle Wampe" (1932). Performed for the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, subsequently captured by the fascists. After the end of World War II, joined Bertold Brecht at the Berliner Ensemble. Became a leading interpreter of Brecht on stage. Film appearances few.

Busch was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize 1970-71.

In 1937 he joined the International Brigades to fight against the Nationalists in Spain. His wartime songs were then recorded and broadcast by Radio Barcelona and Radio Madrid. After the Spanish Republic fell to General Franco, Busch migrated to Belgium where he was interned during the German occupation and later imprisoned in Camp Gurs, France and Berlin.

By 1938 h and his wife Eva had divorced, without acrimony, as their lives diverged. Eva settled in Paris while Ernst initially made his home in the Soviet Union where he worked with Gustav von Wangenheim on the 1935 film "Kämpfer" ("Fighters").

Germany's most prestigious school for stage acting and directing is named after the actor, the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts (Hochschule für Schauspielkunst "Ernst Busch", HFS) in Berlin.

His first stage engagements already followed in 1921, first in his hometown Kiel, later also in Frankfurt and Berlin. At this time he was active as a singer and actor on stage.

After his education as a tool engineer he decided to follow a complete different path and he took sing and acting lessons.

He got his first movie engagement in 1929 for "Katharina Knie" (1929) and from 1931 Ernst Busch became a busy movie actor.

Privately Ernst Busch was also engaged politically.

After the second World War he would go on to start his own record label and work with Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator at the "Berliner Ensemble".

A beloved figure in the German Democratic Republic, he is best remembered for his performance in the title role of Brecht's Life of Galileo and his recordings of workers songs, including many written by Hanns Eisler.

In Russia he was able to continue his artistic career. He worked for the radio and he took part in few movies like "Bortsy" (1936) and "Kämpfer" (1937).

Freed by the Red Army in 1945, he settled in East Berlin, where he acted in the first play to be produced in the American-occupied zone, Robert Ardrey's 'Thunder Rock'.

When he finished his education as a tool engineer he began his professional career by the shipyard where he was occupied as a workman.

He starred in the original 1928 production of Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera, as well as the subsequent 1931 film by Georg Wilhelm Pabst. He also appeared in the movie Kuhle Wampe.

In the second half of the 30's he had numerous appearances and records as a singer in the still free Europe. But when Germany invaded the Belelux states Ernst Busch was arrested and brought to the detention prison in the south of France.

After a failed attempt to escape from prison he was seriously wounded by a bombing raid to the prison Moabit. But this saved him from the death penalty.

Busch first rose to prominence as an interpreter of political songs, particularly those of Kurt Tucholsky, in the Berlin Kabarett scene of the 1920s.

A lifelong communist, Busch fled Nazi Germany in 1933, accompanied by his wife, Eva Busch, and with the Gestapo on his heels, initially settling in the Netherlands.

He made a memorable recording of "Peat Bog Soldiers".

Like for many other artists the career of the Jew Ernst Busch ended in Germany in 1933. He escaped a threatening imprisonment and he fled together with his wife - the singer Eva Busch - to Holland and later through half of Europe to the Sowjetunion.