1880-1956
Olga Alsen, better known by Ola Alsen, was a German writer of novels and fashion journalism, who was also screenwriter as well. Alsen was born Henriette Alsberg on this day in Bonn, Germany. Her father was a prominent Jewish businessman, who would later come under scrutiny of the National Socialists and persecuted by them in the early 1930's. By this time, his daughter was already famous in her own right. She was, in fact, one of Germany's most well known fashion journalists in the 1920's. Her novels largely were based on and dealt with social issues and women's issues. She also authored non-fiction books on fashion and it's history. In addition to all of this, she also wrote a handful of screenplays in the 1920's. In the early to mid part of that decade, four films were made from her work, one of which was an adaptation that she made from her own novel. The first of these was her adaptation of a Sardou story for the 1921 film Treibende Kraft. That film starred Fern Andra (who was a pioneering American female performer, producer and writer, plus student of Max Reinhardt) in the lead role, who would be the co-writer of the next film that Alsen penned. Together they were responsible for Des Lebens und der Liebe Wellen, the film was produced Andra's own production company and released in December of 1921. Her co-authored script for Monna Vanna (poster pictured below) was based on a strange combination of writings by Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck and Machiavelli; co-written with Helmuth Orthmann. Her last screenplay was the adaptation from her own novel; Luxusweibchen was another Orthmann co-authored screenplay and directed by Erich Schönfelder. It premiered in Berlin on the 20th of April in 1925. As mentioned above, her family was Jewish. They are known to have endured increasing harassment and persecution. Ola (Olga) was hastily baptized a Christian in 1933 to avoid further escalation of the persecution; one of her brothers committed suicide around the same time. Eventually, she fled the country. She first went to Great Britain, but when things began to escalate toward war, she fled again for the United States. Some sources have her dying in the U.S., this is not the case. She did return to Germany at the end of the second world war and restarted her career as a journalist, working both there in Munich, and Switzerland in Zurich for a time. She died in Munich on the 4th of March in 1956. There is not information on a burial at this time.
Celebration of Women Writers (Germany)
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