German actor famed as one of his country’s best-known silent film stars after World War I. Schünzel performed roles in both comedies and dramas, often appearing as a villain or a powerful and corrupt man. Later he also became a film director and he was active in both Germany and the United States. Schünzel went to the U.S. and began his American career in Hollywood in 1937, taking U.S citizenship in 1943 and returning to Germany in 1949.
The son of a German father and a Jewish mother, he was born in St. Pauli, the poorest part of Hamburg. Schünzel (or Schuenzel) started his career as an actor in 1915 with a role in the film Werner Krafft. He directed his first film in 1918 Mary Magdalene and in 1920 directed The Girl from Acker Street and Catherine the Great.
Schünzel’s work was very popular in Germany and the Nazi regime gave him the title of Ehrenarier or Honorary Aryan, allowing him to continue to direct and act despite his Jewish heritage. He found that the government, first under Kaiser Wilhelm II and later under Adolf Hitler, interfered with his film projects, impelling him to leave Germany in 1937. Schuenzel described both the Kaiser and Hitler as “persons of recognized authority and the worst possible dramatic taste.”
Moving to the United States, he worked in Hollywood, playing Nazis and scientists. One of many examples was the film The Hitler Gang (1944), directed by John Farrow. This film about the rise of Hitler from a small political adventurer to the dictator of Germany was styled in the way of a gangster film with Schünzel playing the role of General Erich Ludendorff.
Reinhold Schünzel died on 11 September 1954, aged 65, in Munich, West Germany.
Link to Wikipedia biography