Postage stamp: Women of German History - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1988 - 100 Pfennig

With »Women of German History« the Deutsche Bundespost replaces the series »Industry and Technology« begun in 1975/76. The new series is intended to help raise awareness of women's achievements in society. Up to the 60 Pf value (Dorothea Erxleben) - it now appears in the issue »Deutsche Bundespost Berlin« - the other postage stamps are issued on the same day in the issues »Deutsche Bundespost« and »Deutsche Bundespost Berlin«. Therese Giehse would have been 90 on March 6 of this year; an event that would not only have found a wide response in the German-speaking theater world. In 1898, the great German actress is born in Munich. She grew up there in a Jewish merchant family, receives acting lessons and plays from 1920 each season in Siegen, Gliwice, Landshut, at the Bavarian State Theater in Wroclaw and the Munich Schauspielhaus. The director and artistic director of the Münchner Kammerspiele Otto Falckenberg (1873 - 1947) - he was one of the founders of the famous Munich cabaret »Elf Scharfrichter«, whose members include Franz Wedekind; his intense work with the actors made him one of the recognized acting teachers of his time - brings Therese Giehse 1926 to his stage. Here she plays among other roles - also in numerous antics and comedies - in 1927 as Mrs. Aiving in "Gespenster" by Henrik Ibsen, as mother Wolffen in "Biberpelz" by Gerhart Hauptmann (1928), Mrs. Peachum in the "Threepenny Opera" by Bertolt Brecht whom she met in 1929, Marthe in the Urfaust «(1931) and in 1932 as Frau John in» The Rats «by Hauptmann. About her time at the Münchner Kammerspiele the art writer Wilhelm Hausenstein (1882-1957) judges in 1932: "What Ms. Giehse achieves in these times, so bad for the Kammerspiele and her artists, borders on the fabulous. She has just created the female lead in the Rat, and she is already preparing a new role, and in the midst of these tasks she is creating an imposing figure of Mother Wolffen, both elemental and formally wholly controlled. In 1933 Therese Giehse emigrated to Zurich. Here she is first engaged in the anti-fascist cabaret "The Pepper Mill", which the siblings Erika and Klaus Mann had opened with her on January 1, 1933 in Munich, continued in September of the same year in Zurich, and with which she goes to Europe until 1937 , From 1937 Therese Giehse plays at the most important free German-speaking stage, the Zurich Schauspielhaus. She completes up to twelve roles per season. She is the first Mother Courage in the world premiere of Bertolt Brecht's play of the same name in 1941 and plays the Mi Tzu in 1943 in the Brecht premières "The Good Man of Sezuan" and in 1948 the smuggling mime in "Herr Puntila and his servant Matti". This is followed by a commitment to Brecht's "Berliner Ensemble". Amongst others, she gives the "Wassa Schelesnowa" by Gorki in 1949, the smuggling mime in "Puntila" (1950), Frau Fielitz in "Roter Hahn" by Hauptmann (1951) and the Marthe in "Der smashed pitcher" by von Kleist (1952) ). From 1949 Therese Giehse also works at the Kammerspiele in Munich - in 1950 under the direction of Brecht as "Mother Courage" - from 1953 she is again part of the ensemble. In the Zurich premieres of Dürrenmatt's "The Visit of the Old Lady" and the "Physicists" she played the leading roles in 1956 and 1962. Out of sympathy for Peter Stein and his collective enterprise, Therese Giehse gives Bertolt Brecht's "Die Mutter" in a highly acclaimed performance at the Schaubühne on Halleschen Ufer in Berlin in 1970. Therese Giehse has influenced the Munich Kammerspiele and the Schauspielhaus Zürich in her rich and fulfilled theatrical life. Some of the most important roles in her tremendously broad range of expressions included, among many others, Mother Courage, Mother Wolffen in the "Beaver Fur," Marthe Rull in the "Broken Jug," and Mrs. John in Hauptmann's Rat. In her ever-differentiated role design - most recently in a television production (Egon Monk) of Brecht's "The Guns of Mrs. Carrar", sent on the day of her death - Therese Giehse proved to be one of the most prominent contemporary German character actresses. Her memories came to her mind in 1973 in the book "I have nothing to say". On 3 March 1975 Therese Giehse died in Munich.