Explicitly, Koehnke had feared that his boy would be taken by the state and be put in a state-run home for troubled youths.. Finally, in January 1989, as his son was then of legal age, the aging actor finally fled to the West.
For one full year Koehnke lived out his dream to act in freedom and to live in freedom in Hamburg, Germany. However, soon after the Wall came down in late 1989, rumors began to arise in East Germany that Koehnke had, in fact, been a Stasi (State-Security) agent.
Soon, in 1990, Koehnke discovered it hard to find work as the rumors continued spread across both East and West Germany.
Nearly 20 years after he fled East Germany, Koehnke lives again in Berlin—in a united Germany. However, in the last 18 to 19 years, no theatre nor movie studio has asked Koehnke to perform for them.
What is more?
Well, despite all the rumors that had caused him suddenly to become blackballed in theatres in both Germanies--and then in united Germany in 1990--, no evidence has been found that the aging Koehnke ever served for the Stasi.
In publishing her article over Peter Koehnke, published this 20th anniversary year of the FALL of the BERLIN WALL, the journalist Simone Schmollack has performed a great justice in shedding a light on the bad treatment in both Germanies over the past 5 decades.
Hidden in the Schmollack article, “Die Heldenrolle un das verpasste Leben”, is a hidden glimpse into why the actor, Peter Koehnke, had felt it appropriate and important to defend the Catholics on trial in Rolf Hochhuth’s play so many decades ago.
KOEHNKE and the NAZI ZEIT
Koehnke, in his interviews with Schmollack, shared that during the Nazi-era, he had seen his wearing his religion on his sleeve, i.e. in the 1930s and 1940s, as a sign of opposition.
Koehnke explained that back between 1935 and 1945, he was a reserved and quiet youth who opposed the Nazi totalitarian state, but he did so as quietly as he could, apparently in order to survive. Koehnke shared further that he had never been a friend of the East German government, either, even though he had played in its theaters and in its films for so many decades. In short, Koehnke had often continued to quietly oppose the regime. He refused, for example, to join the SED or Communist Party
However, in 1964, when the formerly reserved Koehnke did finally speak out and oppose what the party’s theater leadership was dictating to him concerning how to play a catholic priest on stage, Koehnke found himself hammered down like a nail to the floor.
Then 25 years later, when Koehnke had finally flown to the West, the haunting of the East Germany government continued—i.e. rumors from East Germans-left-unnamed ruined his acting career permanently by implying and claiming that he had been a Stasi Agent, when apparently he actually never been one at all.
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