Looking back on a great, fast-paced life: Ruth Maria Kubitschek, 92, talks about Brecht, Dietl, her roles – and when it’s time to go.
Note from the editors: Stern first published the interview in December 2023. Now Ruth Maria Kubitschek has died. On this occasion, we are publishing the interview again.
She has arranged a small buffet, and there are piles of freshly signed autograph cards on her desk. In front of her are notes that were supposed to have become a biography before she abandoned the plan. Ruth Maria Kubitschek The apartment still exudes the spirit of an old world, of splendor, grandeur, hospitality. “I’m a little excited now,” she says, and immediately the legendary expression appears on her face, that unmistakable smile for which she was loved beyond measure. It doesn’t start with the mouth, no, higher up. Kubitschek smiles first and foremost with her eyes.
Ms. Kubitschek, you have left everything behind several times in your life and started anew somewhere else. What does that say about you?
Actually, it always had to do with men. The first time, I had no other choice: I was 14, the war was lost, and if I hadn’t fled from Czechoslovakia via the Ore Mountains, a much older Slovak would have married me. Perhaps that influenced me when I later left the GDR and my marriage, as did life as a successful actress in Munich.
They are in 1931 in the Czechoslovakia born. What kind of childhood was that?
My father ran an open-cast coal mine. When I walked through the village, geese would come waddling after me and pinch me. My grandmother from Gablonz asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said: a lady! When I was four, I did my first play, a Chinese girl. I was so excited that I shit my pants during the performance. Luckily, I was standing in a small house, so I was able to finish without anyone noticing.
I was less interested in the political situation than in the opportunity (…) to meet the great actors of the time in person.
These were explosive times, Nazi Germany wanted to Sudetenland into the Reich. Did you experience this as a child?
I remember the conflicts between the ethnic groups in Czechoslovakia, even shootings. We had to barricade ourselves behind the windows in the house. I was seven. Our family fled to Rudolstadt first. When the Sudetenland became part of the German Reich, we returned.