While Germany's other big stars, the Danish actress Asta Nielsen and the Pole Pola Negri, although not exactly beautiful, were very sexy women by anyone's standards as well as being excellent actresses, Henny Porten, star of the silent precursors of the later heimatfilm, represents a rather specifically German taste for strapping women.
Here she is supposed to be a poor orphan girl at the mercy o a cruel world perhaps but looks as though she could defend herself perfectly adequately, against a regiment of tanks with one good heave of her ample bosom.
Yet no actress was more beloved and she became such an iconic figure that she could even defy Hitler (her second husband was Jewish and even what was described in the racial laws as " a full jew") but was able to remain by her side in Germany throughout the war. Even Hans Albers, who was i many ways the male equivalant, was obliged to separate temporarilyf rom his girlfriend (also Jewish).
