Gustav Diessl

Austrian film and stage actor Gustav Diessl (1899-1948) was the hero of the first Mountain film, Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü (1929). This film and others by prolific director G.W. Pabst made him at the time an unusual sex symbol: the mature, quiet, somewhat difficult man who attracts women almost against his will. Under the Nazi regime, he was often cast as an exotic villain or a mysterious foreigner.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4485/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Hans Casparius, Berlin. Publicity still for Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü/The White Hell of Pitz Palu (Arnold Fanck, G.W. Pabst, 1929).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5385/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Aafa-Film. Gustav Diessl and Mady Christians in Leutnant warst Du einst bei deinen Husaren/Lieutenant were you once with your Hussar (Manfred Noa, 1930).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5598/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Schneider, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 9795/1, 1935-1936. Photo: Bodal Film der Terra.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3091/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz, Berlin.

Jack the Ripper

Gustav Diessl was born Gustav Karl Balthasar in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria). He was the son of a classical scholar and studied art, painting and sculpture at the Kunstgewerbeschule (art school) in Vienna. In 1916, he worked as an extra on different stages in Vienna but he was soon recruited into the army for World War I. During his military service, he was held prisoner for a year. After the war, Diessl started training as a stage designer but he left to pursue a professional acting career. He played for a touring company and in 1921 had his first fixed engagement at the Neue Wiener Bühne (New Viennese Stage). That same year he appeared in his film debut In Banne der Kralle/In the Spell of the Claw (Carl Froelich, 1921).

The next years he made several films, including the silent films Vineta (Werner Funck, 1923) with Evi Eva, the Austrian-Polish co-production Ssanin/Sanin (Friedrich Feher, Boris Nevolin, 1924) starring Magda Sonja, and Die Rache der Pharaonen/The revenge of the Pharaohs (Hans Theyer, 1924) with Suzy Vernon.

He moved to Berlin where he worked with the prolific director Georg Wilhelm Pabst on Abgründe/Crisis (G. W. Pabst, 1928) opposite Brigitte Helm, and a year later he played Jack the Ripper in Die Büchse der Pandora/Pandora's Box (G. W. Pabst, 1929) with Louise Brooks. That same year he had his breakthrough with Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü/The White Hell of Pitz Palu (Arnold Fanck, G.W. Pabst, 1929) opposite Leni Riefenstahl. It was the first Mountain film, a genre that became very popular in Germany.

Diessl was now a huge star with an unusual kind of sex appeal. He was the prototype of the mature, quiet, somewhat difficult man who attracts women almost against his will. Very popular was Die Drei um Edith/Three around Edith (Erich Waschneck, 1929) in which he starred opposite Camilla Horn and Jack Trevor.

His first German sound film was the anti-war drama Westfront 1918 (G.W. Pabst, 1930) with Fritz Kampers. In the meantime, Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü had made Diessl also famous in the US and he had received an invitation by MGM to come to work in Hollywood.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4485/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Jacobi, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 112/3. Photo: Atelier Schmoll, Berlin / Henny Porten-Film Produktion. With Henny Porten in Mutterliebe/A Mother's Love (Georg Jacoby, 1929).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5450/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Schrecker, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5792/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Publicity still for Menschen hinter Gittern (Pál Fejös, 1930) with Dita Parlo. This was the German language version of The Big House (1930). Pál Fejös or Paul Fejos was a Hungarian-born, multi-lingual director, who worked at MGM at the time. He was assigned to direct both German- and French-language 'parallel versions' of The Big House, using different actors but the same costumes and sets at MGM.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7420/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Atelier Binder, Berlin.

Demonic Chinese villain

After making only one American film, Menschen hinter Gittern/Men Behind Bars (Pál Fejös, 1931) – the German language version of The Big House (George W. Hill, 1930), with Heinrich George in Wallace Beery's role, Gustav Diessl returned to Germany. He immediately started working again.

He appeared in such early sound films as Hans in allen Gassen/Hans in All Alleys (Carl Froelich, 1930) with Hans Albers, the French Paramount production Les nuits de Port Said/The Nights of Port Said (Leo Mittler, 1932), and the fantasy film Die Herrin von Atlantis/Mistress of Atlantis (G.W. Pabst, 1932), in which he was the only colonial soldier who could resist the temptations of the seductive mistress of the title, played by Brigitte Helm.

The adventure film S.O.S. Eisberg/SOS Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933), starring Diessl and Riefenstahl again, and the mountain film Weiße Majestät/White Majesty (August Kern, Anton Kutter, 1933) with Hertha Thiele, tried to continue the success of Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü/The White Hell of Piz Palu. During the 1930s, Diessl remained in demand as a sinister villain or difficult-to-cast foreigner. Already in 1931, he had portrayed a demonic Chinese villain in the exotic drama Das gelbe Haus des King-Fu/The Yellow House of King-Fu (Karl Grune, 1931), and he had played a gangster in the highly successful Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse/The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang, 1933) featuring Rudolf Klein-Rogge.

In the Nazi era, he was shown more frequently as a foreigner. First, he appeared in the German-Italian co-production Die Liebe des Maharadscha/The Love of the Maharajah (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1936) as an exiled Maharajah, who falls for a piano player (Italian diva Isa Miranda) because she resembles his deceased wife. That same year, Diessl joined the melodrama Der Weg nach Shanghai/Moscow Shanghai (Paul Wegener, 1936) as a Russian captain, who in the revolutionary turmoil fell in love with a beautiful singer (Pola Negri). He again played a Russian in the revolution melodrama Starke Herzen/Strong Hearts (Herbert Maisch, 1937).

Then he appeared as an adventurer who falls in love with the wife of a Maharajah (La Jana) in the exotic two-parter, Der Tiger von Eschnapur/The Tiger of Eschnapur (Richard Eichberg, 1938) and Das indische Grabmal/The Indian Tomb (Richard Eichberg, 1938). In 1940, he played a rich Brazilian, again opposite La Jana, in the crime film Stern von Rio/Star of Rio (Karl Anton, 1940).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2547/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Ufa.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2804/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Wog, Berlin. Gustav Diessl and Maria Cebotari.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3909/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto Atelier / Tobis.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3433/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto Atelier / Tobis.


German postcard by Das Programm von Heute, Berlin / Ross Verlag. Photo: Ufa / Hämmerer.

Two strokes

After his first short-lived marriage with Irmgard Amalie Wettach had ended, Gustav Diessl lived with actress Camilla Horn for a couple of years. In 1937, during the filming of Starke Herzen/Strong Hearts, he met the famous opera singer and actress Maria Cebotari. They fell in love and because of him, Cebatori got divorced. They married in 1938 and stayed together for the rest of his life.

During the 1940s, Diessl knew to remain popular, and he played in such films as Komödianten/The Comedians (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1941), and the anti-Slovenian Propaganda film Menschen im Sturm/People in the Storm (Fritz Peter Buch, 1941) with Olga Tschechova. Between 1940 and 1944, he worked almost exclusively in Italy. He appeared in such films as Senza cielo/Without Sky (Alfredo Guarini, 1940) with Isa Miranda, La donna del peccato/The Woman of the Sin (Harry Hasso, 1942) with Viveca Lindfors, and Maria Malibran (Guido Brignone, 1943) featuring Cebotari.

In 1944 he made again German films such as the Henrik Ibsen adaptation Nora (Harald Braun, 1944) with Luise Ullrich. Diessl’s last film role before the end of the Second World War was that of the Prussian Lieutenant Ferdinand von Schill in Veit Harlan's Kolberg (Veit Harlan, 1944). Diessl appeared in one more film, as a prosecutor in G.W. Pabst's in Austria produced film Der Prozess/The Trial (G.W. Pabst, 1948) about anti-Semitism. Shortly after making this film, Gustav Diessl suddenly had two strokes.

Diessl, who was only 49, passed away in his hometown Vienna. Maria Cebotari died only one year later of liver cancer. They had two sons, who were adopted by the pianist Clifford Curzon and his wife Lucille Wallace-Curzon. One of Diessl’s sons lives today in England and the other one in New Zealand.

After the death of Diessl, two of his older films finally were shown in the cinemas. Starke Herzen/Strong Heart was already completed in 1937, but it had been banned because it was 'too moderate anti-Communism', and the crime film Ruf an das Gewissen/Call to the Conscience (Karl Anton, 1949) with Karl Ludwig Diehl, which was filmed just before the end of the war and was completed by the DEFA after the war.


The official trailer of Die Weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü (1929). Source: TomislavTube (YouTube).


German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 43, group 44. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Leni Riefenstahl and Gustav Diessl in S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 6. Photo: Ufa. Gustav Diessl in S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Rudi Polt (IMDb), The Androom Archives, Wikipedia (English and German), and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 8 January 2024.

S.O.S. Eisberg (1933)

S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933) is a German-US drama film starring Gustav Diessl, Leni Riefenstahl, Sepp Rist, Gibson Gowland, and Rod La Rocque. The film which mixes elements of mountain film drama and disaster film was written by Tom Reed and based on a story by Arnold Fanck and Friedrich Wolf. S.O.S. Eisberg follows the account of the real-life Alfred Lothar Wegener polar expedition of 1929-1930. Two members of the ill-fated Wegener expedition served as technical consultants to Universal.


German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 43, group 44. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Leni Riefenstahl and Gustav Diessl in S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 1. Photo: Ufa. Sepp Rist in S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 2. Photo: Ufa. Scene from S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 3. Photo: Ufa. Leni Riefenstahl and crew at the set of S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 6. Photo: Ufa. Gustav Diessl in S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).

A request from Hollywood

At the beginning of 1932, German film director Arnold Fanck received a request from Hollywood to make a "nature feature film" for Universal Pictures. The film industry executives had in mind a project comparable to Fanck's mountain films Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü/The White Hell of Pitz Palu (Arnold Fanck, Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1929) and Stürme über dem Montblanc/Storm over Mont Blanc (Arnold Fanck, 1930) since both had also been successfully shown in cinemas in the United States.

Fanck's first proposal to shoot on Mount McKinley in Alaska did not convince the Universal film bosses. A far more spectacular location had to be found, a setting that promised a cinematic enhancement of the theme of mountains, snow and ice that had already been introduced to filmgoers. In Fanck's circle of collaborators, Sepp Allgeier, Richard Angst and Bernhard Villinger, there had already been relevant experiences with Greenland and the Arctic Circle, respectively, since 1913 and 1926.

Fanck had already dealt with Greenland as a filming location earlier. For example, he wrote the manuscript for the film Milak, der Grönlandjäger/Milak, the Greenland Hunter (Georg Asagaroff, Bernhard Villinger, 1928). The Greenland expeditions of Umberto Nobile with the airship Italia in 1928 and of Alfred Wegener in 1930, which ended in drama, were present in the collective memory of the time so that the apron seemed prepared for a spectacular cinema film about Greenland.

Fanck transmitted his exposé expensively by telegram to Hollywood and travelled with his secretary and friend Elisabeth Kind on the Bremen to New York City in May 1932 and from there by rail across the North American continent to Los Angeles. There he was greeted by Paul Kohner and awaited by studio boss Carl Laemmle, who hosted a reception in his honour with Hollywood greats such as Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo. The cinematic venture was given a budget of 1 million Reichsmarks, the most expensive and elaborate project in film history up to that point.

Till 1948, Greenland was a territory closed to tourists or foreigners. Filming with actors, therefore, required the Danish authorities to circumvent this provision. Without further ado, the filming was declared a scientific expedition with the help of the ethnologist and polar explorer Knud Rasmussen, who also took over the patronage for the film. In addition, the glaciologists Fritz Loewe and Ernst Sorge were engaged, who had already made a name for themselves through their participation in Alfred Wegener's expeditions.


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 9. Photo: Ufa. Leni Riefenstahl in S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 11. Photo: Ufa. Scene from S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).

German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 13. Photo: Ufa. Scene from S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 15. Photo: Ufa. Scene from S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 16. Photo: Ufa. Scene from S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 17. Photo: Ufa. Scene from S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).

Riefenstahl, in her last film as an actress

Among the stars in S.O.S. Eisberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933) was Leni Riefenstahl, who had just made her directorial debut in Das blaue Licht/The Blue Light (Leni Riefenstahl, 1932). Riefenstahl, in her last film as an actress, co-starred with Gustav Diessl and Ernst Udet in the German version S.O.S. Eisberg, and with Gibson Gowland and Rod La Rocque in the English version, S.O.S. Iceberg. Ernst Udet, a former German ace in the First World War, in a cameo performance, flew in both versions.

S.O.S. Eisberg follows the account of the real-life Alfred Lothar Wegener polar expedition of 1929-1930. In April-October 1929, Wegener embarked on his third expedition to Greenland, which laid the groundwork for the main expedition that he was planning to lead in 1930-1931. Wegener's last Greenland expedition was in 1930.

The 14 participants under his leadership were to establish three permanent stations from which the thickness of the Greenland ice sheet could be measured and year-round Arctic weather observations made. They would travel on the ice cap using two innovative, propeller-driven snowmobiles, in addition to ponies and dog sledges. Wegener felt personally responsible for the expedition's success, as the German government had contributed $120,000 ($1.5 million in 2007 dollars).

Success depended on enough provisions being transferred from West camp to Eismitte ("mid-ice") for two men to winter there, and this was a factor in the decision that led to his death. Owing to a late thaw, the expedition was six weeks behind schedule and, as summer ended, the men at Eismitte sent a message that they had insufficient fuel and so would return on 20 October. On 24 September, although the route markers were by now largely buried under snow, Wegener set out with thirteen Greenlanders and his meteorologist Fritz Loewe to supply the camp by dog sledge. During the journey, the temperature reached −60 °C (−76 °F) and Loewe's toes became so frostbitten they had to be amputated with a penknife without anaesthetic.

Twelve of the Greenlanders returned to West camp. On 19 October the remaining three members of the expedition reached Eismitte. Expedition member Johannes Georgi estimated that there were only enough supplies for three at Eismitte, so Wegener and Rasmus Villumsen took two dog sledges and made them for West camp. They took no food for the dogs and killed them one by one to feed the rest until they could run only one sledge. While Villumsen rode the sledge, Wegener had to use skis, but they never reached the camp: Wegener died and Villumsen was never seen again. After Wegener was declared missing in May 1931, and his body found shortly thereafter, Kurt Wegener took over the expedition's leadership in July, according to the prearranged plan for such an eventuality.


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 20. Photo: Ufa. Scene from S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 21. Photo: Ufa. Scene from S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 22. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 24 of 24. Photo: Ufa. Leni Riefenstahl in S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 27. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 28. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 29. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).

Brand begins sending out an S.O.S. on his wireless

This expedition inspired the Greenland expedition episode of Adam Melfort in John Buchan's novel 'A Prince of the Captivity' (1944) and the film S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933). At a banquet at the International Society for Arctic Research, he members toast scientist Dr. Carl Lorenz (Gustav Diessl), who is about to recreate famed explorer Wegener's ill-fated expedition. Lawrence's team consists of two scientists, Dr. Johannes Brand (Sepp Rist) and Dr. Jan Matushek (Max Holzboer), his friend, Fritz Kuemmel (Walter Riml), their financial backer, John Dragan (Walter Riml), and their pilot to the Arctic, Lorenz's wife Hella (Leni Riefenstahl).

After Hella drops them at their base camp, the men begin their long trek to recover Wegener's records and prove his theories on ice floes. As the weeks pass, Brand and the others fear they will not survive when the ice breaks up, but Lorenz scoffs and refuses to wait until winter. Early one morning, Lorenz sets out on his own. His companions fear he is lost.

They find a hut Wegener occupied and a note from Lorenz saying that he is trying to reach a native village. Suddenly, the break up of the ice leaves their sledges of food supplies tumbling into a ravine. The rescuers take refuge on a huge iceberg where they discover that Lorenz is there, dazed and uncommunicative. Brand begins sending out an S.O.S. on his wireless and Hella immediately leaves to search for her husband. Disaster strikes, with Dragan going mad, and as Kümmel fights with him to prevent their dog, Nakinak, from being killed, Kümmel falls to his death.

When Hella finds the survivors, she misjudges her landing and crashes but is able to swim to the iceberg. Brand seeing they are drifting out to sea, dives into the water, and is picked up by another pilot (Ernst Udet) following Hella's flight path. The pilot flies Brand to the nearby Inuit village. Matushek sees two polar bears fighting over a seal but is killed when he tries to spear the bears.

Dragan then attacks Hella, but by then her husband has come to his senses, and she is saved. The iceberg begins to come apart, throwing Dragan into the sea. Lorenz, Hella and Nakinak are rescued by the Inuit. The three survivors later are aboard a ship bound for home, but Lorenz is haunted by the deaths incurred in his misguided expedition.

German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 30. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 31. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 32. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 35. Photo: Ufa. Gustav Diessl and Leni Riefenstahl in S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 36. Photo: Ufa. Gustav Diessl and Leni Riefenstahl at right in S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).


German collectors card by Ufa, Berlin, no. 38. Photo: UfA. Sepp Rist in S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).

Sources: Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.