Actress. Called the “Drowned Girl of the Reich” for her numerous onscreen suicides by drowning, she is remembered as a longtime star of the German cinema and as the blonde Aryian ideal of several of Dr. Joseph Goebbels’ propoganda films from the Nazi era. The child of a distinguished academic, she was raised in Stockholm but relocated to Berlin to study theatre following her parents’ deaths in 1933. Kristina made her silver screen debut in the 1933 “Hur behandlar du din hand?” then had a number of small roles before landing her big break as Annchen in Viet Harlan’s 1938 drama “Youth”. She was to achieve major stardom with Harlan’s “Covered Tracks” (1938) and 1939 “The Trip to Tilst” then following her 1940 marriage to the director became a Nazi insider and a favourite of Dr. Goebbels. Kristina’s best known role was to be that of Dorothea Strumm, a German girl who kills herself in shame after she is raped by Oppenheimer, the stereotypical money-grubbing Jewish villain of the 1940 “Jud Sus”, one of the all time classics of propoganda movies. Following the success of “Jud Sus” Kristina and Harlan collaborated on several made-for-Hitler films including “The Golden City” and “The Great King” (both 1942), 1943’s “Immensee”, and the 1945 “Kolberg”. After the war Kristina was charged with war crimes for the making of “Jud Sus” and was tried but acquitted. Harlan suffered a like fate and though found not guilty was banned from the film industry until the early 1950s, with Kristina refusing all acting jobs during her husband’s term of punishment. Kristina returned to the screen in 1951 and continued to star in Harlan’s productions up thru 1962’s “The Maharajah’s Blonde”; leaving show business after her husband’s 1964 death she built a second career as a respected Munich fashion and portrait photographer. Kristina made another comeback in 1976 with “Karl May” and continued occasional appearances on both the large and small screens before earning her final credit with 1994’s “Night Train to Venice” then living out her days in northern Germany. Her biography entitled “Nothing Remains the Way It Is” was published in 1983; several of her movies have been preserved and are available on DVD. (bio by: Bob Hufford)