Heesters, Johan, born 05-12-1903 in Amersfoort, Netherlands, 
the youngest of four sons. His father Jacobus Heesters (1865–1946) was a salesman and his mother Geertruida Jacoba van den Heuvel (1866–1951), a homemaker. Heesters was fluent in German from a very early age having lived for several years in the household of a German great uncle from Bavaria. Heesters decided to become an actor and a singer at the age of sixteen and began vocal training. Heesters specialized in Viennese operetta very early in his career and made his Viennese stage debut in 1934 in Carl Millöcker’s Der Bettelstudent, The Beggar Student. Aged 31, Heesters permanently moved to Germany with his wife, Louisa ‘Wiske‘ Ghijs and daughters in 1935. 
Good friende were the singers/actor Marikka Rökk 
and Hildegard Knef . During his time there, he performed for Adolf Hitler (did you know) and visited the Dachau concentration camp which made him a controversial figure for many Dutch. Joseph Goebbels (did you know) placed Heesters on the Gottbegnadeten list, privileged actors, as an artist considered crucial to Nazi culture. Heesters is known to have funded the German war machine by donating money to the weapons industry. While he became a very controversial figure in the late 1970s, Heesters always denied these accusations despite reliable evidence. Heesters befriended several high-ranking Nazi-officials and SS-officers. Mr. “Jopie” also performed regularly for people such as Hitler and Hermann Goering (did you know), with the former being known to have been an avid admirer of his acting skills. Throughout the war Heesters continued to perform for German soldiers in camps and barracks. He always denied having visited concentration camps, although he did have knowledge of their existence. According to German author Volker Kühn,
Heesters did in fact perform for the SS in Dachau concentration camp. For this claim he uses as evidence the testimony of Dachau inmate Viktor Matejka
the youngest of four sons. His father Jacobus Heesters (1865–1946) was a salesman and his mother Geertruida Jacoba van den Heuvel (1866–1951), a homemaker. Heesters was fluent in German from a very early age having lived for several years in the household of a German great uncle from Bavaria. Heesters decided to become an actor and a singer at the age of sixteen and began vocal training. Heesters specialized in Viennese operetta very early in his career and made his Viennese stage debut in 1934 in Carl Millöcker’s Der Bettelstudent, The Beggar Student. Aged 31, Heesters permanently moved to Germany with his wife, Louisa ‘Wiske‘ Ghijs and daughters in 1935. Good friende were the singers/actor Marikka Rökk and Hildegard Knef . During his time there, he performed for Adolf Hitler (did you know) and visited the Dachau concentration camp which made him a controversial figure for many Dutch. Joseph Goebbels (did you know) placed Heesters on the Gottbegnadeten list, privileged actors, as an artist considered crucial to Nazi culture. Heesters is known to have funded the German war machine by donating money to the weapons industry. While he became a very controversial figure in the late 1970s, Heesters always denied these accusations despite reliable evidence. Heesters befriended several high-ranking Nazi-officials and SS-officers. Mr. “Jopie” also performed regularly for people such as Hitler and Hermann Goering (did you know), with the former being known to have been an avid admirer of his acting skills. Throughout the war Heesters continued to perform for German soldiers in camps and barracks. He always denied having visited concentration camps, although he did have knowledge of their existence. According to German author Volker Kühn, Heesters did in fact perform for the SS in Dachau concentration camp. For this claim he uses as evidence the testimony of Dachau inmate Viktor Matejka
who worked for the SS and told Kühn he pulled the curtain when Heesters performed in 1941. According to German writer Jürgen Trimborn however, the interview with Matejka may not be reliable as it occurred some fifty years after the performance was said to have taken place. In December 2009, Heesters lost his libel suit against Kühn. While acknowledging having visited the camp, Heesters denied having performed as entertainment for the SS troops. In its ruling, the German court did not find that Kühn’s allegations were true, but rather that too much time had passed for an accurate determination of fact to be made. Heesters’ signature tune was Count Danilo Danilovitch’s entrance song “Da geh’ ich ins Maxim” from Franz Lehár’s
Die Lustige Witwe, The Merry Widow. He met Hitler several times and was reportedly Hitler’s favorite actor in the role of Danilo. Heesters worked extensively for UFA until almost the end of World War II, his last wartime movie being Die Fledermaus, produced in 1945 and easily made the transition from the Nazi-controlled cultural scene to post-war Germany and Austria, appearing again in a number of films. These included Die Jungfrau auf dem Dach and the 1957 version of Viktor und Viktoria. Heesters stopped making movies around 1960 to concentrate on stage and television appearances and on producing records. In later years Heesters spoke fondly of Hitler as a person, but condemned his political stance. Heesters had two daughters by his first wife Louisa Ghijs, whom he married in 1930. After her death in 1985, he remarried in 1992; his second wife, Simone Rethel (born 1949),
is a German actress, painter, and photographer. His younger daughter Nicole Heesters is a well-known actress in the German-speaking world, as is his granddaughter Saskia Fischer.Death and burial ground of Heesters, Johan, Marius, Nicolaas, “Johannes”.
In December 2010, the 107-year old Heesters announced that he had quit smoking for his then 61-year-old wife: “She should have me as long as possible”. On 01-01-2008, he fell down some stairs in his holiday house in Tyrol and broke two ribs. On 29-11-2011, he suddenly fell ill and was rushed into the hospital,
where he died from a stroke on Christmas Eve 2011. Johan Heesters is buried on the Nordfriedhof of Munich and only steps away the graves of the World War II personalities, Putz 1923 victim Andreas Bauriedl and Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s personal photographer and his daughter Henriette Hoffmann she maried the Hitler Youth leader, Baldur von Schirach, Dr. Gustav von Kahr President of the Bavarian court in 1923 during the Hitler Putz and some further the youngest secretary of Hitler, Traudl Junge-Humps and Hans her husband and Hitler adjutant, also the General der Flieger, Kommandeur Luftwaffe Hongaria, Kuno Fütterer and Generalleutnant der Artillerie, Commander of the POW in Wehrkreis IV, Erich von Botzheim, the architect couple Paul Troost and Gerdy, Generaloberst der Gebirgstruppe, Kommandeur der 3th Gebirgs Division, Eduard Dietl and Hitler’s former adjutant SS Standartenführer, Falaise Pocket, 12thSS Panzer Division, Max Wünsche.
Message(s), tips or interesting graves for the webmaster: robhopmans@outlook.com
Leave a Reply