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Charlotte Bergmann (1) (née Pötler) was born on August 5, 1896 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. She became known under the name Lotte Neumann as one of the most successful actresses in the early days of German cinema.
Lotte Neumann attended the Königliche Luisenschule in Berlin, then the Wagnersche-Klinkhardsche Höhere Mädchenschule. At the age of 13 (2) she was a chorister in the Komische Oper in Berlin (3). She completed vocal training with Karl Grünwald and Emma Seebold, and studied dance, piano and languages.
She was discovered for film by Max Mack and made her debut in 1912 in "Launen des Schicksals" (directed by Max Mack). The Deutsche Mutoscop-und Biograph GmbH produced a series of films with Lotte Neumann directed by Paul von Woringen.
She continued to appear as an actress and singer on various stages in Germany and Berlin. Between 1916 and 1918 she was also active as a writer. In 1916, the production company Lotte-Neumann-Film-GmbH was founded, with von Woringen continuing to direct the movies. In 1918 (1919?) Lotte Neumann was hired by Ufa. In 1918 she wrote the screenplay for "Die Töchter des Herrn Dornberg" (directed by Paul von Woringen, 1918). Lotte Neumann had film contracts in Austria, Italy and in the Balkan states, e.g. with Gaumont-Aubert in Paris and Maldaria in Prague.
Lotte Neumann celebrated her greatest successes as an actress in the 1920s, among others in the film operetta "Die Brigantin von New York" (director: Hans Werckmeister, 1924), "Die Frau für 24 Stunden" (director: Reinhold Schünzel, 1925), and "Der gute Ruf" (director: Pierre Marodon, DE/FR 1926). Mostly she played sentimental young girls.
According to her own statements, she had to give up her profession as an actress because her husband and the divorce proceedings, which ran from 1929 to 1932, made it impossible for her to accept a contract as an actress during this time.(4)
From 1933 she worked as a screenwriter under the pseudonym C.H. Diller (5). Lotte Neumann was no longer employed as an actress after 1936. According to Glenzdorf, she wrote 25 screenplays between 1935 and 1958, including "Kora Terry" (Georg Jacoby, 1940) for Ufa (selling price 10,000 Reichsmark), "Friedrich Schiller" (director: Herbert Maisch, 1939) for Tobis (selling price 10,000 Reichsmark), together with Walter Wassermann "Die Nacht in Venedig" (R: Paul Verhoeven, 1941) and "Altes Herz wird wieder jung" (Erich Engel, 1942), which were sold to Tobis-Filmkunst Gmbh for 32,000 Reichsmark and 30,000 Reichsmark respectively.
Footnotes:
(1) Presumably Bergmann is the name of her first husband; however, there are no references to this in the sources. Her second husband was the screenwriter Walter Wassermann.
(2) According to her own statements, at the age of 14.
(3) Thaliatheater, Theater des Westens, Trianon Theater and Komödienhaus.
(4) according to the questionnaire of the Reichsfilmkammer of 1938.
(5) according to Film-Hölle Nr. 3/1920, p.15 she never had a pseudonym; but this contradicts her own statements (see Bundesarchiv/RSK-Akte).
Translated to English from: Gabriele Hansch/ Gerlinde Waz: Filmpionierinnen in Deutschland. Ein Beitrag zur Filmgeschichtsschreibung. Berlin 1998. (unpublished)