Famous people

She was the most magnetic actress, singer and a nightclub performer of the 1930s and 1940s and one of the most glamorous film stars ever. After appearing in a number of supporting roles, Dietrich got her first break when she was featured in Germany's first talking film "The Blue Angel" (1930) directed by Josef von Sternberg. Then she worked her way to Hollywood where she played the ultimate femme fatals in such films as "Shanghai Express" (1934), "The Scarlett Empress" (1934), "The Devil is a Woman" (1935), "Desire" (1936) and "Destry Rides Again" (1939). In 1930 she got her first and only nomuination for an Oscar for "Morocco." She became an American citizen in 1937. Dietrich later expanded her repertoire in serious dramas "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957), "Touch of Evil" (1958) and "Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961).

Nabokov was a Russian-born American novelist, critic, poet, translator and an acknowledged butterfly expert. He wrote masterfully in Russian as well as in English. "Mashenka" or "Mary", his first novel, was published in 1926. He is also the author of novels such as "Laughter in the Dark" (1933), "Invitation to a Beheading" (1938), "Look at the Harlequins!" (1974) and "Strong Opinions" (1974). Though Nabokov's most popular book, "Lolita" (1955), offended a lot of people, its literary style was critically acclaimed. The novel's obsessive protagonist Humbert Humbert and the maneuvering nymphet Lolita have come to be famous characters in the 20th century literature.

While best known as a writer of novels, Grass is also the author of essays, a couple of plays and tomes of poetry and a highly skilled lithographer. He is considered to be a prominent literary figure in post war Germany. It was with his first novel "The Tin Drum" that appeared in 1959 tha he gained international attention. The novel, which was exquisitely adapted to film by Volker Schlondorff in 1979, is the first volume of the Danzig trilogy that also contains "Cat and Mouse" (1961) and "Dog Years" (1963). Most of his work deals with the aftermath of Nazism and ambiguities riddling his nation's past. In 1999 Grass received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his "frolicsome black fables" which "portray the forgotten face of history."

An Austrian philosopher, educator, literary scholar, architect and playwright, Steiner is reffered to as the founder of Anthroposophy, which he himself described as a "spiritual science" that guides "the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe." He is also known to many teachers as the man who developed Waldorf School movement - arguably the world's most extensive independent schooling system. Steiner's books bears titles like "Investigations in Occultism", "How to Know Higher Worlds" and "Ahrimanic Deception" He generated an organic style of architecture for some seventeen buildings; the most representative of these are the two Goetheanums in Domach, Switzerland, designated as cultural centres. It was also in Domach where Steiner passed away in 1925.

Said about the city: "Berlin will not be a city of artists for long in any case"

This Norwegian born painter and printmaker is concerted to be his country's most gifted artist. The painter's profound treatment of emotional themes significantly influenced development of German Expressionism in the early 20th century. Munch's obsession with humans' dark side, which is reflected in his artwork, has its roots in his traumatic childhood experiences (death of his mother and sister). His painting "The Cry" or "The Scream" (1893) is often described as an image of existential torment and one of the world's greatest works of art. Unfortunately it was stolen from the Munch museum in Oslo in an armed robbery in 2004 and remains missing. Other classic paintings by Munch include "The Sick Child" (1886), "Death in the Sickroom" (1893), "Vampire" (1893-94), "Ashes" (1894), "The Kiss" (1895), "Frieze of Life" (1897) and "The Dance of Life" (1899-1900).