Maria Bard

Who was Maria Bard?

Maria Bard was a German stage actress, who made a handful of films in the silent era for Rimax, her first husband Wilhelm Graaff's company. By 1930, her marriage with Graaff was over, and she appeared with Werner Krauss in the stage production Der Kaiser von Amerika or The King of America and the two became involved. Unfortunately, Krauss' wife discovered their affair and committed suicide; a year later, in 1931, Maria Bard married Werner Krauss. Her third husband was actor Hannes Stelzer. Bard committed suicide on 8 April 1944, apparently for political reasons. On December 27, 1944, toward the end of World War II, Stelzer who was in the Luftwaffe at this point, died when his plane was shot down over the Eastern front.