Hans Walter Conrad Veidt (
; 22 January 1893 – 3 April 1943) was a German actor best remembered for his roles in films such as
Different from the Others (1919),
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and
The Man Who Laughs (1928). After a successful career in German silent films, where he was one of the best-paid stars of UFA, he and his new Jewish wife Ilona Prager were forced to leave Germany in 1933 after the Nazis came to power. They settled in Britain, where he participated in a number of films, including
The Thief of Bagdad (1940), before emigrating to the United States around 1941, which led to him having the role of Major Strasser in
Casablanca (1942).Veidt was born in a bourgeois district of Berlin, in what was then the German Empire, to Amalie Marie (née Gohtz) and Phillip Heinrich Veidt.(Some biographies wrongly state that he was born in Potsdam, probably on the basis of an early claim on his part.) His family was Lutheran.In 1914, Veidt met actress Lucie Mannheim, with whom he began a relationship. Later in the year Veidt was conscripted into the German Army during World War I. In 1915, he was sent to the Eastern Front as a non-commissioned officer and took part in the Battle of Warsaw. He contracted jaundice and pneumonia, and had to be evacuated to a hospital on the Baltic Sea. While recuperating, he received a letter from Mannheim telling him that she had found work at a theatre in Libau. Intrigued, Veidt applied for the theatre as well. As his condition had not improved, the army allowed him to join the theatre so that he could entertain the troops. While performing at the theatre, he ended his relationship with Mannheim. In late 1916, he was re-examined by the Army and deemed unfit for service; he was given a full discharge in January 1917. Veidt returned to Berlin to pursue his acting career.
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