THE MYSTERY OF INGRID PITT

Four stories:

1. the one she tells in her memoir, Life’s a Scream (1999)

2. the one that emerges from documents

3. the media story–press articles from the 1960s on–how she self-fashioned herself and how the media portrayed her

4. the one in between, of questions, doubts, and research

Connecting and radically rewriting the history of two seemingly completely unrelated historical figures: a cult British horror actress/author and a German engineer/athlete with a unique record.

His story completes hers, and vice versa. There is Big History in the background.

What is true in her autobiographical account, and what did she make up? And why? In her 60s, with a distinguished career behind her, she didn’t need to prove anything to anyone. Was she really born, her parents on the run from the Nazis, at the back of the train station in Częstochowa, Poland? Did she really spend three years in the Stutthof concentration camp? Was her father really a rocket scientist whom the Nazis wanted “at any price”? Were her maternal grandparents Jewish and did they die in Treblinka?

Some of these questions can be answered, others–at this point at least–can only be posed. There are still people around who knew her.

Locations:

Berlin
London
Woking (Surrey), UK
Częstochowa, PL
Stutthof (Sztutowo, PL)
Grodno/Białystok, PL
Las Vegas, US
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Interviews:

Steffanie Blake
Clint Eastwood
Cesar Lopez (Madrid)
Milo Frank
Peter Sasdy
Dani Filth (Cradle of Filth)
Dr. Joanna Lukawska (London)

DAS RÄTSEL UM INGRID PITT

Vier Geschichten:

Die Geschichte, die sie selbst in ihren Memoiren Life's a Scream (1999) erzählt.
Die Geschichte, die sich aus den Dokumenten ergibt.
Die Mediengeschichte – Zeitungs- und Zeitschriftenartikel seit den 1960er Jahren: wie sie sich selbst präsentierte und wie die Medien sie darstellten.
Die Geschichte dazwischen – geprägt von Fragen, Zweifeln und jahrelanger Recherche.

Die Dokumentation verbindet zwei scheinbar völlig unabhängige historische Persönlichkeiten und schreibt ihre Geschichte grundlegend neu: eine britische Kult-Horrordarstellerin und Schriftstellerin sowie einen deutschen Ingenieur und Spitzensportler mit einer außergewöhnlichen Lebensgeschichte.

Seine Geschichte vervollständigt ihre – und ihre seine. Im Hintergrund steht die große Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts.

Was an Ingrid Pitts autobiografischem Bericht ist wahr, und was hat sie erfunden? Und warum? Als sie ihre Memoiren veröffentlichte, war sie über sechzig Jahre alt und konnte auf eine erfolgreiche internationale Karriere zurückblicken. Sie musste niemandem mehr etwas beweisen.

Wurde sie tatsächlich auf der Flucht ihrer Eltern vor den Nationalsozialisten hinter dem Bahnhof von Częstochowa in Polen geboren? Verbrachte sie wirklich drei Jahre im Konzentrationslager Stutthof? War ihr Vater tatsächlich ein Raketeningenieur, den die Nationalsozialisten „um jeden Preis“ gewinnen wollten? Waren ihre mütterlichen Großeltern jüdisch und wurden sie im Vernichtungslager Treblinka ermordet?

Einige dieser Fragen lassen sich beantworten. Andere können – zumindest zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt – nur gestellt werden. Es leben noch Menschen, die Ingrid Pitt persönlich kannten.

Drehorte

Berlin
London
Woking (Surrey), UK
Częstochowa, PL
Stutthof (Sztutowo, PL)
Grodno / Białystok, PL
Las Vegas, US
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Interviewpartner

Steffanie Blake
Clint Eastwood
Cesar Lopez (Madrid)
Milo Frank
Peter Sasdy
Dani Filth (Cradle of Filth)

Dr. Joanna Łukawska (London)

1959

1969

"My father was my hero. (...) When competitors were rounded up to enter the first Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens he was there. He won a medal and was received by the King. He could have gone anywhere to live but turn-of-the-century England suited him. My father’s immediate claim to fame was his invention of a special electrical battery which he patented in 1900. To prove that his battery was a viable product with a modern application, he took his battery-driven car on a London-to-Brighton run – and finished, which was enough to prove a point."

(Ingrid Pitt, Life's a Scream [1999], Chapter One)

Berthold Ernst Edmund Küttner

(3 March 1870, Potsdam - 16 July 1953, Berlin)

Wikipedia article on Berthold:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berthold_K%C3%BCttner

"Wassersport", August 1895

1896

1896, Athens, 1st modern Olympic Games, programme

Berthold Küttner and Alfred Jäger after their return from Athens

(source)

1899, Auto Motor Journal, England, Berthold as pioneer of electric cars

1900, "The Powerful", race trial, possibly Berthold behind the wheel

The Electrical Review, 1901

The Horseless Age, 1901

The Electrical Review, 1901

Battery-pack manufactured by Accumulator Industries of Woking, original engineering by Berthold Küttner, used extensively by British and Allied armed forces during the Second World War

27 March 1903, Berthold marries Pearl Hyacinth Rastrick, daughter of George Rastrick (1821-1906), granddaughter of railway magnate John Urpeth Rastrick (1780-1856)

1903, Berthold's signature on the marriage certificate

1903

1904

1905

1910

Berthold's household in the UK Census, 1911

(Ingrid Pitt, Life's a Scream [1999], Chapter One)

1919, Berthold and Pearl Hyacinth have left England and live at Dürerstr. 23 in Berlin-Lichterfelde

Pearl Hyacinth Küttner nee Rastrick dies 11 September 1924.

1925, Berthold, widowed, lives at Dahlemerstr. 54 in Berlin-Lichterfelde (the later Holbeinstr. 54)

1929

1933, Berthold marries Kathe Schweinfurth of Burgsteinfurt (Westfalia)

1933, Berthold and Kathe's signatures on their marriage certificate

They live at Holbeinstr. 54, Berlin-Lichterfelde

Holbeinstr. 54 today

"a funny-looking little house with a pointed roof"

"daughter born, certificate no. 143V/1937"

1937

1941

1953, Berthold deceased on July 16; he had returned to Berlin only in December 1946, from Sorau (Żary), where a major Luftwaffe factory operated - perhaps he was a forced labourer there

1962

1962, Ingrid's US landing card, her nationality stated as German, Berlin as birthplace, birth date as 21 November 1937, and permanent address as 54 Holbeinstrasse, West Berlin

Where Eagles Dare, 1968

1971

1986, Kät[h]e Küttner, Berthold's widow and Ingrid's mother, dies in January

Küttner family grave in Parkfriedhof Lichterfelde:

Berthold

his first wife Pearl Hyacinth nee Rastrick

his son Berthold Hans

"[My mother] was at first reluctant to go to Papa’s relatives. The rift between my father and his family, which started when, widowed, he married his second wife, my Jewish mother, widened considerably when my father made known his views about the Nazis. He had even disowned one of his sons by his previous marriage on learning that he had joined the SS and he never forgave him."

(Ingrid Pitt, Life's a Scream [1999], Chapter Eight)