Actor, Knight's Cross Recipient. After graduating from Aachen Conservatory in 1934, he studied ethnology, or the study of people, and acting under Adolf Manz in Cologne, Germany, and at the Studio of Dramatic Arts in Baltimore, Maryland. He participated in a scientific exhibition to the volcano at Tebesti Mountains in Chad in 1938. During World War II, he was a paratrooper at the rank of captain in the Tunis Field Battalion T5, where he was the commander of the 4th Armored Reconnaissance Company in the Luftwaffe. On May 18, 1943, he was awarded the Knight's Cross to the Iron Cross, a distinguished German military award that began in 1939. His unit had to surrender on May 13th. While he was a prisoner of war in the United States at a Colorado camp, he made a number of escape attempts, once getting as far as St. Louis, Missouri. Ironically, one of his most famous roles would be in the 1963 film, "The Great Escape," where he had played a military prison camp guard. Returning to Germany in 1946 after the war, he went to Munich where he found employment in various theaters. He also performed in several post-war films, often as a Wehrmacht officer. He had not forgotten his roots in ethnology, however, as he participated in a number of post-war expeditions to the Matto Grosso, Easter Islands, and the Atacama Desert working for The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as a producer and director of seventeen documentaries. In Hollywood, he also performed in the films "The Longest Day," "One, Two, Three," "The Odessa File," and "The Eagle has Landed." Later in life, he was employed in German television, as a theater director, and in English-speaking films, where he dubbed, in German, many actors' voices including David Niven, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Errol Flynn. Born Eduard Heinrich Kiefer, he was also known as Tilman Kiver.
Actor, Knight's Cross Recipient. After graduating from Aachen Conservatory in 1934, he studied ethnology, or the study of people, and acting under Adolf Manz in Cologne, Germany, and at the Studio of Dramatic Arts in Baltimore, Maryland. He participated in a scientific exhibition to the volcano at Tebesti Mountains in Chad in 1938. During World War II, he was a paratrooper at the rank of captain in the Tunis Field Battalion T5, where he was the commander of the 4th Armored Reconnaissance Company in the Luftwaffe. On May 18, 1943, he was awarded the Knight's Cross to the Iron Cross, a distinguished German military award that began in 1939. His unit had to surrender on May 13th. While he was a prisoner of war in the United States at a Colorado camp, he made a number of escape attempts, once getting as far as St. Louis, Missouri. Ironically, one of his most famous roles would be in the 1963 film, "The Great Escape," where he had played a military prison camp guard. Returning to Germany in 1946 after the war, he went to Munich where he found employment in various theaters. He also performed in several post-war films, often as a Wehrmacht officer. He had not forgotten his roots in ethnology, however, as he participated in a number of post-war expeditions to the Matto Grosso, Easter Islands, and the Atacama Desert working for The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as a producer and director of seventeen documentaries. In Hollywood, he also performed in the films "The Longest Day," "One, Two, Three," "The Odessa File," and "The Eagle has Landed." Later in life, he was employed in German television, as a theater director, and in English-speaking films, where he dubbed, in German, many actors' voices including David Niven, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Errol Flynn. Born Eduard Heinrich Kiefer, he was also known as Tilman Kiver.
Bio by: Kenneth Gilbert
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