Actress Marlene Dietrich ‘Always Considered Herself a Berliner’ Despite Fleeing to U.S., Grandson Says

In the early days of World War II, Marlene Dietrich, one of the biggest stars to ever come out of Berlin, courageously chose to give up her German citizenship to help the Allied war effort.

“Hitler is an idiot,” she said in a British wartime radio interview that was purposely sent over German airwaves. It would be decades before she returned home.

“Marlene always considered herself a Berliner,” her grandson, Peter Riva, exclusively tells Closer, explaining that the city where Marlene grew up was the “most open and tolerant city in the world.”

Hitler and the Nazi party changed that, driving Marlene to apply for American citizenship in 1937.

Afterwards, she helped people escape Germany, sold war bonds and performed for the Allied troops. “She called them ‘my boys’ for the rest of her life,” says Riva.

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She had no idea what sort of reception she’d receive when she agreed to sing at Berlin’s Titania-Palast in 1960.

“This is impudence,” wrote an angry nationalist, according to Life. “We shall give her the proper German reception.”

Marlene received two bomb threats. Protestors picketed her shows and newspapers condemned her.

Other Berliners felt more warmly. Marlene visited with the West Berlin mayor, whose opposition to Hitler had forced him into exile. Fans hugged her in the street and her sold out shows were a triumph.

“After 18 curtain calls there was no doubt on either side of the footlights that Marlene and her homeland were at peace again,” wrote a Life journalist.

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She lived to see the reunification of Germany too.

“Of course I’m happy,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 1990. “Anything that brings people together and encourages peace always makes me happy. Happiness is so rare in this troubled world.”