Rosa Albach-Retty
Rosa Albach-Retty (born Rosa Clara Franziska Helene Retty; 26 December 1874 – 26 August 1980) was an Austrian film and stage actress.
Rosa Albach-Retty

Aus Spemanns goldenes Buch des Theaters (1902) - Rosa Albach-Retty · Public domain
- Full name
- Rosa Retty.
- Born
- 1874. · Hanau.
- Died
- 1980. · Baden.
- Nationality
- Austria.
- Occupation
- actress.
- Fields
- acting, theatre performance and film acting.
- Honours
- Great Silver Medal of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria and Kainz Medal.
- Languages
- German.
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Documentary summary
Rosa Albach-Retty (born Rosa Clara Franziska Helene Retty; 26 December 1874 – 26 August 1980) was an Austrian film and stage actress.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Note VALÉORINE
Rosa Albach-Retty (1874–1980) was an actor, actress and film actor, among other activities, of Austrian nationality. The actor was born Rosa Retty in Hanau and died in Baden.
Rosa Albach-Retty worked in Berlin and Vienna. Activity centred on acting, film acting and theatre performance.
Languages used include German. Honours include Kainz Medal.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 30 September 2026
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Authority files
wikidata · Q78870 · wikipedia · Rosa Albach-Retty
In this article
Life
Life
The recorded working language is German. The field of work recorded is acting, theatre performance and film acting. Places of work recorded in the authority are Vienna and Berlin. Distinctions recorded are Great Silver Medal of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria and Kainz Medal.
Born into a well-known family of actors, she was the daughter of actor and director Rudolf Retty. Trained by her father, she began her stage career in 1890 at the Deutsches Theater and the Lessing Theater in Berlin, where she performed as Franziska in Minna von Barnhelm. Hermann Sudermann wrote his play Die Schmetterlingsschlacht, which premiered in 1894 at the Lessing Theater, for her. She was also known for breeches roles in Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Merchant of Venice (1909 at the Burgtheater). In 1895, she went to the Volkstheater in Vienna and in 1903 joined the Burgtheater ensemble, where she received the title of Hofschauspielerin (Actress of the Court) in 1912. She became an honorary member of the Burgtheater in 1928 and in 1958, she gave her final performance. She was married to the Austro-Hungarian Army officer Karl Albach; she was the mother of Wolf Albach-Retty (1906–1967), an Austrian movie actor who married German movie actress Magda Schneider in 1937. She was the grandmother of actress Romy Schneider and great-grandmother of actress Sarah Biasini. Albach-Retty made her first film appearance in 1930, in Georg Jacoby's Money on the Street, and made her last appearance in the 1955 remake The Congress Dances directed by Franz Antel. She died in 1980 at the age of 105, not long after publishing her autobiography So kurz sind 100 Jahre to mark her centenary. Her grave of honour and that of her son are located in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 32 C, number 50).
Ties to the Nazi regime
Ties to the Nazi regime
The proximity of Albach-Retty to the National Socialist regime is well documented. Following the 1938 annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany, she enthusiastically celebrated the Anschluss in the Kleine Volks-Zeitung. While her official membership in the NSDAP remains unproven, both she and her husband were supporting members (förderndes Mitglied) of the SS. As a prominent public figure and professed admirer of Adolf Hitler, Albach-Retty was highly courted by Nazi cultural policymakers and was subsequently included on Joseph Goebbels' "God-privileged list" (Gottbegnadeten-Liste) of artists deemed essential to the regime's war effort. Her standing remained unaffected after the fall of the Nazi regime, as evidenced by multiple state honors awarded to her after 1945. In the 1970s, a Viennese municipal housing complex in the 19th district was named the "Rosa-Albach-Retty-Hof" in her honor.
Selected filmography
Selected filmography
Money on the Street (1930) Episode (1935) Maria Ilona (1939) Hotel Sacher (1939) Thrice Wed (1941) Whom the Gods Love (1942) Vienna 1910 (1943) Maria Theresa (1951) Adventure in Vienna (1952) The Spendthrift (1953) The Congress Dances (1955) Klaus Peter Dencker in conversation with Rosa Albach-Retty. A production of Saarländischer Rundfunk / Television (45 minutes) (1979)
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
Explore 1974–1980
The full dated record · 3 entries
1974
Rosa Albach-Retty (1974) is digitised and catalogued by Open Library.
1974
Rosa Albach-Retty digitised by Open Library.
1980
Rosa Albach-Retty died at Baden.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Hanau.
Birth place
Baden.
Death place
Decorations and awards
1955: Grand Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria 1958: Josef Kainz Medal 1960: Medal of Honour of the City of Vienna 1963: Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class 1977: Grand Decoration of Honour in Silver for Services to the Republic of Austria
Literature
Rosa Albach-Retty (1978). Gertrud Svoboda-Srncik (ed.). So kurz sind hundert Jahre. Erinnerungen. Munich, Berlin: Herbig. ISBN 3-7766-0864-1. OCLC 5031371 – via Internet Archive. Robert Kittler: Rosa Albach-Retty. Ein Leben für das Theater. Diss. University Vienna, Vienna 1958 Oliver Rathkolb: Führertreu und gottbegnadet. Künstlereliten im Dritten Reich. Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-215-07490-7 Robert Teichl: Österreicher der Gegenwart. Lexikon schöpferischer und schaffender Zeitgenossen. Verlag der Österreichischen Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1951 Jürgen Trimborn: Romy und ihre Familie. Droemer, Munich 2008, ISBN 3-426-27451-5

Rosa Albach-Retty, österreichische Schauspielerin.
Rudolf Krziwanek · Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Bildarchiv Austria, Inventarnr. Kor 72A

Actress Rosa Retty / Österreichische Musik- und Theaterzeitung Nr. 6, 15. November 1896, S. 1
Österreichische Musik- und Theaterzeitung Nr. 6, 15. November 1896, S. 1
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1."Rosa Albach-Retty", Munzinger-Archiv
- 2."Role photo" as "Der kleine Lord", , Austrian Theatre Museum
- 3."Der Kaufmann von Venedig playbill, 23 December 1909, Burgtheater, Austrian Theatre Museum
- 4.Austriaforum AEIOU/Albach-Retty,_Rosa
- 5."Albach-Retty, Rosa ", Hessian Biography
- 6."Albach-Retty, Rosa (Clara Franziska Helene); geb. Retty", Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon (Austrian Biographical Dictionary), July 15, 2024.
- 7."Sisis Großmutter – Rosa Albach-Retty", Hanau Museums Collection Object of the Week, Archive Article.
- 8.Reply to a parliamentary question. 7.
- 9.Reply to a parliamentary question. 136.
- 10.Reply to a parliamentary question. 460.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
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