Hans Schumm

Biography

Nazi swine "par excellence" Hans Schumm was born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1896. He was an experienced stage actor in his native Germany when he emigrated to the US in 1927. He played small parts in American films--even showing up in a few musicals!--but he hit his stride in the late 1930s when America became aware of the Nazi menace in Europe. Schumm was a huge man, and his powerful build, deep voice, piercing eyes and menacing scowl were tailor-made to personify the Nazi brutes he played so well. Whether as an SS officer, Gestapo agent, treacherous spy, brutal soldier or suspicious policeman, the sight of the towering Schumm glaring at you in his black Nazi uniform with his Luger pointed at your head while barking "Hände hoch!" was guaranteed to make even the toughest screen hero stop in his tracks. He had a small but memorable part in Sahara (1943) as a fanatical Nazi soldier captured by Humphrey Bogart's men during an attack on their desert position, who is sent back to the German lines with a message from Bogart but on the way back murders a fellow German soldier who gave up information in exchange for some water. He had a somewhat bigger-than-usual part as Nazi spy-ring leader "The Mask" in the terrific Republic serial Spy Smasher (1942), and even did a turn as a slapstick villain who gets conked on the head with a coconut in the Bud Abbott and Lou Costello comedy Pardon My Sarong (1942). After the war there was less of a call for Nazi villains in Hollywood, and Schumm returned several times to make films in Germany. His final film was the made-in-Germany fantasy Captain Sindbad (1963) with Guy Williams. He died of heart failure in Los Angeles, CA, on Feb. 2, 1990, at age 93.