Weimar Berlin: Speedy Schlichter

And speaking of the painter Rudolf Schlichter, I can't avoid mentioning his wife, Speedy. That’s was not her birth name, of course. Elfriede Elisabeth Koehler was born in Switzerland in 1902. On her husband’s advice, she anglicized her name, which was a common thing among artists. John Heartfield's real name was Helmut Herzfeld, and George Grosz' original name was Georg Ehrenfried Gross.

But, why did she change to Speedy and not to Sylvia, or to Lilian? My guess: around the time she met Rudolf, a Harold Lloyd film had its premiere. Its title was Speedy.

Some maintain that Speedy Schlichter worked as a prostitute at the time. The reason might be that her husband had had a prior relationship with a prostitute, Fanny Hablützel. Or the fact that he had to purge once a prison sentence for pimping as she had been accused of receiving paying guests in their apartment. It is worth noting that prostitution was not a very uncommon way of earning a living in poverty-ridden interwar Germany.

Whatever her profession, she did pose a great number of times for Rudolf, on occasion for pictures with an erotic theme. And Speedy was an actress too. She had a role in a very successful Fritz Lang-film: Diary of a Lost Girl, with Louise Brooks in the main role.

She played also in Rivalen im Weltrekord (Rivals for the World Record), a sports film directed by Ernö Metzner (1930).