Biography:

Hermann Warm was born in Berlin on May 5, 1889. He graduated from the Kustgewerbeschule in Berlin. After working as a theatrical designer, he began working in film. He quickly established himself as an art and production director and became an important figure in the expressionist film movement of the 1920s. A highlight of Warm’s career was collaborating with set designers Walter Röhrig and Walter Reimann for Robert Wiene’s expressionist silent film, Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. Warm designed the set for Fritz Lang’s film Der müde Tod and for two F.W. Murnau titles: the crime story Schloss Vogellöd and the literary adaptation Phantom. He also designed the sets for G.W. Pabst’s Gräfin Donelli and the silent movie Le train sans yeux, the debut film of Brazilian director Alberto Cavalcanti.

During the Nazi period, Warm continued working, including for Veit Harlan (Jugend, Krach im Hinterhaus), Hans Steinhoff (Ein Volksfeind) and Erich Engel (Die Nacht mit dem Kaiser, Gefährliches Spiel). In 1941, however, he left for Switzerland. After returning to Germany in 1947, he joined the production team for Wozzeck, his only DEFA film.

Until his retirement in 1960, Warm worked for internationally-known directors, including Helmut Käutner (Königskinder), Erich Engel (Land der Sehnsucht) and Paul Verhoeven (Vergiss die Liebe nicht). In the mid-1950s, he collaborated once more with Veit Harlan on Verrat an Deutschland-Der Fall Dr. Sorge, about a German communist spy working for the USSR during WWII.

In 1965, Hermann Warm was honored with the German Film Award in Gold for his work in German film. He died in West Berlin on May 17, 1976.  

Festivals & Awards: