Elisabeth Wilms

Elisabeth Wilms was a German filmmaker born on July 22, 1905, in Lengerich, Westphalia. She filmed and edited several documentaries in Germany during and after World War II. She died on August 25, 1981, in Dortmund.

Early life Wilms grew up in Lengerich, Westphalia as the daughter of a butcher who ran a small sausage factory. She later moved to Dortmund in 1931 where she married Erich Wilms and helped him run his bakery. “It was completely new to me that you could make films yourself,” Wilms would later say about this occasion, “Before that, I seldom took photos, and when I did, I took insignificant pictures. I felt as if I was now close to fulfilling my most secret desires.”

After Dortmund was devastated by a bombing run from Allied forces in 1944, Wilms filmed the aftermath, showing the destroyed streets and the distraught families in one of her most well-known documentaries, Alltag nach dem Krieg.

In 1980, Wilms and Erich participated in a documentary film by and titled Brot und Filme - Das große Hobby der Elisabeth Wilms, where she provides retrospective commentary for some of her earlier films.

Her collection of films was transferred to the Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural History film archive in 2007.