Ericksen, Suzanne

By the end of the war, Suzanne Firle had learned to be a film editor and worked at a film studio in Babelsberg . In the early post-war days, Suzanne met a Norwegian engineer Sven Eriksen, who promised to take her to Norway, and four weeks later on June 15, 1945, Suzanne married him. The next day, the newlyweds as foreigners were expelled from the Soviet sector of the city, promising to be sent to Norway via Moscow together with a group of diplomats and journalists. But from Moscow, the Eriksen spouses were sent not to Norway, but to a camp in Stalinogorsk for forced labor to restore the city. The spouses were separated, and Suzanne never saw her husband again. She returned to her homeland only in 1947. In Germany, Suzanne took up photography and journalism, worked as a model. During a vacation on Sylt in the early summer of 1950, Suzanne took part in the beauty contest "Miss Schleswig-Holstein " and won it. On September 2, 1950, in Baden-Baden, the 24-year-old Berliner was awarded the Miss Germany title and was at the center of the scandal. Five out of seven members of the jury protested against the election of Eriksen, since the applicant was already married. A few months later, Susanna’s marriage was officially annulled. On September 9, Susanna Eriksen took part in the Miss Europe competition held in Rimini . In 1952, Eriksen went to the USA as a “German fashion ambassador”, where she lingered for more than 11 years. The American press was delighted with the brunette from Germany and called her " miracle freulyn ." So in subsequent years in the United States began to be called young and desirable German beauties. Life magazine has dedicated a four page article to Suzanne Eriksen. The demanded and popular model earned in the New York agency Frances Gill almost $ 100 per hour, which at that time in terms of German marks was more than one and a half times higher than the monthly wage of a worker in Germany.

Returning from the USA, Suzanne Ericksen took up her own collection of fashionable clothes. She founded Susanne Erichsen Teenager Modelle GmbH , opened a store on the Kurfürstendamm and organized production in the Tempelhof district of Berlin . It was Suzanne Eriksen who introduced the English word teenager in everyday life in Germany. In 1967, Eriksen opened a school of fashion models at the Europa-Center in Berlin and for a long time led her work. In early 2002, Eriksen died of the effects of a stroke in a nursing home. Her autobiography was completed by her co-author, publisher Dorothea Hansen.

• Susanne Erichsen: Ein Nerz und eine Krone. Die Lebenserinnerungen des deutschen Fräuleinwunders . Econ, München, 2003; ISBN 3-430-12547-2

• Veit Didczuneit, Dirk Külow: Miss Germany. Die deutsche Schönheitskönigin . S & L MedienContor, Hamburg, 1998; ISBN 3-931962-94-6

• Model Suzanne Eriksen is serving time in Tula
• In the Tula camps, Hitler's personal pilot and fashion model Suzanne Eriksen sat
• Radio bayern