Til Kiwe

Jan Heinrich Tilman Kiwe (born Eduard Heinrich Kiefer), also known as Til Kiver or Till Kiwe, (b. 7 June 1910 in Aachen; d. 30 November 1995 in Munich) was a German actor, voice actor and screenwriter. He famously played Frick a German guard in The Great Escape in 1963 Life Kiefer received singing instruction at the Conservatory in Aachen and did his Abitur in 1934. From 1934 to 1937 he studied ethnology in Cologne and Baltimore. With Adolf Manz in Cologne, and at the Studio of Dramatic Art in Baltimore, he had himself trained as an actor. Before the Second World War broke out, he took several trips to faraway lands, among them an expedition to the Tibesti Mountains in Chad in 1938. He took part in the war in the Deutsches Afrikakorps, and on 18 May 1943, while he held the rank of captain, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. By this time, though, he had already become a prisoner of war after his Afrikakorps unit had been forced to surrender. He was taken to a camp in Colorado, from which he made several escape attempts. On one occasion, Kiefer made it by train as far as St. Louis before he was recaptured.