Hannelore Auer, later known as Hannelore Kramm and for a period Hannelore Auersperg, was an Austrian singer and film actress who became one of the recognizable faces of German-language popular cinema in the 1960s. She was born in Linz, Austria, on 30 May 1942, and died in Kitzbühel on 8 November 2023, aged 81. Auer studied at the Federal School of Fashion and Commercial Art in Linz. She entered a singing competition in Vienna at the age of 15 and finished second. In 1959 she obtained a recording contract with Electrola, releasing several singles during the early 1960s. Her biggest success as a singer came in 1962 with "Was in Athen geschah" ("What Happened in Athens"), a German-language version of the title song from the film It Happened in Athens. The song remained in the German Top 50 for 17 weeks. Her acting career began in 1960 with Ich heirate Herrn Direktor. She subsequently appeared in a large number of German and Austrian comedies, musical films and Heimatfilme. Her film career was concentrated mainly in the 1960s and early 1970s. She worked particularly often with director Franz Antel, who cast her in several of his popular films. In 1968, Auer married Austrian aristocrat Alfred Prinz von Auersperg, becoming known as Hannelore Auersperg. The marriage ended in divorce in 1979. Her second marriage was to the enormously popular German singer Heino. They married in 1979 and remained together until her death in 2023. Auer eventually became much more than Heino's wife. She was his close adviser and manager, and she was involved in his career for more than four decades. According to Heino's official biography, she also came up with the idea for his major church concerts. She occasionally appeared alongside him on television, including Herzlich willkommen bei Heino und Hannelore. Hannelore Auer died on 8 November 2023 in Kitzbühel, Austria, where she had spent her later years with Heino.
