After making her name as one of Germany’s biggest postwar film stars, the smoky-voiced Hildegard Knef began her recording career in earnest at the turn of her forties. Across her 20-plus albums, she included original lyrics that articulated subtle emotions and tackled modern, topical themes. Born in the city of Ulm in 1925, Knef was taken as a prisoner of war by the Soviet Army as her acting career was on the rise, eventually escaping and finding success in both Germany and America in the ’40s and ’50s. She was a favourite of Cole Porter’s, who offered her a role in his 1955 Broadway musical Silk Stockings; Knef would record an album of German-language versions of his songs in 1968. Other ’60s and ’70s albums highlight Knef at the peak of her expressive power on songs she co-wrote (such as 1974’s “17 Millimeter fehlten mir zum Glück”).