Portrait of Volker Schlöndorff

Birthday profile

Volker Schlöndorff

Volker Schlöndorff, German director and producer

Born
March 31, 1939
Age in 2026
87
Zodiac sign
Aries
Birth year
1939

About Volker Schlöndorff

Volker Schlöndorff (German pronunciation: [ˈfɔlkɐ ˈʃløːndɔʁf]; born 31 March 1939) is a German film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was a prominent member of the New German Cinema of the late 1960s and early 1970s, often collaborating with his then-wife and fellow filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta. His 1979 film The Tin Drum, based on Günter Grass' novel of the same name, won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. His other notable films have included The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975, co-directed with von Trotta), the documentary Germany in Autumn (1978), Swann in Love (1984), Death of a Salesman (1985), The Handmaid's Tale (1990), Voyager (1991), The Ogre (1996), and Diplomacy (2014). He is also a Professor of film and literature at the European Graduate School, and a founding member of the Deutsche Filmakademie.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

The world when Volker Schlöndorff was born

Volker Schlöndorff was born in 1939. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1939

  • #1 song"Over the Rainbow" – Judy Garland
  • Top movieGone with the Wind
  • Best-selling bookThe Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentLou Gehrig delivers his "Luckiest Man" farewell speech
  • Top headlineGermany invades Poland — World War II begins
  • Technology milestoneFirst regular television broadcasts in the US (NBC)
  • Defining fadThe Wizard of Oz mania
  • Notable inventionNylon stockings
  • World population2.30 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • U.S. population130.9M

1939 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Volker Schlöndorff's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19392026
Gas$0.19$3.45/gal
Average home$5,200$435,000
Average income$2,900$67,500
Minimum wage$0.30$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population130.9M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, IMDb. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.