well as the coming annexation of the Sudetenland, his affair with a Czech actress was an impossibility. Baarová was told by the Berlin chief of police Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff that she had to quit her relationship with Goebbels immediately and was prohibited from performing on Hitler's direct order. Her recently completed film A Prussian Love Story, which depicted the love affair between Wilhelm I and the Polish princess Elisa Radziwill, and was a thinly-veiled reference to Goebbels and Baarová, was banned, and not shown in theatres until 1950 as Liebeslegende ("Story of Love"). Paid shills yelled out "Get out, minister's whore" when Baarová's character appeared on the screen at the premiere of Der Spieler ("The Gambler"), and did not stop until the showing was halted. The film's run was ended and the actress had a nervous breakdown. She tried to contact friends in Hollywood, with an eye to going there, but Hitler told her that she could not leave the country. Followed by the Gestapo wherever she went, ordered by Helldorf to stop making public appearances, and pressed by her friends, in the winter of 1938–39 Baarová fled back to Prague. There, she was temporarily allowed to perform under German occupation and, in 1942, moved to Italy, where she starred in such films as Grazia (1943), La Fornarina (1944), Vivere ancora (1945) and others. After Allied troops occupied Italy, she had to return to Prague. In April 1945, however, Lída Baarová left Prague for Germany again. On the way, she was taken into custody by the American military police, imprisoned in Munich, and later extradited to Czechoslovakia. Post-war years In Czechoslovakia in 1945, Baarová and her family were taken into custody on suspicion of collaboration with the Germans during the war. Her mother died under interrogation; her sister Zorka committed suicide in 1946. She herself was released after 18 months of custody due to lack of evidence. She had never been convicted or sentenced. While in custody, she was often visited by the puppeteer Jan Kopecký and they eventually married on 27 July 1947. Kopecký was a close relative of Václav Kopecký, a prominent politician in the post-war government of Czechoslovakia. Kopecký's prominent relative did not approve of the marriage and Kopecký lost his job as a result. Kopecký emigrated to Argentina, leaving Lída behind to recuperate in the sanatorium of Dr. Lundwall. In Austria in 1949, the actress attempted