She worked in an association exhorting people not to forget the Holocaust. She wrote her memoirs in 2011, titled Im Überschwang: Aus meinem Leben (In Exuberance: From My Life), which describe in detail how she grew up in Bavarian provincial surroundings and recount tragic episodes from her childhood. Awards For her title role in Die Unberührbare (No Place to Go), Elsner was awarded the Deutscher Filmpreis (German Film Award) in the category Best Actress, the Deutscher Kritikerpreis (German Critics' Prize) and the 2000 Bayrischer Filmpreis (Bavarian Film Award). In 2003, she won the Best Actress category for , directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, at the German Film Awards. In 2005, she received the German Order of Merit for her campaign against AIDS. In 2006, she was awarded the Bavarian Film Award for her life's work. Personal life and death Elsner was married three times: to the actor Gerd Vespermann from 1964 to 1966, to the director Alf Brustellin from the 1970s until his death in 1981, and to Uwe B. Carstensen from 1993 until their divorce in 2000. In 1981, she had a son with the director Dieter Wedel. She died of cancer in a clinic in Munich on 21 April 2019. Hanns-Georg Rodek, in an obituary for Die Welt, described her as "a national institution ... wild, seductive and independent" ("eine nationale Institution ... wild, verführerisch und unabhängig"). The broadcaster BR changed their programming in her honour, to show films that she had appeared in as well as an interview. Filmography Films in which Elsner appeared include: Old Heidelberg (1959), as Helene (1961), as Ulla (1961), as Yusha Stahlnetz: (1962, TV series episode), as Edith Tirfelder (1963), as Sylvia Stössi An Alibi for Death (1963), as Hanne Wasneck Glorious Times at the Spessart Inn (1967), as Johanna Zur Hölle mit den Paukern (1968), as Geneviève Ponelle (1969, TV film), as Anacoana Student of the Bedroom (1970), as Brigitte Gentlemen in White Vests (1970), as Susan Willi Manages the Whole Thing (1971), as Constanze The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of (1972), as Irina (1973), as Monika Winkler (1973), as The Countess Trip to Vienna (1973), as Marga Kroeber Challenge to White Fang (1974), as Jane LeClerq Die schöne Marianne (1975, TV series, 13 episodes), as Marianne Ruaux (1975), as Maria / Marlit Grete Minde (1977), as Trude Minde The Tailor from Ulm (1978), as Anna Berblinger (1979), as Alissa Kristlein