Tanja von Lahnstein

Infobox soap character
series = Verbotene Liebe


caption = Miriam Lahnstein as Tanja von Lahnstein
first = Episode 109
June 1995
residence = Königsbrunn Castle
Düsseldorf, Germany
gender = Female
title = Countess of Lahnstein
Former Countess of Anstetten
parents = Walter Wittkamp
(father; deceased)
Annegret Wittkamp
(mother)
siblings = Meike Breuer
(sister)
Thomas Wittkamp
(brother; deceased)
spouse = Ben von Anstetten
(widowed, 1995-1996; deceased)
Rajan Rai
(widowed, 1997; deceased)
Henning von Anstetten
(divorced, 2001; deceased)
Ansgar von Lahnstein
(married, 2008-current)
children = Hannes von Lahnstein
(son, with Ansgar)
romances = Henning von Anstetten
(affair, deceased)
Jan Brandner
(affair)
Tim Sander
(affair, deceased)
Lukas Roloff
(affair)
Ansgar von Lahnstein
(engaged)
David McNeil
(affair)
Adrian Degenhardt
(affair)
occupation = Owner and COO of 'v.A. Faces'
portrayer = Miriam Lahnstein
(1995-1998, 2001, 2004-present)

Tanja von Lahnstein (née Wittkamp, formally von Anstetten) is a popular fictional character on German daytime soap opera "Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love)", portrayed by actress Miriam Lahnstein from June 1995 to May 1998, from April 24 to October 5, 2001 and again since April 16, 2004, with breaks from June 2005 to March 2006 and from March to December 2007, during the pregnancy of her two children.

Character's background

As a destitute woman Tanja arrives in Düsseldorf and begins to work for the Von Anstetten family. Soon, she has an affair with Henning von Anstetten (Markus Hoffmann) and later on with Arno Brandner's (Konrad Krauss) son Jan (Andreas Bruckner). However, Tanja pretends that she is pregnant with Henning's child. She wants to marry him, but his stepmother Clarissa von Anstetten (Isa Jank) finds out about Tanja's lie. But Tanja doesn't give up and comes back soon - with Christoph von Anstetten's (Jürgen Zartmann) hated brother Ben (Andreas Jung).But Tanja doesn't marry Ben out of love, she only wants revenge on the Von Anstetten family. Ben finds out and tells Tanja that he didn't married her out of love either. Tanja and Ben decide to fight her war against the family together. Then, a mysterious man named Rajan Rai (Sascha Zaglauer) arrives in Düsseldorf and begins to work on Friedenau Castle. Tanja finds out, that Rajan is the illegitimate child of her husband Ben. When Ben dies of poison, it is not Tanja who inherits his money, but Rajan. She hires a lawyer, but he can't help her. Tanja begins an affair with Tim Sander (Roland Pfaus) and realizes that Rajan is jealous.Tanja has a plan now and makes Rajan believe, that they could have a future together. He proposes to Tanja and she says "yes". Both leave Düsseldorf and get married in India. After the marriage Tanja kills Rajan and gets all his money.Back in Düsseldorf, her former lover Tim is in a new relationship with Cleo Winter (Dinah Pfaus-Schilffarth). But Tanja meddles and connives so that Tim comes back into her arms and both are reunited in their affair. After Cleo finds out, she breakes up with Tim. However, Tim turns his back on Tanja now and she has new plans. She wants to destroy her enemy Clarissa and kidnaps her. She tries to obtain full power of the empire of Clarissa's best friend Charlie Schneider (Gabriele Metzger). Clarissa exempts herself, but she tumbles and loses her memory. After her return, Clarissa suffers from amnesia and isn't the same. Tanja uses that and Clarissa loses all her possession to her. When Clarissa gets her memory back she swears revenge. Cleo begins to search in Tanja's past, but she finds out and kills Cleo. But Clarissa gets her revenge and becomes all her possession back. Tanja hits rock bottom and leaves Düsseldorf. Clarissa isn't satisfied and wants to see Tanja dead. She tells Tim that Tanja killed Cleo. So now, he wants revenge on her. He follows Tanja to Portugal and locks her up in a cellar. But that wasn't a good idea, Tanja exempts herself and kills Tim, too. Later on Tim is found with sliced arteries, just like Cleo was before. After that, Tanja vanishes.

But in 2001, the villain returns! Charlie and Clarissa believe that Tim killed Tanja three years ago. What they don't know is - Tanja is already back in town and has a new plan. Henning (Patrik Fichte) and Marie von Beyenbach (Solveig Duda) planning their wedding, when Tanja destroys their happiness. She fakes a DNA-Test, that proves that Marie and Henning are half-siblings. Henning and Marie forbid their feelings for each other and Tanja's plan works. Now, she comforts Henning and he believes that Tanja has changed since their affair, years ago. Tanja makes him believe, that she loves him and wants to marry him. But Clarissa sees through Tanja's real plan, the plan to kill Henning after the wedding. Together with Beatrice von Beyenbach (Jeannine Burch), Clarissa wants to bring Tanja down and they also let Henning know the truth. He marries Tanja to keep up appearances. Later, Tanja sends an invitation to Henning in Marie's name. She wants to meet him on a private place. When Henning appears, Tanja is there in the disguise of Clarissa and shoots Henning. Soon after that, Tanja gets the news, that Henning died in hospital, but that is all part of Clarissa's plan. On Henning's grave, the very alive Henning appears and Tanja gets arrested. After all that, Clarissa needs a few days off and wants to fly off for holidays. But Tanja escapes from the police and appears as stewardess in Clarissa's jet. But this time, Tanja's plan doesn't work. In the air, the jets loses control and it comes to a crash. Clarissa died, Tanja could survive with injuries, but lost in the jungle. She was after that for a long time in a Hospital.Three Years later, in 2004, a shocking truth comes out: Tanja is alive and back in Düsseldorf. With help from her new boss Mr. Rush (Andreas Engelmann), Tanja can prove her innocence of all the crimes, she committed in the past. As an assistant of Mr. Rush, she meets Ansgar von Lahnstein (Wolfram Grandezka) to do business in a new center in Düsseldorf. For that, Tanja smuggles counterfeit money into the country. Ansgar is fascinated by the mysterious Tanja and begins an affair with her. But in this relationship the is only one thing that matters - money and power! Tanja realizes that Ansgar isn't like the men she had before and is impressed.Tanja spends her old "friend" Charlie Schneider a visit. Charlie is shocked, when she realizes that Tanja is alive and calls the police. But they can't do anything and Charlie has to bare, how Tanja plays with David McNeil (Sam Eisenstein), Charlie's boyfriend. He begins an affair with her, but Charlie finds out soon and breaks up with David. He realizes that Tanja only used him, to get back at Charlie and he turns his back on Tanja.

The German "Sheila Carter"

She is one of the fiercest German villains. No other main character of a soap opera in Germany has so many crimes on her list. At first, she faked a pregnancy to become the wife of the rich Henning von Anstetten. But that was only the beginning. The list of crimes is going on and on. Blackmails, kidnapping and not at least murder are her biggest crimes.

Her last murder was on Donald Rush, her own boss. After killing him, she tried to pin Rush's murder on Bernd von Beyenbach (Ron Holzschuh). But it didn't work out, because Bernd had an alibi from Sylvia Jones (Heike Brentano). The case around Rush's death was never closed.

In early 2007, she faked the death of her son and herself, with help of Adrian Degenhardt (Klaus Zmorek) and fled with him to Uruguay. She returned in late 2007, after Sebastian von Lahnstein (Joscha Kiefer), Ansgar's cousin, found out that she is alive.

When Tanja returned, she blackmailed Ansgar to let her stay out of prison, otherwise she would handle prove that he faked his father's will. Then she fought with Ansgar over custody for Hannes. After their little games with each other, they lost both. Currently Ansgar's sister Carla (Claudia Hiersche) has full custody.

After this, Tanja opened a model agency, called 'v.A. Faces', and made Sarah Hofmann (Sina-Veleska Jung) her top model. But at this time, Sarah had a serious drug problem. When she lived together with Carla and her son Hannes, she put him in danger and made Tanja to her enemy. But Tanja needed her for her campaign at this time. As soon as the campaign was over, Tanja took her moment for revenge on Sarah and gave her the address of a drug dealer, who uses strychnine instead of pure cocaine. Sarah almost died on that and Tanja told her afterwards, that she is lucky, she isn't dead.