Hanna Ralph was married to the German actor Emil Jannings in 1920, however the marriage ended in divorce. She was later briefly married to director Fritz Wendhausen.
From 1914 to 1915 she worked at theatre in Mainz and in 1916 at the City Theater in Hamburg. In 1917 she began working on various stages in Berlin.
The actress Hanna Ralph impersonated very interesting characters in the 20's. To her most impressive performances belong the film classics "Die Brüder Karamasoff" , Die Nibelungen: Siegfried" (1924), "Helena" (1924) and "Faust" (1926).
After the war's end, she briefly returned to film in the early 1950s; appearing in small roles in director Wolfgang Liebeneiner's 1951 crime drama Der blaue Stern des Südens and Harald Reinl's 1952 drama Behind Monastery Walls before retiring from acting altogether.
She made her stage debut in 1913 at the Schauspielhaus in Frankfurt.
In 1968 she was awarded the Bundesfilmpreis for her legacy as an actress in German cinema.
Hanna Ralph's career withstood the transition to sound film, however she appeared in only three films of the 1930s; instead, she spent much of the decade in theatre.
She appeared only seldom in the talkies, so "Der blaue Stern des Südens" (1951) and Hinter Klostermauern (1952).