Erwin Geschonneck
Erwin Geschonneck (27 December 1906 – 12 March 2008) was a German actor who became very famous in East Germany. He was born in Bartenstein, East Prussia (now Bartoszyce, Poland) to a poor shoemaker and moved with his family to Berlin in 1909. He joined the Communist Party in 1919. After the Nazis came to power, he fled to the Soviet Union, then Prague, and was arrested in 1939 after Germany occupied Bohemia and Moravia. He spent time in Nazi concentration camps and survived the Cap Arcona sinking in 1945.
After World War II he acted in theaters in Hamburg and made his film debut in 1947 in In jenen Tagen. He later moved to East Germany, worked with Bertolt Brecht, and became a well-known actor there. He served on the jury of the Moscow International Film Festivals (the 6th and 7th editions). He appeared in Jacob the Liar, which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1977 Academy Awards—the GDR’s only nomination.
He had a wife, Heike, and two sons, Matti and Alexander; his son Matti became a director. His last film was Matulla und Busch in 1995 for ARD. He turned 100 in 2006 and died in Berlin in 2008 at the age of 101.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 14:35 (CET).