Kurt Sterneck
Kurt Julius Sterneck (28 June 1919 – 23 January 1998) was an Austrian-German actor and director who worked on stage, in films, radio, and television.
He was born in Graz to opera singer Berthold Sterneck and Ernestine Schröder. His father was Jewish and his mother Catholic; they had converted to Protestantism before marrying. After his mother died in 1919, he grew up with relatives in Graz, and in 1923 moved with his father to Munich.
Sterneck finished school in Munich in 1937 and began studying engineering. He served in the German military during World War II. In 1944 he was arrested because of his Jewish origins and spent time in Dachau and a forced-labor camp. After the war he completed his engineering studies in 1945 and soon began acting, taking lessons from 1949.
He made his stage debut in Munich in 1951. In 1955 he joined Theater Krefeld und Mönchengladbach and later acted in Pforzheim, Augsburg, Innsbruck and Tübingen. In 1967 he joined the Schauspielhaus Graz. His last stage appearance was in 1993/1994 in Munich (The Concert by Hermann Bahr).
Sterneck also appeared on television, in shows such as Die Fernfahrer, Zeitsperre, Derrick and Die Abenteuer des braven Soldaten Schwejk. He was a prolific radio drama narrator and directed several radio works, including Andreas Okopenko's Johanna. He taught at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. He died in Munich at age 78; his grave is at Waldfriedhof in Munich.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 00:34 (CET).