Taking leave
Actor Günter Lamprecht died
Günter Lamprecht stands in front of the camera in his role as grumpy inspector Franz Markowitz while filming a crime scene crime thriller (1990). photo
© Nestor Bachmann/dpa
He was the star of Fassbinder’s “Berlin Alexanderplatz” and in the 90s “Tatort” commissioner: Now the actor Günter Lamprecht has died at the age of 92.
Actor Günter Lamprecht has died at the age of 92. He was once celebrated by critics and audiences alike for his prime role as Franz Biberkopf in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s multi-part film adaptation of Alfred Döblin “Berlin Alexanderplatz”. In the early 1990s he was the SFB “Tatort” commissioner Franz Markowitz in Berlin-Kreuzberg. As his agent told the German Press Agency on Friday, Lamprecht died on October 4 in Bad Godesberg in Bonn. He leaves behind his wife and a daughter.
Günter Lamprecht played in the very first “crime scene” entitled “Taxi to Leipzig” in 1970 – a supporting role as a GDR border guard. In 1973 he was seen in Fassbinder’s two-part science fiction television film “Welt am Draht”. In 1980, Fassbinder’s WDR series “Berlin Alexanderplatz” was broadcast on television. Most recently, the native of Berlin embodied the Reich President Paul von Hindenburg in the second season of the Sky/ARD historical series “Babylon Berlin”.
Debut as an actor at the Schiller Theater in Berlin
Lamprecht was born on January 21, 1930 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. Shortly before the end of the war he was drafted as a Hitler Youth and was wounded in the final days of the war. From 1953 he took private acting lessons in Berlin.
He made his debut at the Schiller-Theater, followed by a permanent engagement at the Schauspielhaus Bochum, where he returned in 1974 after stints on all the major stages in Germany and played under Peter Zadek. It was here that he met Fassbinder for the first time. Overall, Lamprecht played about 75 leading and title roles at the theater.
More than 150 film and television roles
Lamprecht played his first leading film role in 1976 in “The Baker’s Bread” and won the Lubitsch Prize with it. Well over 150 film and television roles followed, accompanied by numerous awards.
“With him we are losing one of the greatest character actors that German film has produced,” said ARD chairman and WDR director Tom Buhrow on Friday, according to a statement about Lamprecht’s “powerful acting skills”.
“The films in which Günter Lamprecht has acted are great examples of what television can achieve when it is brave and focuses unconditionally on quality.” ARD was able to win him over for many extraordinary productions.
Günter Lamprecht IMDb film portal