Karl-Heinz Weiss was born December 8, 1920, in Magdeburg. He studied acting at Dessau"s Friedrich Theater and made his stage debut in 1943 in Magdeburg. After playing at several other theatres, Weiss went to Berlin in 1953 where he performed at Berliner Ensemble, and later at Volksbühne. From 1967 on, Weiss was a cast member of Deutsches Theater until he ended his stage career in 1990.

Weiss played his first role in a feature film as a watchful farmer in the history film "Thomas Müntzer" (1955), directed by Martin Hellberg. Between 1955 and 1970, he became a sought-after actor and appeared in more than 50 movie productions and more than 100 TV productions. But Weiss mainly starred in more or less distinctive supporting roles.

Often Weiss was seen as an accessory or official of a regime, for instance as a Gestapo official in Hans-Joachim Kunert"s film "Besondere Kennzeichen: keine" (1955), as the leader of a SS echelon in Konrad Wolf"s film "Lissy" (1957), or as member of the party executive committee in Frank Beyer"s DEFA classic "Spur der Steine" ("Traces of Stones", 1966). But Weiss also played gamblers, train conductors, physicians, workers, and librarians – and appeared on the big screen in Konrad Wolf’s "Goya" (1971), in Kurt Maetzig"s "Mann gegen Mann" ("Man against Man", 1975), and in Günter Reisch"s "Anton der Zauberer" ("Anton the Magician", 1978), among numerous others.

His most important roles include the role of French communist leader Maurice Thorez in the political biopic "Ernst Thälmann - Führer seiner Klasse" (1955), directed by Kurt Maetzig, and the role of Dollwitz in the railwayman fairy tale movie "Das zweite Leben des Friedrich Wilhelm Georg Platow" ("The Second Life of F.W.G. Platzow", 1973, directed by Siegfried Kühn.

The contents of this entry were funded with the support of the DEFA-Stiftung.