Kurt Barthel, born January 30, 1931, in Berlin, attended an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic from 1946 to 1949 and subsequently worked as a cutter, transport worker, and tractor driver. During the 1950s, he caught up on his high school exam and studied film direction at Deutsche Hochschule für Filmkunst Potsdam-Babelsberg from 1956 to 1961.

After his graduation from film school, Barthel landed a job as an assistant director at DEFA-Spielfilmstudio where he collaborated with Konrad Wolf for "Der geteilte Himmel" ("The Divided Heaven"), among others. In 1965, he made his debut as a director with the poetic present day fairy tale "Fräulein Schmetterling". But the film about a nonconformist woman who opposes against patronization by the government was already banned before its completion. The film was not shown until 2005 when a reconstructed version entered the movie screen. Barthel himself had refused to complete his debut film in 1990, after the German reunification, for artistic reasons.

After his second film as a director, the youth film "Die Nacht im Granzwald" (1968) about two boys who are fighting in the resistance against the Nazis, Barthel’s career as a director came to a standstill.

From 1970 on, Kurt Barthel worked as a freelance writer and director. He finally landed a job at DEFA’s studio for popular scientific films where he finished a series of short films and short documentary films. In 1976, Barthel switched to DEFA-Dokumentarfilmstudio. There, he finished unconventional short films, for instance, the slapstick-like film "Mensch, halt dich fest" (1979) about security in the workplace, or the black-humored anti-smoking film "Zug um Zug" (1982). Furthermore, he was in charge of several ambitious documentary films that dealt with the topics of ecology and environment protection. After DEFA’s liquidation in 1991, Barthel again worked as a freelance filmmaker.

Kurt Barthel was living with his wife, film editor Petra Barthel, in Teltow near Potsdam. He died January 3, 2014.