Slatan Theodor Dudow was a Bulgarian born film director and screenwriter who made a number of films during the Weimar Republic and in East Germany.
Günter Kunert was a German writer. Based in East Berlin, he published poetry from 1947, supported by Bertold Brecht. After he had signed a petition against the deprivation of the citizenship of Wolf Biermann in 1976, he lost his SED membership, and moved to the West two years later. He is regarded as a versatile German writer who wrote short stories, essays, autobiographical works, film scripts and novels. He received international honorary doctorates and awards.
The Kino International is a film theater in Berlin, built from 1961 to 1963. It is located on Karl-Marx-Allee in former East Berlin. It hosted premieres of the DEFA film studios until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Today it is a protected historic building and one of the venues of the annual Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).
Wolfgang Kohlhaase was a German screenwriter, film director, and writer. He was considered "one of the most important screenwriters in German film history", and was one of the GDR's most well-known and prolific film screenwriters. Kohlhaase was awarded the Honorary Golden Bear at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival.
Siegfried Weiss was an East German actor.
Günter Kochan was a German composer. He studied with Boris Blacher and was a master student for composition with Hanns Eisler. From 1967 until his retirement in 1991, he worked as professor for musical composition at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler". He taught master classes in composition at the Academy of Music and the Academy of Arts, Berlin. He was also secretary of the Music Section of the Academy of Arts from 1972 to 1974 and vice-president of the Association of Composers and Musicologists of the GDR from 1977 to 1982. Kochan is one of eleven laureates to have been awarded the National Prize of the GDR four times. In addition, he received composition prizes in the US and Eastern Europe. He became internationally known in particular for his Symphonies as well as the cantata Die Asche von Birkenau (1965) and his Music for Orchestra No. 2 (1987). His versatile oeuvre included orchestral works, chamber music, choral works, mass songs and film music and is situated between socialist realism and avant-garde.
Reserved for the Death is an East German film. It was released in 1963.
Eva-Maria Hagen was a German actress and singer. She was known as the "Brigitte Bardot of the GDR" but was banned from performance for political reasons.
Fritz Rudolf Fries was a German writer and translator.
Herbert Sandberg was a German artist and caricaturist. He was best known for his caricatures in the satirical magazine, Ulenspiegel, which he co-founded and art directed. He is also well known for his drawings of Bertolt Brecht and for his column, Der freche Zeichenstift in the magazine, Das Magazin. A member of the Communist Party, a Jew, and a German Resistance fighter, Sandberg spent 10 years in a Nazi prison and in Buchenwald concentration camp. He conceived the idea for Ulenspiegel while a prisoner there and began working on it almost immediately on liberation.
Elfriede Brüning was a German communist journalist and novelist. She also used the pseudonym Elke Klent.
Martin Hellberg was a German actor, director and writer.
Schwarzer Samt is a German crime film from Heinz Thiel produced by the DEFA in the year 1964.
Carlernst Ortwein, pseudonym Conny Odd, was a German classical pianist and composer.
Gustav Schmahl was a German violinist and university lecturer. He was the only student of David Oistrach from the GDR. Schmahl worked at times as concertmaster of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and from 1973 to 1984 as rector of the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig.
Olaf Koch was a German conductor and Hochschullehrer.
Michael Kann is a German film director and actor. He was born in Berlin, East Germany, on 13 January 1950.
Gerhard Wolfram was a German dramaturge, theatre director and theatre artistic director.
Erich-Alexander Winds was a German theatre director and actor.
Lothar Blumhagen was a German actor, especially known as a voice actor. He began as a stage actor, in ensembles in East Berlin and West Berlin. He was often the German voice of British gentleman characters, such as Roger Moore's, beginning in 1971 with Brett Sinclair in the television series The Persuaders!. He voiced roles by Christopher Plummer from Dragnet in 1987 to Knives Out in 2020.
