Günter Hans Lamprecht (21 January 1930 – 4 October 2022) was a German film and stage actor, best-known internationally for his leading role in the Fassbinder miniseries Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) and as a ship captain in the epic war film Das Boot (1981).
Life and career Lamprecht was born in Berlin, the son of a taxi driver. After training at the Max Reinhardt Seminar, he had his first theatre engagement at the Schauspielhaus Bochum. He joined the Theater Oberhausen in 1959, and remained with them until 1961.Andrea Rickers: Hier ist es menschlich, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. September 2010. In German. His roles there included Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire and John in Gerhart Hauptmann's The Rats.
Lamprecht began appearing on television in the 1960s. He was cast in the series Kara Ben Nemsi Effendi, which ran from 1973 to 1975. His first film role was in Ottokar Runze's (1975). In 1976, Lamprecht won the Ernst Lubitsch Award for his performance in , and in 1978 won the Goldene Kamera award for Best German Actor for . He played the leading role in the 1979 TV movie Frontiers of Darkness (Schattengrenze).Gunter Lamprecht. Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 11 January 2015.
In 1973, filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder cast Lamprecht in his series World on a Wire. He recruited him again for The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979). Fassbinder then gave Lamprecht the lead role of Franz Biberkopf in his acclaimed 1980 miniseries Berlin Alexanderplatz, based on Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel of the same name. Turner Classic Movies wrote of his performance: "Lamprecht was quite extraordinary as the hapless center of gravity as Biberkopf is drawn into and betrayed by Berlin's underworld in the days spanning from the end of WWI to the Nazi era." The role won him Best Actor at the Munich Film Festival, and he came in third place at the American National Society of Film Critics Awards.
Lamprecht had a role in the World War II submarine film Das Boot (1981), playing the captain of the SS Weser, and continued to appear regularly on German television. In the 1990s, he gained further popularity while playing the police commissioner Franz Markowitz in the Berlin episodes of the long-running crime series Tatort. One of his last roles was Paul von Hindenburg in the German TV production Babylon Berlin in 2017.
Personal life In 1999, Lamprecht and his partner, actress Claudia Amm, were badly injured in a mass shooting. In German.Motiv bis heute unklar. Heimatzeitung (27 October 2009). In German.
Lamprecht's memoirs, And Sadly I'm Still: A Youth in Berlin was published in 2000, where he discusses his experiences in Nazi Germany and the postwar years. His second book, A Hellish Thing, Life was published in 2007. He died on 4 October 2022 in Bad Godesberg at the age of 92.
Filmography Year Title Role Notes1960 Schläger in Tanzbar 1973 World on a Wire Fritz Walfang TV film1974 Martha Dr. Herbert Salomon TV film1975 The Unguarded House The Baker TV film Stellenweise Glatteis Karl Maiwald TV film Schöffe 1976 Kahlmann Kurt TV film Georg Baum 1977 Bundeswehr Officer TV film Manfred Burger TV film1978 The Marriage of Maria Braun Hans Wetzel 1979 Frontiers of Darkness Matthias Berger TV film Piesch TV miniseries1980 Das gefrorene Herz Gwerder Berlin Alexanderplatz Franz Biberkopf his magnum opus1981 Das Boot Captain of the 'Weser' 1982 Fleeting Acquaintances Walter TV film1983 Milo Barus, the Strongest Man in the World 1984 Felix Chef Ein Mann namens Parvus Alexander Parvus TV film Kuballa Sergeant Kleinschmidt Silent Poison Philipp Fäsch TV film Gnadenlos Jakob TV film1985 Liebfrauen Philipp TV film Die Komplizen Joseph Lambert TV film Red Kiss Herschel 1987 Gegen die Regel Klaus Weber TV film1991 Amaurose 1992 Herzsprung Vater Arnold 1993 Gefährliche Verbindung Kiefer TV film Engel ohne Flügel Paul 1997 Berlin – Moskau Jürgen Schröder TV film Friedrich und der verzauberte Einbrecher Fischer Comedian Harmonists Erik Charell 1998 Black Ice Jupp Scholten TV film2002 Groll / Giesser 2013 Wir Sprecher voice2017 Babylon Berlin President Hindenburg TV series
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