Friedrich Hans Ulrich Mühe (June 20, 1953 – July 22, 2007) was a German film, television and theatre actor.
He was born in Grimma, Bezirk Leipzig, Saxony, then-East Germany. After leaving school, he worked as a construction worker then as a guard at the Berlin Wall. He then turned to acting, and from the late 1970s into the 1980s he appeared in numerous stage plays and became a star of the Deutsches Theater in East Berlin. He became very active in politics and denounced the Communist East German state's freedom-smothering rule in a memorable address at the Alexanderplatz demonstration in Berlin on November 4, 1989, five days before the fall of the Wall.
After the German reunification, he continued to appear in a large number of productions, including two collaborations with Michael Haneke such as Funny Games. In his home country, he was particularly known for playing the lead role of medical examiner Dr. Robert Kolmaar in the long-running forensic crime series Der letzte Zeuge (The Last Witness) while internationally he is best remembered as an agent of The Stasi who spies on the life of a playwright in The Lives of Others. That latter film echoed his life in many ways, as himself was an artist from East Germany who was spied on by the Stasi.
Mühe passed away on July 22, 2007 from stomach cancer at age 54.
Selected filmography:
- Police Call 110 (1988) as Herr Kegel
- Benny's Video (1992) as Georg
- The Last U-Boat (1993) as Kommandant Gerber
- Tatort (1997 and 1999) as Friedel Hebbel / Peter Fuchs
- Funny Games (1997) as Georg
- Goebbels and Geduldig (2001) as Joseph Goebbels and Harry Geduldig
- Amen (2002) as the SS doctor
- The Lives of Others (2006) as Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler
- My Führer (2007) as Professor Adolf Grünbaum
