Siegfried Wischnewski


Siegfried Wischnewski was a German stage and film actor.

Career

Wischnewski was born in the Masurian village of Saborowen to a peasant labourer. He decided to become an actor after he appeared at a school theater, but was conscripted into Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine after he had passed his Abitur at the Arndt-Gymnasium at Berlin-Dahlem in 1940. As a professional actor he appeared at the theater of Lüneburg in 1946 and in the following years at several other stages in Germany.
In the late 1950s and 1960s he became well known for his TV-appearances, often as a police detective. He played several roles in popular TV-productions like The Squeaker, Tatort, Derrick or Der Kommissar but also in movie versions of Brecht's Dreigroschenoper or the Nibelungen.
Probably his most significant success was the role of a veterinary in the 1980s TV-production Ein Heim für Tiere. Wischnewski was twice married to the actress Suzanne Ritter, from 1948 till 1956 and 1963 till Wischnewski's death of bronchial cancer at Königswinter in 1989.

Selected filmography