Erik Haffner was born in Kaiserslautern on January 27, 1976. After graduating from high school, he gained practical film experience as an intern at the company Cinevideo, where he worked in the areas of editing and camera assistance. In 1996, he began studying educational science with a focus on media pedagogy in Landau, but dropped out in 1998 after his intermediate diploma. In the same year, Haffner moved to Munich, where he took up a position with the production company bumm film, which had been founded shortly before by Tommy Krappweis. There he worked as a scriptwriter and director until 2000, when he also became deputy managing director, developing formats for the TV stations ProSieben, RTL and KiKA. Major successes included the development of the character "Bernd das Brot," which became KiKA's mascot and achieved cult status, and "Die Pro7 Märchenstunde."   

In 2012, Haffner left bumm film after 14 years and began working as a freelance filmmaker. He directed numerous episodes of the comedy series "Ladykracher" (2011-2012) and "Pastewka" (2012-2020), the award-winning series "Sketch History" (2015-2016), the humorous crime series "Hubert und Staller" (2016-2017) and the comedy series "Frau Jordan stellt gleich" (2020).  

In addition to his work as a director, Haffner has written several books, for example "Hoëckers Entdeckungen" (2011) and "Lost Places in Germany" (2017, both with Bernhard Hoëcker and Tobias Zimmermann), as well as "Ääh ist keine Antwort" (2014) and "PS.: Der Blitz soll Sie beim Scheissen treffen!" (2017, both with David Gromer).  

Erik Haffner made his debut as a feature film director with "Die Geschichte der Menschheit - leicht gekürzt" (2022), a parodic outline of human evolution and civilization, with a cast of top-class comedians, and staged in the sketchy, episodic style of comedy series.