Katharina Wackernagel, born October 15, 1978, in Freiburg im Breisgau, became known in the leading role of the TV series "Tanja" in 1997. After starring in several TV and movie productions, including Angela Schanelec's film "Plätze in Städten" ("Places in Cities"), she directed her first film in 1999, the ten-minute long short film "Think Positive" that won an audience award at the Dresden film festival. Furthermore, she starred in Sönke Wortmann's film "Das Wunder von Bern" ("The Miracle of Bern", 2003) and played a girl who takes up boxing in order to fight against the lack of prospects in her everyday life in "Die Boxerin" ("About a Girl", 2005), directed by Catharina Deus.

Since 2002, Wackernagel plays the daughter of criminal investigator Maximilian Bloch, played by Dieter Pfaff, in the TV crime series "Bloch". She also played a distinctive role in the equally controversial and highly-praised TV drama "Contergan" ("Side Effects"). Based on the true story of a pharmaceutical scandal, Wackernagel played a woman in the film directed by Adolf Winkelmann who delivers a handicapped baby because of a drug she took during pregnancy and who takes the responsible pharmaceutical company to court. Her performance in the two-part TV movie won Wackernagel a nomination for the Grimme award. Furthermore, she won the 2008 Bavarian film award as "Best actress". She also won the Bavarian film award as "Best actress" for her intense portrayal of a threatened chief witness in the thriller "Mein Mörder kommt zurück" (2007).

After a rather small, yet memorable role as RAF terrorist Astrid Proll in Uli Edel's film "Der Baader Meinhof Komplex" ("The Baader Meinhof Complex", 2008), Katharina Wackernagel was seen in two films on the movie screen in 2009, in Lars Jessen's film "Der Schimmelreiter" ("Sheep and Chips") and in "Résiste – Aufstand der Praktikanten" ("Resist – Rebellion of the Trainees"), a romantic comedy about a slick yuppie who falls in love with no-one other than a leftist activist, played by Wackernagel.

In the same year she starred in the leading roles of "Der Fürsorger" ("The Welfare Worker") and Uwe Janson's "Vulkan" ("Volcano", TV). In 2010, she also played other leading roles on TV in Dieter Wedel's top-class two-parter "Gier" about the fraudulent machinations of a financial juggler (Ulrich Tukur), in Niki Stein's drama "Liebe deinen Feind" and Tim Trageser's thriller "Racheengel - Ein eiskalter Plan".  

Katharina Wackernagel returned to the big screen in 2011: directed by her brother Jonas Grosch, she played an unfaithful woman in the musical comedy "Die letzte Lüge" ("The Last Lie"), whose lover surprises her during a holiday with her husband.  

In the years that followed, Wackernagel was seen again in a large number of television productions: In Niki Stein's "Vater Mutter Mörder" (2011) she portrays a lawyer who is supposed to defend a young murderer; in Uwe Janson's drama "Die Schuld der Erben" (2012) she played the representative of a bank that wants to buy a traditional shipyard. She also gave a strong performance in "Herbstkind" (2012), as a new mother suffering from postnatal depression. After a supporting role in the TV three-parter "Das Adlon. Eine Familiensaga" ("Hotel Adlon - A Family Saga", 2013), she starred in Marcus O. Rosenmüller's "Jedes Jahr im Juni" (2013) as a woman from West Germany who for decades cultivated a platonic holiday friendship with a man from the GDR. In 2014 Wackernagel appeared in the comedy "Immer wieder anders" as a newly divorced woman who suddenly falls in love again with her ex-husband, and in the drama "Mord am Höllengrund" as a mother who suspects her son of killing and wants to give him an alibi. In addition to these television films, Wackernagel has been reprising the leading role of the commissioner Nina Petersen in the crime series "Stralsund" (since 2008). 

At the end of 2014 Katharina Wackernagel appeared again in a feature film for the first time since "Die letzte Lüge" (2011): In "bestefreunde" she played - again under the direction of her brother Jonas Grosch - a freelance journalist who fights for the affection of her best friend, who has just fallen in love. The film premiered at the Hofer Filmtage 2014 and was theatrically released in February 2015.   

After that, Katharina Wackernagel was mainly seen in TV productions, such as Lars Jessen's satirical social comedy "Bloß kein Stress" (2015) or Markus Rosenmüller's thriller "Tödliche Gefühle" (2016). In the political series "Lobbyistin" (2017) she had a recurring role as a talk show presenter, and in the two-parter "Aenne Burda: Die Wirtschaftswunderfrau" (2018) she played the title role of the famous publisher. Wackernagel also has still been starring as the commissioner Nina Petersen in the TV crime series "Stralsund".   

On the big screen she impersonated the mother of the young hobby detective Benny in the children's film "Die Pfefferkörner und der Fluch des Schwarzen Königs" ("The Peppercorns and the Curse of the Black King", 2017) and took on a minor supporting role in the coming-of-age story "Axel, der Held" (2017).    

At the Hofer Filmtage 2018 Katharina Wackernagel presented her feature film directorial debut: "Wenn Fliegen träumen" ("When Flies Are Dreaming", DE/NO), about two unequal half-sisters who set off on an eventful journey to Norway in a fire engine. The film was released in German cinemas in the summer of 2019.