Thomas Mauch was born on April 4, 1937 in Heidenheim an der Brenz. After graduating from Waldorf School, he trained as a photographer from 1954. He was strengthened and encouraged in his career aspirations by his film and photography-loving parents. In 1957 he took up a position as a trainee at the Gesellschaft für Bildende Filme in Munich, which mainly produced documentaries and industrial films. There he met Edgar Reitz, as whose camera assistant he shot, among others, the industrial film "Baumwolle" in South America. Later he was involved in Reitz's experimental film "Geschwindigkeit - Kino eins" ("Speed", 1963) in the same capacity.  

From 1958 Mauch worked as a freelance camera assistant, and from 1963 as a freelance cinematographer. For the political TV magazine "Weltspiegel" he produced several reports in East Asia together with Werner R. Gallé. In 1963 he became a lecturer at the Institute for Film Design at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm. There, in 1965, he also shot the first feature films of the lecturers and filmmakers Alexander Kluge ("Abschied von gestern" / "Yesterday Girl") and Edgar Reitz ("Mahlzeiten" / "Table for Love"). At the same time, the first ideas of cinematic improvisation (he had always consistently rejected storyboards) and the use of hand-held cameras developed during his time in Ulm: an aesthetic and techniques that were to have a lasting influence on both the New German Cinema and the documentary style of Mauch's overall work.  

Indeed, as the 1960s and 70s progressed, Thomas Mauch advanced to become one of the most important and style-forming cinematographers in German film. A central role in his filmography is played by his many years of collaboration with Alexander Kluge, with whom he shot a total of 18 films, and Werner Herzog, with whom he made ten films. For Herzog, he was behind the camera on such classics as "Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen" ("Even Dwarfs Started Small", 1970), "Stroszek" (1977) and "Fitzcarraldo" (1982). He won the German Film Award for "Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes" ("Aguirre, the Wrath of God", 1972) and the National Society of Film Critics' Camera Award in the USA. His work with Kluge includes classics such as "Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: Ratlos" ("The Artists in the Circus Dome: Clueless", 1968), "Gelegenheitsarbeit einer Sklavin" ("Part-Time Work of a Domestic Slave", 1973), "Die Patriotin" ("The Patriotic Woman", 1979) and "Der Angriff der Gegenwart auf die übrige Zeit" ("The Assault of the Present on the Rest of Time", 1985).  

Works by other directors were also influenced by Mauch's cinematography. In Jan Nemec's "Die Verwandlung" (1975), a TV adaptation of Kafka's "The Metamorphosis", Mauch's aesthetic practically played the leading role, as the film is told entirely from the subjective perspective of the main character. From the mid-1970s, he was in a relationship with director Helma Sanders-Brahms with whom he had a daugther in 1977. The two also worked together, with Mauch being the director of photography on Sanders-Brahms' films "Unter dem Pflaster ist der Strand" ("Under the Pavement Lies the Strand", 1975), "Shirins Hochzeit" ("Shirin's Wedding", 1976), "Heinrich" (1977) and "Die Berührte" ("No Mercy, No Future", 1981). 

In addition to the numerous films of other directors Mauch he worked on as a cinematographer, he penned and directed several films himself between 1970 and 1989 (mostly for the TV format "Das kleine Fernsehspiel" of the public broadcaster ZDF). A recurring theme in those films was the everyday actions shaped by political attitudes: "Eine antiautoritäre Frau?" (1970) told the story of a "leftist" housewife who tries to incite her cleaning lady to wage class struggle against herself; in "Die Sache mit dem Gärtner" (1974) he took a criminal trifle between a professor and his thieving gardener as the starting point for a portrait of pedantic-conservative behavior patterns. Other films analyzed relationship networks: "Feinde fürs Leben" (1974) with Mathieu Carrière and Gila von Weitershausen portrayed an explosive love triangle; in "Glück hat Flügel" (1975) a man tries to double his 'luck' by repeating all positive experiences with his wife with a second woman.  

In the late 1970s, two very long films were made in Italy and Germany in which director Werner Schroeter, with Mauch's support, combined the operatic, theatrical style of his early underground productions with themes of social reportage: "Neapolitanische Geschwister" ("The Kingdom of Naples", 1978) and "Palermo oder Wolfsburg" ("Palermo or Wolfsburg", 1978), for which Mauch also served as producer. Both films were highly acclaimed and won numerous awards; for "Neapolitanische Geschwister" Mauch won his second German Film Award.  

Other important films in Mauch's oeuvre include Vadim Glowna's Hamburg milieu study "Desperado City" (1981), Pia Frankenberg's debut feature "Nicht nichts ohne dich" ("Ain't Nothin' Without You", 1985), Peter Fleischmann's science fiction epic "Es ist nicht leicht ein Gott zu sein" ("Hard to Be a God", 1987-89) and Christian Wagner's character portrait "Waller's letzter Gang" ("Waller's Last Trip", 1988), for which he won his third German Film Award as a cinematographer.  

Together with Klaus Bueb, with whom he had previously made several short films, Mauch directed his first feature film: "Adrian und die Römer" (1988), a comedy about a 41-year-old urban neurotic who falls in love with the daughter of his childhood sweetheart. The following year, Mauch's Hamburg backyard story "Maria von den Sternen" (screenplay: Eva Hiller) was released in theaters, but was not a commercial success.  

Although Mauch cannot be pinned down to a consistent visual style, some recurring design elements are recognizable in his filmography. Some of his films, for example, are characterized by clearly contoured, almost harsh black-and-white, such as "Abschied von Gestern," "Lebenszeichen" ("Signs of Life"), and "Unter dem Pflaster ist der Strand." Occasionally, Mauch has also been called the 'landscape painter' among German cinematographers, a title that seems quite appropriate in light of his work with Werner Herzog (especially "Aguirre" and "Fitzcarraldo"), but also of "Waller's letzter Gang."  

In 1991, Mauch received the Camera Award at the Hessian Film Awards for his work on Eva Hiller's documentary "Unsichtbare Tage oder Die Legende von den weißen Krokodilen." With Thomas Mitscherlich he shot the post-war drama "Die Denunziantin" (1993), with Jan Schütte the tragicomic, multiple award-winning migration story "Auf Wiedersehen Amerika" ("Bye Bye America", DE/PL 1994). The highly acclaimed documentary "Orson Welles: The One-Man Band" (DE/FR/CH 1995) was also a international co-production. Mauch was also responsible for the camera on some TV series, such as several episodes of the crime series "Die Kommissarin" (1996-2000) and "Ein Fall für zwei" (2000-2001).

On "Heimat 3 - Chronik einer Zeitenwende" ("Heimat 3: A Chronicle of Endings and Beginnings", 2004), he worked with Edgar Reitz again for the first time in almost 35 years.  

In the 2000s Mauch worked increasingly for feature film productions again, Jutta Brückner's "Hitlerkantate" ("Hitler Cantata", 2005) and the children's film "Mozart in China" (2008), among them. With Christian Wagner he made the excellent drama "Stille Sehnsucht - Warchild" (2006) and the modern Heimatfilm "Hopfensommer" (2011, TV) starring Elmar Wepper. The experimental film "Happy Lamento", which premiered at the 2018 Venice Film Festival, marked a renewed collaboration with his former companion Alexander Kluge after a 27-year break.  

However, Thomas Mauch is not only one of the most influential cinematographers of New German Cinema and German film in general, but also shaped an entire generation of cinematographers: his assistants Dietrich Lohmann, Martin Schäfer, Frank Brühne, Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein, Werner Lüring, Rainer Klausmann and Judith Kaufmann advanced to become other important cinematographers themselves. As a guest lecturer, Mauch taught under Helmut Herbst at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach, among others.  

In spring 2019, Thomas Mauch was honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Marburg Camera Awards. He lives in Berlin.