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Konrad Wolf was born on October 20, 1925, in Hechingen near Tübingen, the son of physician and playwright Friedrich Wolf and his second wife, Else. In 1927, the family moved to Stuttgart, where Konrad joined the Communist youth organization, the Jungpioniere. After the Nazis came to power, the Wolfs went into exile—first to France and Switzerland, and later to the Soviet Union. From 1934 onward, they lived near Peredelkino and in Moscow, where Konrad and his brother Markus attended the German Karl Liebknecht School. The family became Soviet citizens in 1936, and Konrad joined the Young Pioneers. Between 1937 and 1941, he attended a Russian secondary school.
Wolf's first encounter with cinema came early: at just ten years old, he appeared in Gustav von Wangenheim's "Bortsy" ("Fighters", 1936), playing the child of anti-fascist parents. Introduced to film and theater by his father, he also spent countless hours in Moscow's cinemas, absorbing the works of filmmakers such as Georgi and Sergey Vasilev, Leonid Trauberg, and Grigori Kozintsev—artists who left a lasting impression on him.
When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the family was evacuated to Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan. In the winter of 1942, Wolf volunteered for the Red Army, where he served in the political department, often as an interpreter. Later, as a lieutenant in the 47th Army, he took part in the liberation of Warsaw and Berlin. For a brief period, he served as city commander of Bernau, which later made him an honorary citizen. In recognition of his wartime service, he received the Order of the Red Star, five additional medals for bravery, and the Order of the Patriotic War, First Class.
After the war, Wolf remained in Berlin and worked as a reporter for the Berliner Zeitung. In 1946, he became a cultural officer for the Soviet Military Administration in Saxony-Anhalt, helping to rebuild postwar cultural life and playing a role in the founding of DEFA, East Germany's state film studio. After leaving the army with the rank of senior lieutenant, he worked at the House of Soviet Culture in Berlin. Having completed his secondary education, he returned to Moscow in 1949 to study directing at the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), where he was taught by Mikhail Romm and Oleksandr Dovzhenko.
During his studies, Wolf befriended Bulgarian screenwriter Angel Wagenstein, with whom he would later collaborate on "Sterne" ("Stars", 1959), "Der kleine Prinz" ("The Little Prince", 1966), and "Goya" (1971). He gained early practical experience as an assistant director to Joris Ivens ("Freundschaft siegt" / "Friendship Triumphs", 1952), Herbert Ballmann ("Blaue Wimpel im Sommerwind" / "Blue Bandanas in the Summer Wind", 1952), and Kurt Maetzig ("Ernst Thälmann – Sohn seiner Klasse" / "Ernst Thälmann - Son of the Working Class", 1954). Wolf graduated in 1955 with his diploma film "Einmal ist keinmal" ("Once Is Never"), produced at DEFA.
Wolf went on to become one of East Germany's most acclaimed and internationally recognized filmmakers of the 1960s and 1970s. Among his closest collaborators were writers Karl Georg Engel, Paul Wiens, and, beginning with his semi-autobiographical "Ich war neunzehn" ("I Was Nineteen", 1967), Wolfgang Kohlhaase. He also maintained a long-standing partnership with cinematographer Werner Bergmann.
From his early works such as "Lissy" (1957), which portrayed Germany's descent into Nazism, Wolf's films were marked by their clear-eyed realism and social critique. His German-Bulgarian co-production "Sterne" (1959), depicting the brief and tragic relationship between a German soldier and a Jewish prisoner, earned prizes at Cannes and Karlovy Vary. With "Professor Mamlock" (1961), based on his father's 1930s play, he explored moral collapse under fascism. His next major work, "Der geteilte Himmerl" ("Divided Heaven", 1964), offered an uncommonly candid look at the emotional and political divides of contemporary Germany.
The deeply personal "Ich war neunzehn" (1967) reflected Wolf's wartime experiences with the Red Army. In "Goya" (1971), based on Lion Feuchtwanger's novel, he examined the tension between art, power, and conscience. "Der nackte Mann auf dem Sportplatz" ("The Naked Man in the Stadium", 1974) turned his attention to contemporary art, portraying—often with humor—the gap between artistic intent and public perception. The wartime drama "Mama, ich lebe" ("Mama, I'm Alive", 1977) was a major success in the GDR, while his final and most internationally celebrated film, "Solo Sunny" (1980), followed a singer searching for identity and independence in East Berlin. The film won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival and subtly reflected Wolf's critical engagement with socialist reality.
A member of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) since 1952, Wolf also played a significant cultural and political role in East Germany. He served on the Central Council of the Free German Youth (FDJ) from 1955 to 1959 and became President of the Academy of Arts in 1965, where he acted as a mediator between differing artistic and ideological groups while representing East German culture abroad. He co-founded the Association of Film and Television Professionals in 1967 and, in 1981, was elected to the SED Central Committee. That same year, he participated in the First Berlin Meeting for the Promotion of Peace, which brought together artists from both East and West.
In 1981, while preparing a new film and the documentary project "Busch singt" about singer Ernst Busch, Wolf revisited the places of his childhood in Germany and near Moscow. He died in Berlin on March 7, 1982, at the age of 56, following a battle with cancer.
In recognition of his legacy, the Academy of Arts named its archives after him, and in 1985, the Film and Television Academy in Potsdam-Babelsberg was renamed the Konrad Wolf Film and Television Academy. That same year, his long-time collaborator Wolfgang Kohlhaase created the TV documentary "Die Zeit die bleibt" ("The Time that Remains"), dedicated to Wolf's life and enduring influence on German cinema.