Hermann Beyer

Hermann Beyer is the younger brother of leading East German director Frank Beyer, who cast him in the Jewish ghetto comedy "Jacob the Liar," which earned the country's sole Oscar nomination. But, apart from odd television assignments and the railway heist caper "Der Bruch," the siblings rarely worked together. Hermann initially devoted himself to the theatre. But following Konrad Wolf's autobiographical drama "Ich war Neunzehn," he began appearing more regularly in films and programmes produced by the state-run DEFA and DFF companies. He impressed as the inspirational teacher in "Männer ohne Bart" and won the annual critics' prize as the ambitious architect romancing Simone Frost in the Brigitte Reimann adaptation "Unser kurzes Leben." Beyer also shone as the guileless historian being duped by rival Kurt Böwe in the scholastic satire "Märkische Forschungen" and heroine Nadja Klier's inventor father in the fairy-tale "Gritta vom Rattenschlo?." Further prizes followed for his performance as 18th-century naturalist Georg Forster in "Treffen in Travers," while he launched his career in the newly unified Germany with the scathing GDR exposé "Der Tangospieler" and the period drama "Kaspar Hauser." In 1995, Beyer excelled as the titular dreamer in the gentle parody "The Border Guard" and, in addition to a recurring role in the hit TV show "Polizeiruf 110," he has also since caught the eye in the gangster comedy "A Ship Is Coming," the grim love story "Angst" and the Berlin melodrama "Boxhagener Platz."