Manfred Krug (German: [manˌfʁeːt kʁuːk] ⓘ; 8 February 1937 – 21 October 2016) was a German actor, singer and author.
Manfred Krug (German: [manˌfʁeːt kʁuːk] ⓘ; 8 February 1937 – 21 October 2016) was a German actor, singer and author.
Krug was the son of a steel mill engineer who worked in several plants, also in Georgsmarienhütte and Hennigsdorf near Berlin. Born in Duisburg, young Krug was sent back there to his grandmother in the final stages of the war, witnessing bombing. After the divorce of his parents, Manfred stayed with his father, and at the age of 13 they moved to what was now East Germany. At age 16 he worked at the Stahl- und Walzwerk Brandenburg steel plant where he got the trademark scar on his forehead when a splash of liquid hot metal hit him. He enrolled at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts and joined Berliner Ensemble in 1955. By the end of the 1950s, he had several film roles, and in 1960 he appeared in Frank Beyer's successful war movie Fünf Patronenhülsen (Five Cartridges). Many more film roles followed, with Krug often cast as a socialist hero. He starred in Trace of Stones that was banned a few days after release in 1966, and re-released in November 1989 after the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Krug also achieved notability as a popular jazz singer, often in collaboration with composer Günther Fischer.[citation needed]
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In 1976, the East German government (GDR) forbade Krug to work as an actor and singer because he participated in protests against the expulsion and stripping of GDR citizenship of singer and dissident Wolf Biermann. On 20 April 1977, he requested to leave the GDR, and as soon as he got the approval, he moved to Schöneberg in West Berlin.[citation needed] After moving back to West Germany he very soon got new roles as an actor but very rarely sang in public for a long time. In 1978, Krug appeared as one of the male leads of the truck-driver action-drama television series Auf Achse which likely was inspired by Movin' On, but was filmed in various countries. Franz Meersdonk would continue to appear on the series until 1995, one year before the show ended its long run.
Krug's various television roles even included a two-year stint on the children's program Sesamstraße, the German version of the American children's program Sesame Street. In the 1980s and 1990s, he also starred as Hauptkommissar Paul Stoever in the Tatort series of TV crime movies, which would eventually run for forty instalments in total. He died on 21 October 2016 in Berlin and was buried at the Stahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery.
