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Uwe Kockisch (31 January 1944 – 22 December 2025) was a German stage, screen and television actor.
Career
Kockisch completed his training to become an actor at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in East Berlin. He accepted engagements in Cottbus and Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz). He appeared in plays at the Maxim Gorki Theater for over 20 years and later, for two years, at the Schaubühne in Berlin.
He began working in the film industry in 1974. In 1981, he played the lead role in Dein unbekannter Bruder (Your Unknown Brother), available at Netflix, an East German film by Ulrich Weiss. Kockisch appeared in such crime series as Tatort and Polizeiruf 110, and played an inspector in the TV series Zappek. In 2003-2019 he portrayed Commissario Guido Brunetti in 22 television films based on the crime novels by Donna Leon. From 2010 he held one of the lead roles in the miniseries The Weissensee Saga: A Berlin Love Story, as the Stasi officer Hans Kupfer. This series grew into four seasons with 24 episodes portraying the story of a Berlin family before, during and after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Personal life and death
Kockisch was born in Cottbus, Germany on 31 January 1944. As a youth, he attempted to escape from East Germany, but was caught and had to spend a year in prison.
He was married and later lived in Madrid, Spain. Kockisch died of lung cancer in Madrid on 22 December 2025, at the age of 81.
Awards
2008: Uwe Kockisch received the Adolf Grimme Award for Best Lead Actor in the "Fiction" category, for his role in the movie City for Ransom by Dominik Graf.
2011: Deutscher Fernsehpreis representing the actors for the six-part miniseries The Weissensee Saga: A Berlin Love Story.
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