Horst Giese

Biography

In 1945, Giese made his debut on stage at his native Neuruppin, then in the Soviet occupation zone. Later he appeared on television. His first role in a movie was at the 1954 Alarm in the Circus (Alarm in Zirkus). He performed in some 50 films and television productions, and is known for his portrayals of Joseph Goebbels in several films, including in the five-part series Liberation, the two-part Bulgarian production Anvil or Hammer and in the Czechoslovak comedy Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea.

Giese had a long correspondence with actor Klaus Kinski, who has once visited him in East Berlin during 1956.

Shortly before the building of the Berlin Wall, Giese bought a West-German television device, and was arrested by the Stasi. To avoid punishment, he became an informant of the service. He was later accused of aiding the Stasi to arrest a man who helped residents of Berlin to flee to the west, who was subsequently imprisoned for 26 months.

At 1972, after an accident forced him to a long vacation, he started to write the radio drama The Extremely Peculiar Jazz Adventures of Mr. Lehmann (Die sehr merkwürdigen Jazzabenteuer des Herrn Lehmann), in which he voiced 28 different characters. He recorded and edited the entire series in his Babelsberg home, finally completing it in 1979. Due to technical difficulties, the Jazz Adventures was only broadcast in 1991, after the fall of the Wall. Giese received a prize from Germany's War Blind Union. He continued to produce three other radio dramas: The Extremely Peculiar Film Adventures of Mr. Lehmann, The Case of Leonardo and If Goebbels Would Have Gone to Japan.