Siegfried Wischnewski
German actor (1922–1989)
Siegfried Wischnewski (15 April 1922 – 24 January 1989) was a German stage and film actor.
Career
Wischnewski was born in the Masurian village of Saborowen, then in German East Prussia (today Zaborowo, Poland) to a peasant labourer. He decided to become an actor after he appeared at a school theater, but was conscripted into Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine after he had passed his Abitur at the Arndt-Gymnasium at Berlin-Dahlem in 1940. As a professional actor he appeared at the theater of Lüneburg in 1946 and in the following years at several other stages in Germany.
In the late 1950s and 1960s he became well known for his TV-appearances, often as a police detective. He played several roles in popular TV-productions like The Squeaker, Tatort, Derrick or Der Kommissar but also in movie versions of Brecht's Dreigroschenoper (1962) or the Nibelungen (1966–67).
Probably his most significant success was the role of a veterinary in the 1980s TV-production Ein Heim für Tiere. Wischnewski was twice married to the actress Suzanne Ritter, from 1948 till 1956 and 1963 till Wischnewski's death of bronchial cancer at Königswinter in 1989.
Selected filmography
Jons und Erdme (1959)
The Last Witness (1960)
The Liar (1961)
He Can't Stop Doing It (1962)
The Squeaker (1963)
The Threepenny Opera (1963)
Tim Frazer (1964, TV miniseries)
In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (1964, TV film)
Melissa (1966, TV miniseries)
The Investigation (1966, TV film)
Die Nibelungen (1966/67)
Dead Run (1967)
The Long Day of Inspector Blomfield (1968)
Der Senator (1968, TV film)
Rotmord (1969, TV film)
Maximilian von Mexiko (1970, TV miniseries)
Friede den Hütten! Krieg den Palästen!
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Siegfried Wischnewski” is german actor (1922–1989). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Siegfried, Wischnewski and German, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q105087. VIAF identifies the subject as 56394699. The Library of Congress control number is no2007088097. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922, 1989, 1940 and 1946.
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