Ulrike Krumbiegel

Ulrike Krumbiegel was born in Berlin, then still part of East Germany, as one of two daughters of an international trader and a nurse.[1] She grew up in Mitte.[2] In 1976, she heard on the DDR-Radio that they are looking for an actor.[3] At 15 years old, she applied as a student to the amateur playing group of the Berliner Volksbühne, where she was accepted and starred in Die Nacht nach der Abschlussfeier by Soviet writer Vladimir Tendryakov.[1][3][4]

After her school training (Abitur 1980 in Mitte), she completed her acting studies at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin until 1983.

She got her first stage engagement at the Mecklenburg State Theatre, where she was on stage as Iphigenie and Minna von Barnhelm, among others. In 1986, she moved to the Deutsches Theater, where she was a longtime member for 15 years altogether until 2001[5] and worked with directors like Frank Castorf, Jürgen Gosch, and many times with Thomas Langhoff. Krumbiegel played many roles in the classical theatre repertoires. In the 1989-90 season, she starred as Natascha in Nachtasyl (Director: Friedo Solter).[6] In the 1990-91 season, she was the Eve in The Broken Jug.[7] In the 1991-92 season, she took over the title role in a new production of the Kleist play Das Käthchen von Heilbronn.

Further stations were the Berliner Ensemble, the Munich Kammerspiele, the Maxim Gorki Theatre, and the Residenz Theatre of the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel. At the Maxim Gorki Theatre, she again starred in the 2001-02 season in Goethe’s Iphigenie, in a production by Thomas Langhoff, with Klaus Manchen (Thoas), Joachim Meyerhoff (Orest), Tilo Nest (Pylades), and Siegfried Terpoorten (Arkas) as partners. In the 2003-04 season at the Munich Residenztheater (staged by Thomas Langhoff), she was the whore Yvette in the Brecht play Mother Courage and Her Children, her lager whore was a "broken, tragicomic number between brokenness, lust, love and business ability".[8][9] In the 2003-04 season, she starred along with the Berliner Ensemble as Gina Ekdal in the Henrik Ibsen play The Wild Duck (Director: Thomas Langhoff).[10] In 2005, she starred in Munich Kammerspielen as Queen Gertrude in Hamlet (Director: Lars-Ole Walburg).[11]

In the late phase of East Germany, Krumbiegel worked in many TV films and DEFA productions. The director Bodo Fürneisen discovered her while in her studies and gave her a female lead role in the 1981 TV film Komm mit mir nach Chicago; Krumbiegel played the role of 17-year-old waiter apprentice Anja, who "goes from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan".[12] More film and TV tasks for DEFA and the Deutscher Fernsehfunk followed.

In the youth film Schwierig sich zu verloben (1982-83) by Karl-Heinz Heymann, she took the role of the young saleswoman Barbara, whose love for the locksmith Wolle (Werner Tritzschler) breaks down when she tells him of her pregnancy. In the DEFA film Junge Leute in der Stadt (1984-85), Ulrike Krumbiegel, under the directing of Karl-Heinz Lotz, the saleswoman Frieda, who, in order to not lose her place, had to be sexually blackmailed by her boss Richard.

After East Germany ended, she kept getting roles in demanding cinema and TV productions, such as Dietmar Klein's 1992 comedy Der Erdnussmann or Im Namen der Unschuld. She also worked together with directors Margarethe von Trotta and Andreas Kleinert. From 2000, Krumbiegel accepted more film and TV deals, but continued to appear, albeit to a reduced extent, in selected productions. In the meantime, Krumbiegel has participated in more than 100 film and television productions.

In the drama film Heidi M. (2001) by Michael Klier she played, alongside Katrin Sass, her girlfriend. In the 2004 war film Downfall, she played the fictional role of Dorothee Kranz, who was the mother of Hitler Youth soldier Peter Kranz. In the 2005 thriller Antibodies by Christian Alvart, she played Rosa Martens, the wife of a village policeman who witnessed her husband being manipulated by a jailed serial killer. In the 2007 teen film Meer is nich, she was the mother Karla, whose 17-year-old daughter is in a deep phase of self-discovery and indecision shortly before graduating from high school.

She starred many times in the crime series Tatort.

In the Swedish thriller series Greyzone (2018), she took a supporting role as German weapons designer Renate Gleisner. While shooting, Krumbiegel said her lines in English with a German accent. In the ZDF series The Old Fox, she took the role of Chairwoman Judge Emma Horvath, who is grieving for her child, one of the leading episodes in the new season, which will air from April 2019.[13][14] In the ZDF series SOKO München (2020), she played, alongside Nils Hohenhövel, the mother of a suspect who becomes a murderer.[15][16]

Krumbiegel is the mother of a grown-up daughter, whom she raised alone. Her hobbies are skiing and sailing and she lives in Mitte.