Sylvester Groth
German actor (born 1958)
title: "Sylvester Groth" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1958-births", "living-people", "people-from-jerichower-land", "german-male-film-actors", "german-male-television-actors", "german-tenors", "outstanding-performance-by-a-cast-in-a-motion-picture-screen-actors-guild-award-winners", "ernst-busch-academy-of-dramatic-arts-alumni", "20th-century-german-male-actors", "21st-century-german-male-actors", "german-male-actors", "male-actors-from-saxony-anhalt"] description: "German actor (born 1958)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Groth" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary German actor (born 1958) ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Sylvester Groth |
| image | Sylvester Groth KVIFF (cropped 2).jpg |
| alt | close-up of Sylvester Groth wearing a white shirt with a dark red jacket, looking just right of camera |
| caption | Groth in 2009 |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Jerichow, Bezirk Magdeburg, East Germany |
| occupation | Actor |
| years active | 1980–present |
| :: |
| name = Sylvester Groth | image = Sylvester Groth KVIFF (cropped 2).jpg | alt = close-up of Sylvester Groth wearing a white shirt with a dark red jacket, looking just right of camera | caption = Groth in 2009 | birth_date = | birth_place = Jerichow, Bezirk Magdeburg, East Germany | occupation = Actor | years active = 1980–present | nationality = | known_for =
Sylvester Groth (born 31 March 1958) is a German theater, television, and film actor. He is best known to international audiences from his appearances in Hollywood movies including Inglourious Basterds and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Furthermore, he has appeared in the Netflix series Sense8, Fargo, and Dark.
Biography
Groth is the youngest of five siblings from Jerichow (Bezirk Magdeburg) in the former German Democratic Republic, where he also spent his childhood. His family is from Upper Silesia. Groth's father died while he was still young, and his mother married a second time. When he was 14 years old, the family moved to Leipzig. In 1986, he escaped from East Germany to West Germany.
He studied acting and singing at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. This was followed by engagements in Schwerin, Dresden, and Berlin, where he worked as a guest actor at the Deutsches Theater and from 1986 to 1989 at the Schaubühne. He also worked at the Residenz Theater, the Munich Kammerspiele, the Berliner Ensemble, the Burgtheater in Vienna, and the Salzburg Festival.{{cite web|title=Wer ist Sylvester Groth? |url=https://www.bild.de/unterhaltung/tv/sylvester-groth/zeitgleich-in-tatort-und-kriegs-epos-29555100.bild.html#fromWall |website=bild.de |date=18 March 2013 |accessdate=8 March 2020 |language=de |trans-title=Who is Sylvester Groth?}}
In addition to an extensive theater career, Groth has also acted in numerous television productions and feature films. His first major film role was in 1983 in the East German film The Turning Point, based on a novel by Hermann Kant. In 1986, he appeared in Johannes Schaaf's adaptation of Michael Ende's story Momo. In 1992, he acted in the war drama Stalingrad and in 2006 he took on the role of Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels in Dani Levy's My Führer – The Really Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler.
Groth is known to English-language audiences for appearing in Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film, Inglourious Basterds, in which he again portrayed Goebbels. More recently, he held a leading role in the Netflix series Dark as Clausen, a police investigator, as well as appearing in the first episode of the third season of Fargo.
In January 2013, the Film Museum in Potsdam honoured Groth with a retrospective. On 1 December 2017, he received an award from the DEFA Foundation for his outstanding achievements in German film.
Selected filmography
Film
::data[format=table title="{{Sronly|List of film appearances, with year, title, and role shown}}"]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | The Turning Point | Mark Niebuhr | |
| 1986 | The House on the River | Heinz Hüsgen | |
| 1986 | Momo | Agent BLW/553 X | |
| 1992 | The Last U-Boat | Funker Maschke | |
| 1993 | Stalingrad | Otto | |
| 2003 | The Third Wave | Dauphin | |
| 2006 | Nevermore | Pfarrer Ekdahl | |
| 2007 | My Führer – The Really Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler | Joseph Goebbels | |
| 2008 | The Reader | Prosecutor | |
| Buddenbrooks | Kesselmayer | ||
| 2009 | Hilde | Boleslaw Barlog | |
| Inglourious Basterds | Joseph Goebbels | ||
| 2010 | Aghet – Ein Völkermord | Martin Niepage | Documentary |
| 2015 | Naked Among Wolves | Helmut Krämer | |
| The Man from U.N.C.L.E. | Uncle Rudi | ||
| 2017 | In Times of Fading Light | Kurt Umnitzer | |
| 2019 | Berlin, I Love You | Frosch | |
| 2022 | The 355 | Jonas Muller | |
| :: |
Television
::data[format=table title="{{Sronly|List of television appearances, with year, title, and role shown}}"]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Rote Erde | Fritz Rewandowski | |
| 2003 | Tatort: Stiller Tod | Justus Fürmann, public prosecutor | |
| 2004 | Mein Leben & Ich | 4 episodes | |
| 2005 | Tatort: Rache-Engel | Chief of police | |
| 2007 | Rosa Roth | Michael Katzmann | |
| 2007, 2013 | Der Kriminalist | 2 episodes | |
| 2010 | KDD – Kriminaldauerdienst | Richard Plötz | 1 episode |
| 2011 | Tatort: Das Dorf | Medical examiner | |
| 2012, 2014 | The Old Fox | 2 episodes | |
| 2012 | Tatort: Die schöne Mona ist tot | Christian Seitz | |
| 2010 | Generation War | Sturmbannführer/Standartenführer Hiemer | 2 episodes |
| Tatort: Schwarzer Afghane | Norbert Müller | ||
| Tatort: Wer das Schweigen bricht | Rainer Vaske | ||
| 2013–2015 | Polizeiruf 110 | Jochen Drexler | 4 parts |
| 2015 | Sense8 | Sergei Bogdanow | 4 episodes |
| Deutschland 83 | Walter Schweppenstette | 8 episodes | |
| 2016 | *NSU German History X: * | Walter Ahler | |
| 2017 | Tatort: Wacht am Rhein | Dieter Gottschalk | |
| Fargo | Colonel Horst Lagerfeld | 1 episode | |
| 2018 | Deutschland 86 | Walter Schweppenstette | 10 episodes |
| 2019 | Dark | Clausen | |
| Criminal: Germany | Detective Chief Inspector Karl Schultz | 3 episodes | |
| 2020 | Deutschland 89 | Walter Schweppenstette | 8 episodes |
| :: |
Awards and honours
- Heinrich Greif Prize for The Turning Point (1984)
- Television and film award from the German Academy of Performing Arts for Romeo (2001)
- Grimme-Preis for Romeo (2002)
- Deutscher Kritikerpreis for the portrayal of Joseph Goebbels in My Führer – The Really Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler (2007)
- DEFA Foundation Prize for outstanding achievements in German film (2017)
References
References
- [http://www.tarantino.info/wiki/index.php/Inglorious_Bastards_Credits_%26_Characters ''Inglourious Basterds'' credits]
- (8 January 2014). "Filmmuseum Potsdam: Ausstellungen: Retrospektive Sylvester Groth".
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