Biography:

Horst Schulze was born on April 26, 1921 in Dresden. From 1937 until 1940, he took private singing and acting lessons in Dresden, where he debuted as an opera singer. As of 1946, Schulze acted at theaters in Dresden, Zittau and Weimar; from 1956 to 1965, he worked at the Staatstheater in Dresden. Schulze was also a guest performer in operettas and musicals at the Deutsches Staatsoper, Komische Oper and Metropol Theater in East Berlin, and played Mack the Knife in Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera at the Berliner Ensemble.

While expanding into film acting, Schulze continued to appear as a guest performer at various theaters, especially at the Hoftheater in Dresden. Schulze’s debut at the DEFA Studio for Feature Films was as Count Appiani in Martin Hellberg’s film adaptation of Lessing's Emilia Galotti in 1957. He then continued working in film, mainly in musicals and adaptations of classic literatary works.

Schulze starred in the title role in Günter Reisch's two biographical films about the socialist activist and Reichstag member Karl Liebknecht: Solange Leben in mir ist and Trotz Alledem!

As of 1967, Schulze joined the DEFA Studio’s acting ensemble for good, proving his versatility in numerous film roles, as: resistance fighter Adam Kuckhoff in KLK an PTX – Die rote Kapelle; the brutal plantation owner Raynes, in Konrad Petzold's Western Osceola; and the striving agent in Siegfried Kühn's adaptation of Goethe’s Die Wahlverwandschaften.

Horst Schulze has also starred in popular television series—such as Polizeiruf 110 and Das unsichtbare Visier, in which he played opposite Armin Mueller-Stahl—as well as in television roles, including as Baron Instetten, in the adaptation of Fontane’s Effi Briest, and Dr. Paul Kramer, in the three-part film adaptation of Feuchtwanger’s Die Brüder Lautensack.