A German theatre, film and television actor. He played Field Marshal Von Rundstedt in Richard Attenborough's all-star war epic A Bridge Too Far (1977). In addition, for the cinema-going public of West Germany he became the epitome of the evil genius in his role as Doctor Mabuse, a role he first played in 1960 in Fritz Lang's The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse. He went on to play the role four more times. In the 1980s he turned to television, notably playing General Walther von Brauchitsch in the American TV mini-series Winds of War and War and Remembrance, based on the books of Herman Wouk.