Matthias Brandt: Interesting family, exciting career

Actor Matthias Brandt was born on October 7, 1961 in West Berlin and celebrates his 60th birthday on Wednesday. Although it is not easy to step out of the great shadow of famous parents, he succeeded. Both his family of origin and his career are remarkable. And both remarkably public. He did not particularly like the first public life, the second he chose himself.

Interesting Family

Matthias Brandt is the youngest son of the former German Chancellor (1969-1974) Willy Brandt (1913-1992) and his second wife (1948-1980), the Norwegian-German author Rut Brandt (1920-2006). The historian Peter Brandt (born 1948) and the writer and filmmaker Lars Brandt (born 1951, “souvenirs”) also come from this marriage.

Matthias Brandt also has half-sister Ninja Frahm (born 1940) from Willy Brandt’s first marriage (1941-1948) to Carlota Thorkildsen (1904-1980). The Brandt family name has only officially existed since the end of the Second World War. Willy Brandt was born as Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm in Lübeck. Shortly after the NSDAP came to power, he went into exile in Norway for political reasons. Since then he has called himself Willy Brandt. When he returned to Germany and was reintroduced into Schleswig-Holstein, he was officially registered under the new name.

Matthias Brandt once told the “Brigitte” magazine about his childhood in the famous household: “But childhood was also a great freedom. Which also has to do with the fact that my parents were busy with other things.”

In autumn 2016 the actor presented his first book entitled “Raumpatrouille”. In it he tells autobiographical stories from his normal and yet extraordinary childhood. There were “guards and drivers who could be played tricks on”. Or a neighbor named Heinrich Lübke (1894-1972), who was once Federal President. “Little Matthias Brandt visits the latter occasionally and as a courtesy to sit with him drinking cocoa and be silent,” summarized the literary and culture magazine “Buchszene” in its review at the time.

Exciting career

Willy Brandt was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize (1971), numerous orders of merit from neighboring European countries, several honorary doctorates and the “Person of the Year” award (1970) from “Time” magazine. Matthias Brandt can now boast a lot of awards and prizes – including three of the particularly prestigious Grimme Prizes. He is one of Germany’s top actors and once again chose a public life through his profession. He made a big name for himself above all as Commissioner Hanns von Meuffels from 2011 to 2018 in the Munich branch of “Polizeiruf 110”.

“Funnily enough, television inspector is our own job title. But I would be reluctant to be permanently shaped by it. I prefer to be an actor as a police officer,” Brandt told the Süddeutsche Zeitung when the farewell approached. At the time, the actor still oracle about how: “I don’t think you can [von Meuffels] must murder. In my mind, he can still do a lot of nice things if he no longer has to appear on television. When I stop, it feels a bit like I’m letting him go. “With that in mind, at the end of the crime thriller” Polizeiruf 110: Tatorte “he simply quit …

For the fans of the artist Matthias Brandt, saying goodbye to the Sunday thriller was difficult. But even after leaving as a commissioner, he was seen on television as a police officer. In the miniseries “The Secret of the Dead Forest” (2020, the first), he played Thomas Bethge, head of the Hamburg State Criminal Police Office.

In Bjarne Mädels (53) directorial debut, the film adaptation of the novel “Sörensen hat Angst” (2020, the first), he then played the former spa director Frieder Marek. Two more mini-series are also in the works. It is not yet known what role he will play in the six-part Netflix format “Cable Cash”, which, according to the production, was inspired by the “biggest economic scandal in German history”. In “Buback” by director Dominik Graf (69) he can be seen as Michael Buback (76), son of the Federal Prosecutor General Siegfried Buback (1920-1977) who was murdered in 1977 by the Red Army Faction.

But there have also been productions in which Matthias Brandt’s family and work are mixed up. In the two-part film “Im Schatten der Macht” (2003) he played the role of the GDR spy Günter Guillaume (1927-1995), who was later revealed. From 1972 until his resignation in 1974, Guillaume was the personal advisor to Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt. It was one of Matthias Brandt’s first major television roles.

And that’s how the popular actor ticks privately

Matthias Brandt is married and has a daughter. Before she was born, he was concerned with being a father. “I thought fundamentally about it before my daughter was born. Because I was constantly being defined by my parents and had to react to what others thought I had to tell me about my parents,” “Brigitte” quotes him.

In an earlier one, he also revealed a few details from his everyday life. “Basically, I’m more of a morning person than a night owl.” In culinary terms he is “still easy to satisfy. I like simple dishes”. And when it comes to housework, there is one area where he is unlikely to be of great help: “I can’t iron,” he admitted at the time. “Fortunately, there are such great facilities where you can bring the shirts and pick them up again and everything is fine,” he laughed.

Speaking of outerwear: Matthias Brandt is an avowed Werder Bremen fan. The club once gave the actor a jersey with the inscription “Von Meuffels” on the back. “It is sometimes put on. But I would be embarrassed to wear it in the stadium,” he revealed in an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” in 2017.

When it comes to violence, the fun for the former crime star stops. “I reject violence because I find it uncivilized. And do not consider it negotiable, although violence is becoming more and more widespread. I do not believe in gray areas on this subject,” says Matthias Brandt.