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Arved Birnbaum (1962 to 2021)
Photo: Henning Kaiser / dpa
"Arved makes every supporting role the main role" - that's what the German star director Dominik Graf once said about the actor Arved Birnbaum.
For Graf, who is best known for his ensemble crime novels from the police and mafia milieu, Arved Birnbaum repeatedly embodied professional investigators.
The native of Lusatian often acted brutally and space-filling in these roles, but also won surprising facets from the characters.
Birnbaum made an early appearance in the crime series "Der Fahnder" developed by Graf in 1983.
Later he played under the direction of the director in "Das Vowde" (2007) and "Die Zielfahnder - Escape to the Carpathians" (2016).
He probably made the most lasting impression on the general public in Graf's mafia series "Imendes Verbrechens" (2010).
In Cologne's »Tatort«, he took on the role of master master Heinz Obst in several cases.
The actor was often cast in shady roles.
"Lindenstrasse" fans may remember him from 1999 in the part of the neo-Nazi Hartung.
In 2015 he was a scheming innkeeper in the thriller series »Weinberg« (TNT series).
In August of this year, TV viewers in the ZDF series "A case for two" saw him as a questionable animal dealer.
As his wife announced, Arved Birnbaum died on Sunday after a brief serious illness in the Cologne University Clinic.
He was 59 years old.
cbu / dpa
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