Heinz Schubert (actor)

Heinz Schubert (12 November 1925 – 12 February 1999) was a German actor, drama teacher and photographer, best known for playing the role of Alfred Tetzlaff in the German television comedy sitcom Ein Herz und eine Seele.

Schubert was born in Berlin, the son of a master tailor. He went to drama school after his release from captivity as a prisoner of war.

In 1951, Bertolt Brecht asked for him directly to join his Berliner Ensemble, where Schubert remained until the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961. From then on, Schubert worked in West Germany in theatre (in Munich, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Berlin) and taught drama; he was first a docent and in 1985 was awarded a professorship at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.

In 1958 Schubert also started to work in film, first for DEFA productions, playing the role of the Schweizerkas that he had been known for in the Berliner Ensemble in the film version of the Brecht drama. He also acted in fairy stories and the much-loved DEFA Das Stacheltier series. From 1961, in the West, he also acted in television productions.

In 1973 Schubert was given the part for which he is best remembered, and which he later did his best to escape from: the role of Ekel Alfred ("Nasty Alfred") in the satirical ARD television series Ein Herz und eine Seele, written by Wolfgang Menge. The series was based on the British series Til Death Us Do Part by Johnny Speight; the themes it brought up and the language it used put it in the headlines and drew a huge audience. Schubert played the German equivalent to Alf Garnett or Archie Bunker, a tyrannical bigot, and appeared the part, with a hairstyle and mannerisms comparable to those used by German dictator Adolf Hitler.

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