Wolfram Witt was born in Weimar on May 20, 1953. He took singing classes and worked as a dramaturg at various theaters, before studying film history and dramaturgy at the Academy for Film and Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg from 1974 to 1977.

Christa Wolf was one of the most important contemporary German writers. She was born on March 18, 1929 in Landsberg/Warthe (now Poland) and, from 1949 until 1953, studied German literature at the universities in Jena and Leipzig.

Dieter Wolf studied German Literature at Jena University from 1952 to 1954 and Film Production at the Deutsche Filmakademie (now Film University Potsdam) from 1954 to 1958. Wolf was the chief dramaturg of the artistic groups Solidarität from 1961 to 1963 and Babelsberg from 1964 to 1990 at the DEFA Studio for Feature Films.

Konrad Wolf was born on October 20, 1925, in Hechingen, Germany. His father was Friedrich Wolf, a prominent German-Jewish physician and writer. Also known for his antifascist activism, Friedrich Wolf and his family had to leave Germany and go into exile in 1933, eventually settling in Moscow.

Gerry Wolff was born in Bremen, Germany, on June 23, 1920. Born to a Jewish family, he left Nazi Germany as a teenager for England in 1935. When WWII started in 1939, he was labeled an Enemy Alien and was detained at the Isle of Man. It was during this time that Wolff first acted in the camp theater.

Wolfgang Zeller was born on September 12, 1893. After graduating from high school, he studied violin in Munich and composition in Berlin. Zeller was drafted in WWI, but was discharged from duty due to an injury. He made his living as a violinist with the Deutsches Opernhaus in Berlin and, from 1921 until 1929, worked as a conductor and composer at the Volksbühne in Berlin.

Peter Zimmermann was born in 1951 in East Berlin. He trained as an actor at the Ernst Busch Academy for Performing Arts In Berlin. His film career took off when he played the lead in Rainer Simon’s Die Frau und der Fremde, which was an international success. Zimmermann has worked with directors like Heiner Carow and Andreas Kleinert.

Hedda Zinner was born to a Jewish family in Vienna in 1905. She began her career as an actress in Vienna. After WWII, Zinner returned to Germany and settled in the eastern part of Berlin. Zinner was involved in many political organizations, including the German Women’s Council, which she headed for a time. Beginning in 1946, she served as a director of broadcasting at the Haus des Rundfunks.

Herrmann Zschoche was born in Dresden in 1934. He worked as an assistant and director of photography for the East German television news program, Aktuelle Kamera. Zschoche studied directing at the German Film Academy in Potsdam-Babelsberg from 1954-1959, and became an assistant director to Frank Beyer (Star-Crossed Lovers, 1962).

German-Jewish writer Arnold Zweig was born in 1887 in Glogau (now Głogów, Poland). He studied history, philosophy, psychology and literature at various German universities. In 1912, he published his first novel, Claudia; its psychologically complex characters become Zweig’s trademark in all his following works.