Peter Mosbacher

Actually, German film star Peter Mosbacher (1912-1977) wanted to be a racing driver. After a serious motorcycle accident in 1936, he followed the advise of his school buddy, the later film star Carl Raddatz and also became an actor.


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 797. Photo: Michael Marszalek / Ufa.


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3839. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Grimm / Ufa.


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof. Photo: Kurt Ullrich / Roth / Ufa. Publicity still for Peter Voss der Millionendieb / Peter Voss, the Thief of the Millions (Wolfgang Becker, 1958).


German postcard by F.J. Rudel, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 102. Photo: Pontus-Film / National / Lilo.

Tarzan rip-off

Peter Mosbacher was born as Hermann Ludwig Kempfenhausen in Mannheim, Germany, in 1912.

In the 1930s and 1940s, he played the heroes of Friedrich Schiller, Heinrich Von Kleist, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and William Shakespeare on the stages in Germany.

In 1941, he moved to the prestigious Deutsche Theater (German Theatre) in Berlin. In the late 1940s, he also started to work as a theatre director and from 1943 on, he played small parts in German films like Großstadtmelodie / Melody of a Big City (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1943) with Hilde Krahl.

He had his cinematic breakthrough in the comedy Das doppelte Lottchen / Two Times Lotte (Josef von Báky, 1950), which was based on a children’s novel by Erich Kästner.

He would follow this up with parts in such popular films as Canaris / Canaris: Master Spy (Alfred Weidenmann, 1954), the Tarzan rip-off Liane, das Mädchen aus dem Urwald / Liana, Jungle Goddess (Eduard von Borsody, 1956) and Salzburger Geschichten / Salzburg Stories (Kurt Hoffmann, 1957) with Marianne Koch.


German postcard by F.J. Rüdel, Filmpostkartenverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 1493. Photo: Artur Grimm / Delos / Constantin. Publicity still for Roman einer Siebzehnjährigen / Novel of a Seventeen-year-old (Paul Verhoeven, 1955).


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, I 442. Photo: Delos Film / Constantin-Film / A. Grimm. Publicity still for Roman einer Siebzehnjährigen / Novel of a Seventeen-year-old (Paul Verhoeven, 1955).


German collector card. Photo: Constantin Filmverleih.


German postcard. Photo: Fred König, München.

The laughing corpse

Peter Mosbacher often played villains or murderers, such as in The Face of Fu Manchu (Don Sharp, 1965) starring Christopher Lee, and in Diaboliquement vôtre / Diabolically Yours (Julien Duvivier, 1967) with Alain Delon.

In his last film, the Edgar Wallace thriller Im Banne des Unheimlichen / The Zombie Walks (Alfred Vohrer, 1968) starring Joachim Fuchsberger, Mosbacher played a serial killer who calls himself ‘The Laughing Corpse’.

He dresses up in a skeleton costume and kills his victims with a poison-filled scorpion-shaped ring.

Peter Mosbacher also acted in many TV productions and synchronised in German the voices of actors Rossano Brazzi and Dan Duryea.

Peter Mosbacher died of a heart attack in a clinic at the Starnberger See in 1977. He was married to actress Edith Schneider, and they had a son, Manuel, who later also became a theatre director.


Trailer of The Face of Fu Manchu (1965). Source: PopeFlores2 (YouTube).


German Trailer of Im Banne des Unheimlichen / The Zombie Walks (1968). Source: Kultkino (YouTube).

Sources: Stephanie d'Heil (Steffi-Line - German), Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 7 November 2025.