Biografía

A member of the Communist Party of Germany since 1921, von Wangenheim founded the Communist theatre company Die Truppe '31 in 1931. Die Truppe '31 produced three plays, authored and directed by Wangenheim, before it was shut down by order of the Nazi regime in 1933.

Introspective leading actor, trained in Berlin 1912-14. On stage after military service in World War I. Had powerful socialist leanings. During the 1920's, member of the communist party (KPD). Founded and toured with his own worker's theatrical troupe. Forced to flee from Germany after Hitler's rise to power in 1933. Became a Soviet citizen in 1940 and made propaganda radio broadcasts on behalf of his adopted country. Returned to Germany in 1945, active primarily as a stage director and producer.

In 1936, during the Stalinist purges, he denounced his colleagues Carola Neher and Anatol Becker as Trotskyites. Becker was executed and Neher died in the Gulag system after five years in prison. Von Wangenheim's son later stated the accusations that his father denounced Neher and Becker were one-sided and inaccurate. Gustav von Wangenheim's son claimed his father, after being arrested by the NKWD and a lengthy interrogation, signed a statement that implicated Carola Neher as being "anti soviet" but had in fact explicitly refuted the accusation that Neher and her husband Anatol Becker had planned to murder Stalin.

Wangenheim fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and found refuge in the Soviet Union. While living in exile at Moscow's Hotel Lux, he continued writing and producing movies, such as Der Kampf (1936), an anti-Nazi protest film, and was the head of the German language Cabaret "Kolonne Links".

He was a founding member of the National Committee for a Free Germany. After World War II, he returned to East Germany, where he worked for the DEFA as screenwriter and director.