Memorial Page for Ralf Richter

Ralf Richter (born 17 August 1957 in Essen; died September 2026) was a German actor and musician. Raised in a working-class neighbourhood of Bochum, he came to wide public attention in 1981 as Frenssen in Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot. In 1999 he played the hot-tempered crook Kalle Grabowski in Peter Thorwarth’s Bang Boom Bang – Ein todsicheres Ding. For more than four decades he worked in film and television, often in rough, unconventional parts and often as a man from the Ruhr.

A large family in Bochum

Ralf Richter was born in Essen, but the family did not stay there long. His father, Otto Richter, was an architect who was building a house in Bochum, and until it was finished they lived in Essen. He was one of eight children and grew up with six brothers and one sister in a working-class neighbourhood of Bochum. His younger brother, Frank-Martin Strauß, later became known as the artist and musician FM Einheit.

From carpenter to actor

After leaving school, Richter trained as a carpenter from 1973 to 1975. From 1977 he spent two years at the Westfälische Schauspielschule, the drama school in Bochum, while helping out in his father’s construction business. He never completed the course: after two years, as he told it himself, the school judged him not suitable for training.

He found his way onto the stage all the same. His first appearances were at the Freie Volksbühne in Berlin and the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, and he also acted in Bonn. On television he started out in supporting parts in two episodes of the crime series Tatort, broadcast in 1980 and 1981. In Duisburg-Ruhrort, aired in June 1981, he played a young man, with Götz George as Detective Chief Inspector Horst Schimanski.

Frenssen in Das Boot

His breakthrough came that same year with Wolfgang Petersen’s war drama Das Boot. Richter was 24 and played Frenssen, a coarse, wisecracking member of the crew of U-96. Based on the novel by Lothar-Günther Buchheim, the film follows a submarine patrol in the Atlantic in 1941. The cast included Jürgen Prochnow and Herbert Grönemeyer. It premiered in Munich and Wiesbaden on 17 September 1981.

Das Boot was a major success internationally as well and made Ralf Richter known to an audience of millions. From then on, in the words of the German film database filmportal.de, he was one of the best-known actors in German cinema.

Parts from the Ruhr

In Klaus Emmerich’s Rote Erde, the screen adaptation of Peter Stripp’s saga of a mining family, he played Otto Schablowski; it was first broadcast on ARD on 23 October 1983. He was a frequent guest in television series, among them Tatort, Der Fahnder, Alarm für Cobra 11 and Heldt.

In cinema he worked with some of Germany’s most respected directors. In Dominik Graf’s gangster film Die Katze (The Cat) he played Jochen Britz in 1988, once again alongside Götz George. In the holiday satire Super-Stau in 1991 he was the short-fused miner Hermann Pacholke, stuck in a traffic jam with his family. The same year he played a policeman in Manta – Der Film, and again in Til Schweiger’s Der Eisbär in 1998. In Tomy Wigand’s comedy Fußball ist unser Leben (Soccer Rules!) he was Mike.

Kalle

Richter made several films with the director Peter Thorwarth. He already appeared in Thorwarth’s short film Was nicht paßt – wird passend gemacht, which premiered at the Oberhausen short film festival in 1997, playing a character called Kalle. On 26 August 1999 Bang Boom Bang – Ein todsicheres Ding opened in cinemas, the first film in what became known as Thorwarth’s Unna trilogy. Richter played Karlheinz “Kalle” Grabowski, a hot-tempered crook serving time in Unna who breaks out of prison and demands his money from a bank robbery from his mate Keek, played by Oliver Korittke.

The character stayed tied to his name to the very end. In Was nicht passt, wird passend gemacht (If It Don’t Fit, Use a Bigger Hammer) in 2002 he played a brash construction worker named Kalle, and in Goldene Zeiten in 2006 the bizarre pimp Bullet Harry. In 2014 he worked with Thorwarth again, as a criminal scrapyard owner in the comedy Nicht mein Tag (Not My Day).

In August 2024 the Kinorama cinema in Unna screened Bang Boom Bang once more for its 25th anniversary, and Richter came as guest of honour, together with his son Maxwell, who is also an actor. He took time for the fans and signed autographs.

Music

Alongside his acting, Ralf Richter was also a singer. His first album, One Heart, was released on 10 February 2006. Its songs lean towards bluesy rock, carried by his strikingly deep voice, and it includes two cover versions he picked himself: “Wandering Star” and “Wonderful World”. In 2016 he appeared in the video for “Getaway” by the band Long Distance Calling, as a fitness trainer who puts the musicians in a headlock.

Later years

After the Unna trilogy Richter was seen mainly in memorable supporting roles. He had a rare leading part in 2009 as a corrupt policeman in Benjamin Eicher’s crime film Kopf oder Zahl. In Christian Alvart’s comedy Halbe Brüder (Half Brothers) he played a barman in 2015, and in 2017 and 2018 he played himself in the web series Offscreen, a satirical look behind the scenes of German show business and television.

In Matthias Kutschmann’s Radio Heimat, a comedy about growing up in the Ruhr, set in Bochum in 1983, he played Uncle Josef. On 9 November 2016 Kutschmann, Sandra Borgmann, Stephan Kampwirth and Richter presented a trailer for the film at the Kinoprogrammpreis NRW ceremony in Cologne’s Gloria Theater; it opened in cinemas on 17 November. He went on to make Enfant Terrible (2020) and Bad Director (2023) with Oskar Roehler.

On Jan Böhmermann’s ZDF Magazin Royale he appeared as “Richter Ralf Richter”, Judge Ralf Richter. He recorded audiobooks and lived in Cologne, where in 2012 he was also running two restaurants. Most recently, in early 2026, he was seen in an episode of the series Notruf Hafenkante.

Farewell

Ralf Richter died in September 2026 at the age of 69. On 15 September his children, Aline and Maxwell, announced his death in a joint statement. To many people, they wrote, their father had been an actor and a face that had accompanied them for many years; to them he was above all their father. They asked to be allowed to say goodbye in peace and thanked his fans for the love and appreciation they had shown him over the years. Ralf Richter is survived by his two children and six grandchildren.