Volker Bruch

Volker Bruch is a German television and film actor born in 1980. He is best known internationally for his leading roles as Wilhelm Winter in the drama series Generation War and as Inspector Gereon Rath in the neo-noir series Babylon Berlin. His performance in Babylon Berlin earned him a 2018 Grimme-Preis and a Golden Camera Award. Additionally, Bruch has appeared in notable feature films, including two productions nominated for Academy Awards in 2009.

Bruch was born in West Germany to a German father and an Austrian mother, growing up in Munich with five siblings. He began acting during high school at a gymnasium, joining student acting groups. After earning his university-entrance diploma, he studied performing arts at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna, Austria. During his studies, Bruch made a deliberate choice to focus on television and film acting rather than theater. He made his first television appearances before graduating in 2005.

Early in his career, Bruch took small roles in German television productions and TV movies. His first noteworthy role was as Axi in the 2005 television movie Rose, winning a German Television Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2008, he appeared in several prominent films, including Female Agents, the biopic The Red Baron as Lothar Freiherr von Richthofen, The Baader Meinhof Complex as Stefan Aust, and the American drama The Reader.

Bruch achieved his breakthrough in 2013 as one of the five protagonists in the miniseries Generation War, receiving a German Television Award nomination and a special award at the 2013 Bavarian TV Awards. In 2016, he was cast as police inspector Gereon Rath in Babylon Berlin. Filming began in May 2016, and the show premiered in late 2017, earning him international prominence. Bruch returned for a third series released in 2020 and a fourth series produced in 2021 and released in 2022.

Alongside his television roles, Bruch has acted in international and German feature films. He appeared in the 2018 American film The Girl in the Spider's Web and the German film Rocca Changes the World. In 2022, he was cast as rally driver Walter Röhrl in the English-language film Race for Glory: Audi vs. Lancia, starring opposite Daniel Brühl and Riccardo Scamarcio, which was released in January 2024.

Bruch lives in Berlin with his girlfriend, actress Miriam Stein, and their child, who was born in 2017. The couple met in 2009 on the set of Young Goethe in Love and later co-starred in Generation War, Tour de Force, and Das goldene Ufer. Bruch speaks English fluently and supports environmental advocacy, including Extinction Rebellion and sustainable film production initiatives. In 2019, he signed a political petition in Görlitz, and in 2020, he appeared in a UNHCR video. Bruch has also publicly opposed COVID-19 restrictions in Germany and applied to join the Grassroots Democratic Party of Germany in May 2021.