In Götz George we have lost one of Germany’s great actors and a committed Social Democrat. Götz George was an outstanding artist whose profound and intense performances in a wide variety of roles over several decades revealed to millions of people both at home and abroad the backdrops to and blackest depths of our society. He truly absorbed the characters he played, his virtuosity writing acting history, whether as serial killer Fritz Haarmann or scandal reporter Hermann Willié in Helmut Dietl’s “Schtonk!”. Götz George once said that Horst Schimanski, the character for which he was best known, would leave the scene as quietly as he had burst loudly onto it. Götz George, that elemental force of the acting profession, has quietly left us. We shall miss him.