Key figure of post-war German cinema whose preoccupation with recent German history anticipated the work of the New German Cinema.
As an actor, Wicki's memorable early screen roles include the Yugoslav partisan in Helmut Kautner's anti-war film "The Last Bridge" (1954), one of the officers conspiring against Hitler in G.W. Pabst's "It Happened in Broad Daylight" (1955) and the dying friend in Michelangelo Antonioni's "La Notte" (1961). After a 15-year hiatus, Wicki returned to screen acting in 1976, appearing mostly in character parts (he played the Germanic Dr. Ulmer--in the middle of Texas--in Wim Wenders' "Paris, Texas" 1984).
As a director, Wicki first gained international attention with the adroitly handled anti-war film, "The Bridge" (1959) and was named best director at Berlin for "The Miracle of Malachias" (1961). He also directed the German section of the Hollywood WWII epic "The Longest Day" (1962) and the Marlon Brando spy thriller "Morituri" (1965).
Wicki's more recent work includes two films adapted from Joseph Roth: "The False Weight" (1971), about the fall of the Hapsburg Dynasty, and "The Spider's Web" (1989), on the rise of Nazism.