Anton Diffring (born Alfred Pollack, 20 October 1916 - 19 May 1989) was a German character actor.
He appeared in over 50 productions, many of them British, and was typically cast as Nazis/German officers in World War II-set productions and similar villainous roles.
Film roles:
- Reach for the Sky (1956) as German Stabsfeldwebel
- The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) as Dr. Georges Bonnet
- Circus of Horrors (1960) as Dr. Schuler
- Operation Crossbow (1965) as SS Sturmbannfuhrer
- The Blue Max (1966) as Holbach
- Fahrenheit 451 (1966) as Fabian
- Where Eagles Dare (1968) as Col. Paul Kramer
- Zeppelin (1971) as Col. Hirsch
- The Day the Clown Cried (1972, unreleased) as Capt. Curt Runkel
- Mark of the Devil Part II (1973) as Balthasar von Ross
- The Beast Must Die (1974) as Pavel
- Operation Daybreak (1975) as Reinhard Heydrich
- Faceless (1988) as Dr. Karl Heinz Moser
Television roles:
- Thriller (1974) as Jonathan Lanceford
- Derrick (1981, 1984, 1987) as Alfred Bandera / Scherer / de Mohl
- Doctor Who: "Silver Nemesis" (1988) as De Flores
This actor provides examples of the following tropes:
- Irony as She Is Cast: Although Diffring played Nazis in many film and TV productions, he was actually gay and Jewish, which caused him to flee Nazi Germany in 1938 in order to escape persecution.
