Kurt Maetzig was born in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1911. His father owned a film duplication facility and his mother came from a wealthy family of tea merchants from Hamburg and Denmark. Maetzig lived in Hamburg-Harvestehude with his grandmother during the First World War. After completing secondary school, he studied chemistry, business administration, and political economics in Munich. He also attended lectures at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1932 he began a series of internships with filmmakers. Maetzig completed his studies in Munich in 1935 with a degree in business and then worked for his father. In 1934 he was denied work by the Nazi Reichsfilmkammer because his mother was Jewish. Maetzig worked as a specialist in film technology and photochemistry for a number of Berlin firms and eventually ran his own laboratory for photochemistry.

In 1944 Maetzig joined the underground German Communist Party; he was one of the members of the Filmaktiv involved in the founding of DEFA. He worked as a director, author, and speaker, and he also became DEFA's artistic director in 1946. Maetzig was a member of the Academy of Arts of the GDR and became the first president of the newly founded Film Academy in Potsdam-Babelsberg, where he was professor of film directing. In 1974 he became vice president of the International Federation of Film Societies, and was elected lifetime honorary president in 1979.

Maetzig directed more than 20 feature films before retiring in 1975. His first feature film Marriage in the Shadows, the first film that was shown in all four occupied German zones reached over 10 million people and gained worldwide acclaim.

Some of Maetzig's work is described as pure East German propaganda, especially the two-part feature film about the life of German Communist leader Ernst Thälmann. His film The Rabbit Is Me, among other films of 1965, was banned by the East German officials and started a debate among artists and officials. This film earned critical praise after 1989 as on of the most important and courageous works ever filmed by DEFA.

Maetzig's Major Films

Marriage in the Shadows (Ehe im Schatten, 1947); Girls in Gingham (Die Buntkarierten, 1949); Council of the Gods (Der Rat der Götter, 1950); The Story of a Young Couple (Roman einer jungen Ehe, 1952); Ernst Thälmann - Son of the Working Class (Ernst Thälmann - Sohn seiner Klasse, 1954); Ernst Thälmann - Leader of the Working Class (Ernst Thälmann - Führer seiner Klasse, 1955); Song of the Sailors (Das Lied der Matrosen, 1958); The Silent Star (Der schweigende Stern, 1960); The Rabbit Is Me (Das Kaninchen bin ich, 1964/65-1989); Man Against Man (Mann gegen Mann, 1975).