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The family of Elisabeth Wicki-Endriss and the Bernhard Wicki Memorial Fund e.V. mourn the loss of Elisabeth Wicki-Endriss, actress and founder of the German Film Award for Peace – The Bridge. She passed away on 16 July 2026 in Munich at the age of 82.

Elisabeth Wicki-Endriss, born Elisabeth Roswitha Oettl on 2 July 1944 in Eger, Sudetenland (today Cheb, Czech Republic), was a German actress, director and author. Growing up as the child of actors, she was on stage and in front of the camera from an early age – at just four years old she appeared in the film „Der Brandnerkaspar schaut ins Paradies“ (1948). She trained as an actress at the Otto Falckenberg School in Munich and worked primarily in theatre, while also appearing in numerous cinema and television productions. In 1977 she met Bernhard Wicki and starred in his films „Sansibar oder der letzte Grund“ and „Das Spinnennetz“.

After the death of Wicki's long-time wife Agnes Fink, Wicki and Endriss married in 1995. During the years of his serious illness she cared for him personally and set aside her own artistic work. The idea for the peace award came to her in the period of mourning after Wicki's death, when her gaze fell on a certificate from the United Nations honouring Wicki for his services to peace. In 2002 she founded the „German Film Award for Peace – The Bridge“, which has been presented every year since – this year for the 25th time.

She preserved Wicki's legacy in three works of her own: the 2007 documentary „Verstörung – und eine Art von Poesie“ on his life and work, the richly illustrated companion volume „Die Filmlegende Bernhard Wicki: Verstörung – und eine Art von Poesie“, and finally, in 2009, the more personal biography „Bernhard Wicki: Leben mit einem Filmgenie“, in which she recounts above all their shared years and their unusual triangular relationship.

Her civic engagement was recognised many times: in 2009 she received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, in 2019 the One Future Honorary Award of the Interfilm Academy for her life's work as an actress, custodian of Wicki's cinematic legacy and founder of the peace award, and also in 2019 the European Medal of the Bavarian State Chancellery.

This announcement is made with the family's consent.