Doctor Mabuse is a fictional character created by Norbert Jacques in the novel Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, and made famous by the three movies director Fritz Lang made about the character; see Dr. Mabuse the Gambler. Although the character was designed deliberately to mimic pulp magazine-style villains such as Dr. Fu Manchu and Fantômas, the latter of which was a direct inspiration, Jacques' goal was both commercial success and to make political comments, in much the same way that the silent movie The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) had done just a few years previously.

Dr. Mabuse is a master of disguise and telepathic hypnosis. Mabuse rarely commits his crimes in person, instead operating primarily through a network of agents implementing schemes he has planned for them. Mabuse's agents range from career criminals working for him, to innocents blackmailed or hypnotized into cooperation, to dupes manipulated so successfully they do not realize that they are doing exactly what Mabuse planned for them to do.

Peter van Eyck, born Götz von Eick (16 July 1911, Steinwehr, Pomerania, Germany (now Kamienny Jaz, Poland) – 15 July 1969, Männedorf near Zürich, Switzerland), was a German-American actor.

After graduating from high school he studied music. In 1931 he left Germany, living in Paris, London, Tunis, Algiers and Cuba, before settling in New York. He earned a living playing the piano in a bar, and wrote and composed for revues and cabarets. He then worked for Irving Berlin as a stage manager and production assistant, and for Orson Welles Mercury Theatre company as an assistant director.

Van Eyck went to Hollywood where he worked as a truck driver. He initially found radio work with the help of Billy Wilder, who later gave him small film roles. In 1943 he took US citizenship and was drafted into the army as a commissioned officer. At the end of the war he returned to Germany as a control officer for film and remained there until 1948 as director of the film section. In 1949 he appeared in his first German film Hallo, Fräulein!

Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang (December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976) was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute. His most famous films are the groundbreaking Metropolis (the world's most expensive silent film at the time of its release) and M, made before he moved to the United States, his iconic precursor to the film noir genre.

Lang was born in Vienna as the second son of Anton Lang (1860–1940), an architect and construction company manager, and his wife Pauline "Paula" Lang née Schlesinger (1864–1920). Fritz Lang himself was baptized on 28 December 1890 at the Schottenkirche in Vienna.

Lang's parents were of Moravian^{[citation needed]} descent and practicing Roman Catholics. His mother was born Jewish, but had converted to Catholicism when Fritz was ten. His mother took this conversion seriously and was dedicated to raising Fritz as a Catholic. Lang never had an interest in his Jewish heritage and identified himself as Catholic. Although he was not a particularly devout Catholic, he "regularly used Catholic images and themes [in] his films".

Helge Schneider (born August 30, 1955 in Mülheim an der Ruhr) is a German comedian, jazz musician and multi-instrumentalist, author, film and theatre director, and actor. Schneiders works are an unconventional mixture of horseplay humor, parody, and jazz-influenced music. They involve spontaneity and improvisation as important elements.

After dropping out of high school, he started an apprenticeship as a construction draftsman. He soon changed plans and was admitted to the Duisburg conservatoire to study piano, after passing an entrance exam for particularly gifted applicants (it later turned out that his diploma was invalid since he dropped out of high school too early). He then toured as a little-known jazz musician and as an entertainer, basically a stand-up comedian, in local clubs. Schneider is a multi-instrumentalist, playing various instruments such as the Hammond organ, acoustic and electric guitar, ukulele, drums, piano, accordion, trumpet, cello, saxophone, clarinet and others.^{[citation needed]}