Siegfried Ebert, ca.1965

One of the pioneers in East Germany in graphic design for television and film animation, Martin Siegfried Ebert was born on July 20, 1926. In an all too brief sixty years, Ebert experienced the full vicissitudes of mid-century life in Germany, witnessing the rise of National Socialism as a child, wartime service as a young man, and the rise of the socialist state in East Germany as an adult. A native of Eibau, a small town near the Czech border, and the son of a teacher in an occupational school, Ebert was apprenticed as a clerk with Junkers during the early years of the war and trained with the Nationalsozialistiches Fliegerkorps until his 17th birthday, when he was drafted into the Luftwaffe. His active military service, however, was to be very brief. In October 1944, less than a month after he joined Fliegerregiment 51 in the Netherlands, he was severely wounded and taken prisoner. During a year and half of captivity in England, much of it spent in hospital, Ebert began to reflect on the direction of his life and decided to build upon his artistic talents to make a career when he returned to civilian life.

Consequently, after his release from prison in England in May 1946, still suffering from his wounds, Ebert returned to his hometown and embarked on a career in the arts. After studying commercial art at the Kunstgewerbeschule in nearby Zittau, he found employment as a poster designer and calligrapher with HO Lebensmittel Zittau until 1951, when he returned to his studies at the Hochschule für bildende und angewandte Kunst (University for Motion Picture and Applied Arts) in Weissensee Berlin, where he specialized in film. With his education coinciding with the early years of television in East Germany, Ebert became one of the first commercial artists to work in the new medium, rapidly establishing a critical reputation for his diverse and imaginative artwork, earning laurels for his efforts in animation for the Deutscher Fernsehfunk.

A member of the Verband Bildender Künstler Deutschlands, Ebert gradually shifted his attention to film, working for the DEFA and Progress studios and contributing to a long succession of motion pictures as a designer of posters, in animation, and other areas. Throughout his career, he also remained active as a general graphic designer, producing a profusion of logos, letterheads, cartoons, drawings, and artwork.

In the last years of his life, Ebert had a slow decline and battle with ill health. Suffering a heart attack in November 1985, he died at home two months after his sixtieth birthday in 1986. He was survived by his wife Inge.