Kayssler was born in
Neurode in the
Silesia Province of
Prussia (now
Nowa Ruda in
Lower Silesian Voivodeship,
Poland). He attended the
gymnasium in
Breslau (Wrocław), where he became a close friend of
Christian Morgenstern and
Fritz Beblo. Graduating in 1893 Kayssler studied philosophy at the
Universities of Breslau and
Munich and began his theatre career at the
Deutsches Theater in
Berlin under manager
Otto Brahm, later working at municipal theatres in
Görlitz and
Halle. At the Deutsches Theater, Kayssler had made friends with director
Max Reinhardt, whose
Schall und Rauch Kabarett ensemble in Berlin he joined in 1901. He followed Reinhardt, when he became manager of the
Deutsches Theater in 1905, where Kayssler performed in Kleist's
The Prince of Homburg, Goethe's
Faust and Ibsen's
Peer Gynt. He also succeeded Reinhardt as manager of the Berlin
Volksbühne from 1918 until 1923. He first appeared as a film actor in the silent movie
Welche sterben, wenn sie lieben in 1913 and wrote several poems and dramas. In 1934 he starred alongside
Veit Harlan in the Berlin premiere of
Eugen Ortner's
Meier Helmbrecht at the Staatliches Schauspielhaus . In March 1944, his son
Christian, who was also a popular film actor, was killed in an
Allied bombing raid. Kayssler was named as one of the
Third Reich's most important artists in the
Gottbegnadeten list of September 1944. During the
Battle of Berlin, Kayssler was killed by
Red Army troops at his house in the suburb of
Kleinmachnow, when he tried to protect his wife.
Ernst Lemmer claimed in his memoirs that after Kayssler was shot, two young women hiding in his home were raped and murdered by the soldiers. ==Selected filmography==