Peter Gotthardt (born 22 August 1941) is a German composer, musician and publisher. Film melodies composed by him (more than 500 in total) are known to a wide audience, including major successes such as the pieces Wenn ein Mensch lebt and Geh zu ihr [de] performed by the Puhdys from the 1973 DEFA feature film The Legend of Paul and Paula, directed by Heiner Carow.

Born in Leipzig, from 1961 to 1966, Gotthardt studied piano, correpetition, conducting and composing at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin. In 1965, he wrote his first composition for a documentary film by Winfried Junge [de]. A year later, he wrote his first orchestral work. In 1968, he began his first collaboration with Heiner Carow for the DEFA film The Russians Are Coming, which resulted in five joint films in the following years. From 1975 to 1976, he was also head of incidental music at the Rostock Volkstheater.

He has worked as a freelance composer since 1976. In 1991, he founded his own music publishing company and has subsequently also written various compositions for industrial films. In 2018, he received the Honorary Award of the Deutscher Filmmusikpreis [de].^[1]

Gotthardt has lived in Berlin-Mahlsdorf since 1975.^[2]

• 1990: Ernst Reuter Prize für Originalton-Hörspiel Ich schlage vor, den Beifall kurz zu halten^[3]
• 2018: Ehrenpreis des Deutscher Filmmusikpreis für sein Lebenswerk^[4]

• Lovedreams. Filmmusiken von Peter Gotthardt. VEB Deutsche Schallplatten Berlin/Amiga 856 270, 1987

• 1988: Thomas Rosenlöcher: Das Gänseblümchen – direction: Werner Grunow [de] (Children's radio play – Rundfunk der DDR)
• 1992: Clemens Brentano: Die Mährchen vom Rhein [de] und dem Müller Radlauf – direction Peter Groeger (Children's radio play – DS Kultur)
• 1993: Adam Bodor: Die Außenstelle – direction: Peter Groeger (radio play – MDR/ORF)

• H. P. Hofmann: Beat Lexikon. Interpreten, Autoren, Sachbegriffe.^[5] Lied der Zeit [de] Musikverlag, Berlin (Ost), 1977.
• Wolfgang Thiel: Jenseits von PAUL UND PAULA oder: Auf der Suche nach einem filmgemäßen Klang. Anmerkungen zu Peter Gotthardts Kompositionen für Film und Fernsehen. In Filmblatt 18. Jg., Nr. 52 Spring 2013, ISSN 1433-2051 pp. 25–31.
• Rosa Marie Blunt: Mitunter fällt mir etwas ein… Eine dokumentierende Sammlung zum 70. Geburtstag des Komponisten Peter Michael Gotthardt. Gedichte, Lyrics und Sentenzen von Peter Michael Gotthardt, APHAIA VERLAG, 2011, ISBN 978-3-926677-82-2.

• Literature by and about Peter Gotthardt in the German National Library catalogue
• Peter Gotthardt at IMDb
• Peter Gotthardt on Filmportal
• Official website