[1] He acted alongside Fritzi Massary in Erich Engles' production of The First Mrs. Shelby at the Königgrätzer Straße Theater.

By the recommendation of fellow actor Rudolf Christians, Abel appeared with the acting ensemble at Berlin's Deutschen Theater in 1904,[3] where he remained for the next decade.

[2] That same year, he made his screen debut playing the lead role of "Anselmus Aselmeyer" in Max Reinhardt's silent movie, Eine Venezianische Nacht, Abel acted in over one hundred silent films by renowned directors including Ernst Lubitsch, F. W. Murnau, and Richard Oswald, and alongside such famous silent film stars as Pola Negri, Henny Porten, Jenny Jugo, and Asta Nielsen.

[citation needed] Abel's more notable silent film roles include his performances as "Lorenz Lubota" in Phantom (1922), as "Count Graf Told" in Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922), as "Gaston" in Die Flamme (1923), and as "Alphonse Gunderman" in the French film, L'Argent (1928).

Some of his better-known sound films include Litvak's Dolly's Way to Stardom (1930) as Count Eberhard, Heinz Ruehmann's Meine Frau, die Hochstaplerin (1931), Reinhold Schuenzel's romance, Beautiful Adventure (1932) as Count d'Eguzon, and Franz Liszt's ‘’The Court Concert’’ (1936) as Dichter Knips.

Abel's final film role was as Daffinger in Herbert Maisch's Frau Sylvelin (1938), which was not released until after his death.

[1] There were rumours at the time of the 1922 film Nosferatu and for many years afterwards that Max Schreck, who played Count Orlok the vampire, did not actually exist and was a pseudonym for Abel.

[5] At the beginning of the 1920s, Abel began considering a career as a director and created the production company Artifex Film.

However, the Nazi regime in 1935 prohibited her from appearing in any further films after she failed to produce ancestry papers (Ariernachweis) for her father to prove he was not of Jewish descent.