Afterwards, Oskar Laser was ordered to the Eastern Front and was killed on 16 June 1943 near Orel, Soviet Union, during a "suicide mission", to which he had been assigned because of his Christian beliefs.

[6] After several stops, the family came to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, where they experienced the end of the war in April 1945 under dramatic circumstances.

[8] After some time, with the support of a Christian community in Hamburg, his mother was able to take him to a home for children suffering from tuberculosis in Beatenberg in Switzerland.

"[12] After he had to leave the Gymnasium shortly before his Abitur at the instigation of his mother, "because studying spoils faith", he left his parents' home and went into hiding in Hamburg.

During his acting training he worked as an extra at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg and as a hotel servant, but dropped out of his studies in 1960 after one year and despite passing the state intermediate examination.

[11] In 1961, Laser, who continued to secretly attend rehearsals at the Hamburger Schauspielhaus, was "discovered" by Gustaf Gründgens when the latter wanted to throw him out of the auditorium.

In the 1970s, Laser repeatedly appeared in front of the camera under the direction of Rainer Erler, with whom he made the five-part science fiction series Das Blaue Palais, in which he played the researcher Enrico Polazzo, and the film Operation Ganymed.

On the big screen, Laser was seen in the same year as the shady newspaper reporter Tötges in The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum.

In 1978 he played alongside Helmut Griem and Brigitte Fossey in Hans W. Geißendörfer's Oscar-nominated film drama The Glass Cell.

In the star-studded miniseries Väter und Söhne – Eine deutsche Tragödie by Bernhard Sinkel about the rise and fall of a German industrial family, he took on the role of Friedrich Deutz in 1986.

[14] In 2009, Laser played the surgeon Dr. Josef Heiter in the Dutch horror film Human Centipede by Tom Six, and became an international star.

[23] In November 2015, Laser was in front of the camera in Estonia for the fantasy film Jesus’ Blood and Red Currants based on a novel by Andrus Kivirähk.