After the young Henneberg took private acting classes, he debuted on stage at age sixteen at the Leipzig Theater.
Henneberg's most recognized performance was that of Scanlon of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a character he depicted more than four hundred times.
[3] Henneberg was removed from the latter post in October 1965, after the Socialist Unity Party of Germany disapproved of several plays he allowed to be performed and from the lack of cooperation with communist writers.
He continued to direct plays and to perform in the Maxim Gorky Theater until the 1980s, and made his last appearance on stage in Dresden in 1997.
He is mostly remembered for portraying Wilhelm Keitel in all of Yuri Ozerov's World War II films and for making several guest appearances in the popular crime drama Polizeiruf 110.