Over his nearly four decade career, he was best known for his roles in the films of Lebende Ware (1966) and Walter Defends Sarajevo (1972), as well as the television series Rote Bergsteiger (1968) and Archiv des Todes (1980).

After the end of the Second World War and his release from captivity, Hasse returned to Weimar, where he spent another six months to complete his drama training.

Although his earlier stage roles were mostly comical in nature, he depicted sinister characters almost solely; Renate Seydel, who interviewed him in 1966, commented that he was the most perennial villain in the actors' cast of DEFA and Deutscher Fernsehfunk.

In addition to those entertainment films, he also portrayed historical antagonists in several bleaker pictures dealing with the recent past, like Alfred Naujocks in The Gleiwitz Case, Reinhard Heydrich in Sokolovo and Adolf Eichmann in 1966's Lebende Ware – based on the blood for goods affair.

Hasse told Seydel that he considered those roles as having educational value, in order to "demonstrate the full horror of Fascism" to younger viewers.