Hans Richter made his film debut as "Fliegender Hirsch" in Gerhard Lamprecht's Emil and the Detectives (1931), based on the novel of the same name by Erich Kästner.

In the following years, Richter become a popular juvenile actor; often playing clever, somewhat cheeky boys[1] (a type similar to Mickey Rooney in the American film during the 1930s).

After his supporting role as a lazy schoolboy in Die Feuerzangenbowle (1944), Richter got drafted into the German Wehrmacht and was also in war imprisonment for some time.

After the World War, Richter worked as a cabaret artist and also appeared in numerous of the popular Heimatfilms, among them The Black Forest Girl (1950) and The Heath Is Green (1951).

Since the late 1950s, Richter moved more and more to theatre work, making only sparsely film and television appearances during his later years.