Peter Ulrich Weiss (8 November 1916 – 10 May 1982) was a German writer, painter, graphic artist, and experimental filmmaker of adopted Swedish nationality.

Peter Weiss earned his reputation in the post-war German literary world as the proponent of an avant-garde, meticulously descriptive writing, as an exponent of autobiographical prose, and also as a politically engaged dramatist.

His "Auschwitz Oratorium," The Investigation, served to broaden the debates over the so-called "Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit" (or formerly) "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" or "politics of history."

At age three he moved with his family to the German port city of Bremen, and during his adolescence back to Berlin where he began training as a painter.

Weiss was married three times: to the painter Helga Henschen, 1943–47; to Carlota Dethorey,[3] 1949; and from 1964 until his death to the Swedish artist and stage designer Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss.

It is a nearly hermetic experimental work which explores language through the use of surreal, disturbing imagery whereby an apparent rural idyll is transformed into a kafkaesque nightmare.

The Surrealist effect was enhanced by collages in the style of Max Ernst, so-called xylography, which Peter Weiss created for the book.

His next prose work, Abschied von den Eltern (Leavetaking, 1959/60) was less hermetic than Coachman and strongly autobiographical.

It was not only a critical but also a public success, as was its follow-up Fluchtpunkt (Vanishing Point, 1962) Since the early 1950 Weiss had also been writing plays: Der Turm (The Tower, 1950), Die Versicherung (The Insurance, 1952), Nacht mit Gästen (Night with Guests, 1963), Wie dem Herrn Mockinpott das Leiden ausgetrieben wird (How Mister Mockinpott was Cured of His Sufferings, 1963/68).

But none of these stage works prepared the public for what came next: A play about the French Revolution which through its title alone became an overnight a sensation: "Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean Paul Marats dargestellt durch die Schauspielgruppe des Hospizes zu Charenton unter Anleitung des Herrn de Sade (The Persecution and Assassination of Jean Paul Marat As Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of Monsieur[8] de Sade).

Set in an insane asylum and constantly in danger of being overwhelmed by madness and chaos, the play explores the place of writers and intellectuals in a time of revolutionary upheaval.

After Weiss wrote his play about Trotsky, which East German party functionaries interpreted as an anti-Leninist provocation, he for a while became persona non grata, but the relationship soon revived.

Weiss was one of only a handful of western artists and intellectuals whose work attracted wide interest in both Germanies though in both states he was also subjected to distrust and denunciations.