During the 1978-79 season, Rosel Zech was active in Hamburg at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus and then returned to her native city of Berlin, where she acted on the Volksbühne.
In 1973 she appeared in a small role in The Tenderness of Wolves with Kurt Raab and Margit Carstensen.
The same year, Peter Zadek cast the actress in his film version of Kleiner Mann – was nun?
In the children's film Die Vorstadtkrokodile [de] from 1977, she played Mrs. Wolferman, the mother of one of the "crocodiles".
In 1981, she was cast by Rainer Werner Fassbinder in the film Lola (1981) in a supporting role as the wife of Mario Adorf.
[citation needed] From 2002 until her death, she had a regular role as the mother superior in the German TV series Um Himmels Willen.