Matthias Leupold was born in East Berlin in 1959 and grew up in a well-off, artistic family in Prenzlauer Berg. After completing his compulsory military service, M. Leupold began studying electrical engineering in Dresden. When he refused to declare his readiness to serve as a reserve officer in the NVA, he was advised to withdraw from the university and left the Technical University of Dresden. In the years that followed, from 1979 onwards, M. Leupold pursued various professions, working as a parcel deliverer in Berlin and finally as a driver for the magazine for fashion and culture "Sibylle" in Leipzig. There he got to know many well-known photographers in the GDR, some of whom he assisted.
A very close school friend let M. Leupold in on his escape plans in 1981 and together they explored ways to flee across the border. Among other things, a failed escape attempt took them as far as the Black Sea in Romania. At the end of January 1982, M. Leupold was imprisoned in Hohenschönhausen because of the previous arrest of his friend. He was remanded in custody in Magdalenenstraße and Hohenschönhausen until the beginning of March. M. Leupold was sentenced to two years' probation for aiding and abetting “Republikflucht” and for failing to report crimes against the GDR (i.e. the thwarted escape of his friend with a Hamburg organisation of escape helpers). There were further arrests in the following years. During this time, M. Leupold also began to work professionally as a photographic artist. After several exhibition closures in spring 1986, M. Leupold's application to leave the country was approved and he moved to West Berlin in autumn 1986, where he began studying visual communication design at the Hochschule der Künste in 1987.
Today, he works as a photo and video artist and teaches as a professor of artistic documentary film and photography. Matthias Leupold has been guiding groups of visitors through the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial since 2022 and has been working as a contemporary witness at schools and educational institutions for the Coordinating Office of Contemporary Witnesses since 2023.