An apparatus for actively discharging at least one DC link capacitor, comprising at least one half-bridge circuit having a high-side transistor and a low-side transistor, wherein the half-bridge circuit is arranged in parallel with the DC link capacitor, wherein a voltage divider comprising at least two resistors is arranged in parallel with the DC link capacitor, wherein a tap of the voltage divider is connected to at least one differentiator, wherein at least one driver module for generating gate driver signals is assigned to the half-bridge circuit, and at least one control unit, wherein the control unit is designed in such a way that, in an active discharge mode, at least one transistor of the half-bridge circuit is controlled as a function of an output signal of the differentiator, as well as to an associated method.