Klaus Renft

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Klaus Renft at a performance by the Klaus Renft Combo in 2003

Klaus Renft (born June 30, 1942 in Jena ; † October 9, 2006 in Löhma ; civil Klaus Jentzsch ) was a German musician. He was best known in the GDR through his bands Butlers and Klaus Renft Combo . His stage name Renft was the maiden name of his mother Charlotte.

biography

Renft experienced his childhood in the village of Gernewitz between Jena and Stadtroda , where he lived in the local dairy. His birth father was not, as he later learned, the mother's husband, but a doctor from Stadtroda. In April 1952 he moved to Leipzig with his mother and attended the Petri School here . In 1957 he had his first appearances with the school band "Kolibri".

In 1958 Renft founded the "Klaus-Renft-Combo" with some friends in Leipzig. It existed until the performance ban in 1962 and was then renamed "The Butlers". His residential addresses in Leipzig were Mozartstrasse 8 and Hohe Strasse 49. In 1963 Renft passed the skilled worker examination as a cabinet maker. On March 1, 1964 there was the first officially mentioned appearance of the "Butlers". In the same year the band received an award at the German Youth Meeting. As early as 1965, however, the popular "butlers" were given an "unlimited gambling ban" this time due to their western style. This happened at the same time as the ban on many other bands in Leipzig, which triggered the Leipzig Beat Demonstration , which is unique in this form . From 1967 the "Klaus Renft Combo" was allowed to perform in public again after it was banned, and radio recordings were also possible from 1971.

Her songs, the themes of which often dealt with state repression ( chains are becoming scarcer ) or were multilayered / ambiguous such as ( between love and anger , encouragement , after the battle ), questioned the image given by the state power. That is why the band, which was run under the code name "Wanderer" as early as 1964, came under the auspices of the State Security . New music recordings were no longer allowed after the 1974 title But I Can't Understand (2nd place in the NBI Beatparade ), and in September 1975 the “Klaus Renft Combo” was again banned. The musicians complained to the then culture minister of the GDR Hans-Joachim Hoffmann . In the aftermath secret recordings were made as the rock ballad of the little Otto , a possible escape from East Germany had to content, or the song matters of faith, that with the topic construction soldier a national taboo addressed. At the end of October 1975 Renft lost its approval from the Ministry of Culture. He then visited the regime critic Robert Havemann and personally wrote a letter to Erich Honecker on December 8, 1975 . At the same time, an article on the band and their situation appeared in Spiegel magazine .

Klaus Renft's grave in Leipzig's southern cemetery

After a summons from the Leipzig District Council on January 15 , Renft submitted an application to leave the country in April 1976 . In May he was able to leave for West Berlin because of his marriage to his Greek girlfriend . Several attempts to gain a foothold musically, including with the Windminister group , failed. Olaf Leitner , radio presenter at RIAS , not only gave Renft his first homely accommodation in West Berlin, but also got him a job as a music editor at the station. Renft finally got his first apartment of his own at Gotenstrasse 14. In 1981 he switched to the Renaissance Theater , where he worked as stage manager and sound engineer until 1990 . On July 20, 1981 Renft was stripped of his GDR citizenship.

After the peaceful revolution in the GDR Renft returned and from 1990 appeared again together with the "Klaus Renft Combo". Nevertheless, like many other GDR bands, she was no longer able to build on the earlier successes. In 1996 he had to leave the band temporarily due to internal differences. From March 1998, at the anniversary concerts "40 Years of Klaus Renft Combo", he performed again together with his companions from the 1970s.

In October 2000, Renft had to undergo chemotherapy for a colon cancer that had been recently diagnosed. He initially recovered and worked intensively as a musician again. However, in the summer of 2005, the doctors discovered that he had another tumor, of which he died on the night of October 9, 2006 on the way to the clinic. His urn was buried on November 21, 2006 in the Leipzig South Cemetery (grave 319/324).

Private

  • 1965: Wedding, first son born - parallel to the unlimited gambling ban for the "Butlers"
  • 1967: birth of a daughter
  • 1976: Second marriage (until 1988), a son was born in 1982
  • 1994: birth of a daughter

Honors

  • A Renft bass guitar has been in the House of History in Bonn since 1994 .
  • On October 9, 2007, the first anniversary of Renft's death, part of the Knopstrasse in Leipzig was renamed Renftstrasse. The street begins at one of the former venues of the Klaus-Renft-Combo, the clubhouse " Anker ".

literature

Audio books

Movies

  • 1977: String change , 85 min, director / screenplay Olaf Leitner , with Klaus Renft

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1975, GDR censorship: Cross from the functionary , published in Der Spiegel , December 1, 1975
  2. ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Klaus Renft
  3. ↑ 1977, the film changing strings on the homepage of the Klaus Renft Combo ( memento of the original from October 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed October 19, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.renftcombo.de
personal data
SURNAME Renft, Klaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jentzsch, Klaus (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German musician
DATE OF BIRTH June 30, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Jena
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 2006
Place of death Löhma