Eduard Zimmermann (moderator)

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Eduard "Ede" Zimmermann (born February 4, 1929 in Munich ; † September 19, 2009 there ) was a German journalist and television presenter . With the television program Aktenzeichen XY ... unsolved he became known in German-speaking countries as a “criminal hunter”.

Life

youth

Eduard Zimmermann was born in the Alte Heide housing estate in Munich. His mother was 17 years old at the time of his birth. His childhood was initially marked by many moves within Germany, as his mother often changed jobs as a waitress. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War , he moved to live with his grandparents in Ottobrunn . After the war began, his grandmother sent him to his mother in Magdeburg , where she had meanwhile married a hotelier . As a ten-year-old Zimmermann worked in his parents' hotel.

post war period

In the post-war period Zimmermann initially proposed in Hamburg as a tent worker in circus Hagenbeck and dresser of Willy Fritsch , later as thieves and black marketeers by and was arrested and in the Fuhlsbüttel prison brought, where he was released the next day. With a forged ID and diploma, Zimmermann finally found work as a road construction engineer in Sweden .

Zimmermann later addressed his past as a criminal in his autobiography in 2005, among other things. In a newspaper interview he stated that time had made him hard: “I am, so to speak, proof that you can get off the wrong track if you do it want."

For a report on behalf of the newspaper Dagens Nyheter , Zimmermann went back to Germany in the Soviet occupation zone to do research . There he was charged with espionage in 1950 and sentenced to 25 years of forced labor. He had to serve four years of his sentence in the JVA Bautzen and was released early on January 17, 1954 as part of an amnesty . In the following years Zimmermann worked as a freelance journalist for various Hamburg newspapers and later as an editor for NDR and ZDF .

Public legal radio

Zimmermann hosted a total of 161 programs on ZDF from 1964 to 1997 in the series Caution Trap! - Nepper, tugboat, farmer catcher . From October 20, 1967 to October 24, 1997, he hosted 300 episodes of the television series Aktenzeichen XY ... unsolved . The show is produced by the company Securitel, which Zimmermann founded. Because of his work, Zimmermann was appointed "Honorary Commissioner" and was nicknamed "Criminal Hunters" and "Ganoven-Ede".

In the fall of 1997, he retired from working in front of the cameras, but continued to work closely with the editorial staff of XY . Zimmermann also operated a security portal on the Internet in cooperation with ZDF. For the 350th broadcast of XY on November 8, 2002, Zimmermann came to Rudi Cerne's studio to re-introduce the 1981 murder case "Ursula Herrmann". Zimmermann's last television appearance was on XY's 400th broadcast on May 10, 2007, alongside the former directors of the Zurich XY recording studio, Konrad Toenz , Werner Vetterli and Stephan Schifferer .

Private television

In the 1990s, Zimmermann was the overall manager and consultant responsible for the SAT.1 format K - crime in the crosshairs . The series led to extremely critical comments. It was particularly criticized that Zimmermann inseparably mixed his voluntary work at the White Ring with his commercial interests as a journalist. Another point of criticism was based on the fact that the format was fundamentally based on the concept of reality TV and prepared "the subject of crime in a sensational and voyeuristic way". In the political ARD magazine Kontraste Zimmermann was accused in this context of instrumentalizing crime victims for his TV format. This accusation was rejected by the board of the "White Ring".

Private

Zimmermann had been married to Rosmarie Zimmermann (1921–2008) since 1960, who had daughters Heike Zimmermann and Sabine Zimmermann (1951–2020), who were adopted by Eduard Zimmermann. From 1997 he lived with his wife in Leukerbad ( Wallis ), Switzerland . After the death of his wife, Zimmermann moved back to Munich in 2008. There he died of dementia on September 19, 2009 at the age of 80 in the Christophorus Hospice . He was buried in the north cemetery in Munich .

Zimmermann's daughter Sabine Zimmermann worked as a film director in the production of XY from 1983 and was co-host of the show from 1987 to 2001. In addition, between 1997 and 2001 she presented the program Caution Trap! . After that, she continued to work behind the cameras as production manager at XY .

White ring

In 1976 Zimmermann was one of the founders of the White Ring Victims Aid Association and was its chairman until 1994. In previous years he had to repeatedly defend himself against allegations that publicly accused him of being insensitive to donations for his personal benefit. In 1994 he resigned the chair after the use of the White Ring for his production company Securitel had been criticized in several media. Zimmermann held the office of honorary chairman from 1994 to 2000. After he was accused of “behavior that was damaging to the association”, Zimmermann separated from the organization in 2000.

Awards

Publications

  • ... the crook's wonderland: Nepper, tug, farmer catcher. Experiences and knowledge from the television series "Beware of the trap" . Schneekluth, Darmstadt 1966.
  • The invisible web: rapport for friends and enemies . Südwest-Verlag, Munich 1969.
  • How do you protect yourself from crime? . Verlag Das Beste, Stuttgart 1974 (not in bookshops).
  • Don't Give Crime a Chance: A Guide to Safety . Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1989, ISBN 3-404-66167-2 .
  • I was a crook too: file number xy . Riva-Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-936994-13-7 .

Trivia

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eduard Zimmermann admits to his criminal past . Spiegel Online from September 8, 2005.
  2. ↑ To The XY Recording Studios ( Memento of the original from May 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Text on the fansite audience reactions . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zuschauerreaktionen.de
  3. ↑ so the Süddeutsche Zeitung under obituary Eduard Zimmermann is dead - The living room investigator, sueddeutsche.de, September 20, 2009 , accessed on May 21, 2012.
  4. ^ Obituary Eduard Zimmermann is dead - The living room investigator, sueddeutsche.de, September 20, 2009 , accessed on May 21, 2012.
  5. ↑ "Aktenzeichen XY" - Father Eduard Zimmermann is dead. In: hna.de/dpa of September 20, 2009, accessed on October 27, 2017.
  6. ↑ Eduard Zimmermann , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 50/2009 of December 8, 2009, accessed on October 26, 2017, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  7. ↑ Moderator of "Aktenzeichen XY" Eduard Zimmermann is dead, sueddeutsche.de, September 20, 2009 , accessed on May 21, 2012.
  8. ^ Knerger.de: The grave of Eduard Zimmermann
  9. ^ "Aktenzeichen XY" moderator Sabine Zimmermann has died. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. May 4, 2020, accessed May 4, 2020 .
  10. ↑ a b cf. z. B. Weißer Ring: Weisser Ring criticizes Eduard Zimmermann's behavior that is damaging to the association, press release of October 16, 2000 , accessed on May 21, 2012 .
  11. ↑ Bernd Graff: The living room investigator ( memento of the original from September 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of September 20, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sueddeutsche.de
personal data
SURNAME Zimmermann, Eduard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zimmermann, Ede (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German television presenter and security expert
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 2009
Place of death Munich