Günter Jendrich

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Günter Kurt Paul Jendrich (born August 5, 1920 in Breslau ; † June 3, 1969 in Ebenung near Baden-Baden ) was a regionally popular German journalist with an early focus on topics , later known nationwide through radio , television and publications , since the late 1940s Motorsport and later the main concern of road safety . Its name is associated in particular with the first live radio report from the other side of the globe, the 1955 Grand Prix of Argentina near Buenos Aires on January 16, 1955, as well as the one on November 15, 1961 for the first time from Südwestfunk (SWF) for the ARD broadcast television program Das Rasthaus . Jendrich invented this first car and traffic magazine on German television, which became the trademark of the SWF, conceived every program of the magazine and moderated it a total of 83 times until his untimely death, the last time from his sick bed in April 1969 a few weeks before his death .

Günter Jendrich privately

Early years

Günter Jendrich was the first son of the master electrician Paul Jendrich and his wife Klara, née Eckelt, in Breslau. Here he spent his childhood and youth. A younger sister was fatally hit by a drunken driver as a child and died shortly afterwards in hospital. In 1939 Günter Jendrich was called up for military service. After being expelled from Silesia , the Jendrich family fled to Bad Ems shortly before the end of the war . There married Günter Jendrich, which according displaced passport had his permanent residence in the later federal territory since 18 June 1945 on 28 July 1945, the clerk Elfriede Henriette Müller. A few weeks later, on October 1, 1945, Jendrich began to work for the Koblenz transmitter set up by the French occupation forces ; soon afterwards it belonged to the Südwestfunk broadcasting from Baden-Baden under French management for the entire French occupation zone from March 31, 1946 . Their son Volker was born on May 4, 1946. Elfriede Jendrich died on November 15, 1947 after a serious illness. In 1948 Günter Jendrich moved to the broadcasting center of Südwestfunk in Baden-Baden. There he met the first broadcaster for Südwestfunk, Jutta Telge , whom he married for the second time on October 1, 1948 in Baden-Baden. From this marriage the second son Thorsten Jendrich emerged in 1953 , who was born on the 33rd birthday of his father.

Career

Günter Jendrich began his steep media career as head of service (LvD) in radio . It was there that his talent for reporting was discovered early on . Like the future “football pope” and friend of mine Rudi Michel , he too quickly made a name for himself as a sports reporter in the entire broadcasting area of ​​Südwestfunk; In July 1949, for example, Jendrich and the sound engineer Ernst Gerstle reported for the SWF on the Rhineland-Palatinate tour of cyclists from a VW Beetle that had been specially converted into an OB van . So it came about that Jendrich and Michel soon joined the top-class German reporter team around Herbert Zimmermann (reporter) and Kurt Brumme (presenter) from Northwest German Broadcasting (NWDR), Ludwig Maibohm from Hessischer Rundfunk (HR), Gerd Krämer (sports journalist) and Rainer Günzler from Süddeutscher Rundfunk (SR) and Harry Valérien and Josef Kirmaier from Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) belonged. The first high point in Jendrich's career was the broadcast live report from the Argentine Grand Prix at the beginning of 1955, a technical masterpiece at the time. He started this live report with the now legendary sentences: “Hello Germany, hello Germany, hello Baden-Baden. At that moment I received the signal that our direct broadcast could begin. / 12,000 kilometers from home, the reporter from Southwestern Radio calls in from Argentina's capital Buenos Aires: My time at this point is 6:24 PM. In your home it should now be 10 PM, night that is, and I assume , winter cold. With us the sun is in the sky and burns down hot on the autodrome. At the beginning of the Argentine Grand Prix [...] we had an air temperature of 38 degrees, 57 degrees were measured on the ground. ”“ Back then in Argentina ”, Günter Jendrich later admitted in a conversation,“ I got the virus of motorsports and fast cars ”. From then on, Günter Jendrich moved with the Automobile World Championship circus (later: Formula 1 circus) around the world from racetrack to racetrack; In addition, he also reported on rallies from, for example, black African countries. His friends and acquaintances included racing legends such as Juan Manuel Fangio , Karl Kling , Stirling Moss , Hans Herrmann and Joakim Bonnier as well as the legendary racing director of Mercedes-Benz , Alfred Neubauer , and of Porsche , Fritz Huschke von Hanstein .

Günter Jendrich with Alfred Neubauer, Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss at the German Grand Prix on August 8, 1963 at the Nürburgring

The live report of the race for the World Automobile Championship on September 10, 1961 in Monza ( Italy ), which he spoke with Rainer Günzler, is one of the darkest hours in Günter Jendrich's reporter life. There was a tragic accident in which, in addition to 16 spectators (another 60 spectators suffered serious injuries), his friend Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips was killed; Günzler and Jendrich broke off the report after they, deeply shocked, had only made great efforts to announce the death in an accident.

In 1955 Günter Jendrich had that 24-hour race of Le Mans in France broadcast live, in which Pierre Levegh tore his Mercedes was killed and due to lack of safety equipment to the circuit 84 viewers with her death. These experiences and in particular the death of Graf Berghe von Trips led Jendrich to decide to stop the racing reports. "I lose so many good friends on the racetracks year after year", Günter Jendrich once said to colleagues, "that I will stop".

Traffic broadcasts

From 1961, Günter Jendrich, who was now building up close contacts to the automotive industry and also to the Federal Ministry of Transport ( Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure ), developed concepts for transport programs such as B. Red-Yellow-Green ( quiz program for young people; SWF 1961–1963; with Susanne Schwarzberg as assistant), traffic guide (for children and young people; SWF 1965) and Help with . The most successful and long-lasting (1961–2005; until 1971 in the first program / Das Erste , then in the third program of SR / Saarländischer Rundfunk , SDR / Süddeutscher Rundfunk and SWF) was the car and traffic magazine Das Rasthaus , "the cars, spare parts, Tests tires etc. and provides information on traffic policy and traffic safety ”. The magazine was initially moderated by Jendrich alone and from 1964 together with his future wife, the actress Antje Hagen .

In the individual programs of Das Rasthaus , for example, in addition to legal issues, the focus was always on more safety in road traffic; Above all, extensive rounds of discussions were held about this, but over the years this was increasingly perceived by viewers as less telegenic. In this context, Jendrich, who has received several international awards for his commitment, also called on the automotive industry in particular to incorporate more safety-relevant aspects for drivers and pedestrians into new designs when developing new vehicles.

His expertise in general road safety, which he had acquired over the years, earned him a lot of recognition from his viewers, the industry and even his opponents. Wolf Littmann , who succeeded Jendrich as head of the program Das Rasthaus after Jendrich's early death , copied this in his book Sound, Camera is running : “Following in the footsteps of a well-known predecessor was no easy matter. Whoever I came into contact with, I was immediately asked about Günter Jendrich, and it always sounded that he had been an expert who was appreciated. His funeral had proven the respect he enjoyed in the automotive industry. At the Baden-Baden cemetery there was a crowd, as if a high-ranking politician was being carried to rest, and at the grave wreaths and flowers from car manufacturers were piled up in numbers that could hardly be imagined. "

Late years

After the divorce from his second wife, Günter Jendrich met Antje Hagen in the early 1960s , who worked for radio and television for Südwestfunk, worked at the Baden-Baden theater and in 1964 took over the co-moderation of Das Rasthaus . Antje Hagen and Günter Jendrich were married on August 20, 1966 in Hinterzarten in the Black Forest . Together with their son Jens Jendrich, born on March 18, 1967, and their son Thorsten, they lived in Ebenung near Baden-Baden. Günter Jendrich died of leukemia diagnosed in February 1969 . His grave is in the Lichtental cemetery , a district of Baden-Baden.

The grave at the Lichtental cemetery near Baden-Baden

Awards

Fonts

  • With Fritz Koeltze : The Path of the Silver Arrows. Two reports on the origin and construction of the Mercedes-Benz “Silver Arrow” racing car (1954). Audiobook 2015. ISBN 978-3-9561535-8-7 .
  • Your right to the steering wheel: A legal advisor for the practice from the television series "Das Rasthau" . Wiesbaden, A. Hassler 1967.
  • Radio report from the Argentine Grand Prix January 16, 1955 . Under the title Long Line in: Auto, Motor, Sport , 8/1984, pp. 268–270.

literature

  • Der Spiegel , 50/1968, December 9, 1968, section personal data .
  • Holger Heck, Werner Lüth: Boss rolled the bed into the TV studio . In: Badisches Tagblatt , April 21, 1969.
  • He died without fear . In: Listen! , No. 24, 1969.
  • In a nutshell . In: Listen! , Berlin edition, No. 25, 1969, p. 10.
  • Wolf Littmann: Sound off, camera is running. Reportage about reports . Bayreuth, Hestia 1984.

Web sources

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Boss rolled the bed into the TV studio
  2. ↑ All of the following information is supported in particular by original documents (e.g. family register, certificates, ID cards) and statements by his son Thorsten Jendrich
  3. ↑ The surname Telge-Wangemann, which can be found on the Internet and which adds the name of the stepfather to the maiden name, was only adopted after the divorce from Günter Jendrich.
  4. ↑ Thorsten Jendrich also works in the media industry. As the managing partner of COMMOC GmbH based in Oersdorf / Hamburg, he produces industrial films.
  5. ↑ SWR Jahres-Chroniken , p. 15.
  6. ↑ Findbuch 1 and Findbuch 2 record 10 entries that show Jendrich's collaboration with Günzler, Brumme, Kirmaier and Valérien since February 1950.
  7. ↑ See Auto, Motor, Sport .
  8. ↑ Conversation with the son Thorsten Jendrich. The statement is guaranteed by this.
  9. ↑ Conversation with the son Thorsten Jendrich. The statement is guaranteed by this.
  10. ↑ ard chronicle .
  11. ↑ Littmann, p. 301.
  12. ↑ At the end of 1968, Der Spiegel reported, however: "Günter Jendrich, 48, moderator of TV traffic programs (" Das Rasthaus ") at Südwestfunk Baden-Baden and two-time winner of the Christophorus Prize 'for promoting safety in road traffic', cannot do any Federal Cross of Merit received. At the suggestion of Transport Minister Leber, the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Interior checked whether Jendrich was worthy of the decoration. Result of the research: The traffic educator has three previous convictions for exceeding the speed limit and endangering transport; another procedure is still ongoing. Jendrich: 'I committed these violations on purpose to investigate complaints from my viewers about unreasonable speed restrictions. If I don't get a Cross of Merit because of that, that's an additional honor for me. '"
  13. ↑ Littmann, p. 299f.
  14. ↑ Jens Jendrich has worked as a scriptwriter for TV series such as SOKO Donau , Alarm für Cobra 11 , Mord in bester Gesellschaft , In allerfreund , Die Rettungsflieger and Medicopter 117 .
personal data
SURNAME Jendrich, Günter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jendrich, Günter Kurt Paul (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist, television presenter
DATE OF BIRTH August 5, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH 3rd June 1969
Place of death Leveling near Baden-Baden