Gunther Witte

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Gunther Witte (born September 26, 1935 in Riga , Latvia ; † August 16, 2018 in Berlin ) was a German dramaturge , television editor, film producer and screenwriter . He was the inventor of the Tatort television series and from 1979 to 1998 head of television play at WDR .

Life

Witte spent his youth in Berlin . From 1953 to 1957 he studied German and theater studies at the East Berlin Humboldt University . He worked as a dramaturge at the Städtische Theatern Karl-Marx-Stadt , before he moved from the GDR to the Federal Republic in 1961 and became a freelance lecturer at Bavaria . From 1963 he worked as an editor and dramaturge in the television drama department of the WDR.

On behalf of his then department head Günter Rohrbach , Witte developed the concept for the ARD crime series Tatort in 1969 . It should compete with the increasingly successful ZDF crime thrillers . The model was the radio play series Es Happened in Berlin on the West Berlin radio broadcaster RIAS , based on actual criminal cases , which Witte knew from his student days. The Tatort series, which was started in 1970 and was initially only planned for two years , was able to establish itself permanently. Witte also worked as a crime scene coordinator for ARD.

As a WDR editor, Witte worked with directors such as Volker Schlöndorff ( Die lost honor of Katharina Blum , 1975), Wolfgang Petersen (including Die Konsequenz , 1977) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder ( Berlin Alexanderplatz , 1980). Together with Bernhard Wicki he wrote the screenplay for his feature film Die Eroberung der Zitadelle , which ran in 1977 in the Berlinale competition . In 1979 Witte rose to the position of head of the television play department at WDR. He promoted the development of the docu-drama and supported Hans W. Geißendörfer in the realization of the 1985 television series Lindenstrasse , to which he also contributed the title. In September 1998 he retired and moved back to Berlin. His successor at WDR was Gebhard Henke .

In 2001 Witte received the "Special Honor" of the Adolf Grimme Prize for personalities who have made a contribution to television. Since July 2007 he has been an honorary member of the German Film Academy . At the Bambi Gala 2013, he was awarded the jury's honorary prize for inventing the crime scene .

Biographical

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gunther Witte at filmportal.de , accessed on November 25, 2012.
  2. ↑ WDR mourns the creator of the crime scene and former WDR television game director Gunther Witte. Westdeutscher Rundfunk press release on presseportal.de , August 20, 2018, accessed on August 22, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b Eike Wenzel : The sharp sword of reality orientation. Interview with Gunther Witte. In: Eike Wenzel (Ed.): Investigations into crime scenes: research and interrogation, protocols and photos of evidence. Bertz, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-929470-18-7 , pp. 26-32.
  4. ↑ Hans W. Geißendörfer. In: Lindenstrasse.de. January 9, 2007; archived from the original on February 11, 2013 ; accessed on August 22, 2018 .
  5. ↑ It was the inspector's fault - “Tatort Lindenstrasse”: Gunther Witte is due the Grimme Prize. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 20, 2001, No. 67, p. 58
  6. ↑ The German Film Academy welcomes Heinz Ungureit and Gunther Witte as honorary members. (pdf, 86 kB) Press release of the German Film Academy, June 29, 2007, archived from the original on October 25, 2007 ; accessed on August 22, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Witte, Gunther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German dramaturge, television editor, film producer and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Riga , Latvia
DATE OF DEATH August 16, 2018
Place of death Berlin