Heinz Erhardt

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Honored on the 100th birthday by a special postage stamp from Deutsche Post AG in 2009

Heinz Erhardt (born February 20, 1909 in Riga , Russian Empire ; † June 5, 1979 in Hamburg-Wellingsbüttel ) was a German comedian , musician , composer , entertainer , cabaret artist , actor and poet .

Life

Heinz Erhardt was the son of the German-Baltic Kapellmeister Gustl Erhardt and his wife, a born Neldner. He grew up mostly with his maternal grandparents in what would later become the Latvian capital, Riga, where his grandfather Paul Neldner ran a music house. Heinz Erhardt came to the piano through his grandfather. His mother took him to St. Petersburg to start school , but he only stayed there for a short time. Heinz Erhardt was nephew of the Latvian Finance Minister Robert Erhardt (1874–1940). The family came from Hirschenhöfern , German colonists who had been settled in southern Livonia in the 1760s .

Youth and training

In 1919 his father took him to Germany . For a while he lived in Wennigser Mark near Hanover with his father's second wife, who was only nine years older than himself. From 1919 to 1924 he attended a boarding school in Barsinghausen near Hanover and the secondary school at Georgsplatz , today's Tellkampf School . Then he returned to Riga.

Erhardt had meanwhile changed schools 15 times. From 1924 he went to a German grammar school in Riga, where he belonged to an amateur drama group. In 1926 he left this school without a degree. He then attended the Conservatory in Leipzig until 1928 , where he studied piano and composition . Erhardt's childhood dream of becoming a pianist was not supported by his grandparents. His grandfather wanted Erhardt to get a commercial training and hired him as an apprentice in his music house.

family

In 1935, Heinz Erhardt married the daughter of the former Italian consul in Saint Petersburg, Gilda Zanetti (1913–1987), whom he says he had met in an elevator. The marriage had four children: Grit (1936–2016, married Berthold), Verena (* 1940, married Haacker), Gero (* 1943) and Marita (* 1944, married Malicke). Gero Erhardt became a cameraman and director . Erhardt's grandson Marek Erhardt is a voice actor and actor .

Career

From 1928 to 1938 Erhardt worked in Riga in the art and music shop of grandfather Paul Neldner's. In Riga he also appeared in the city's coffee houses with self-composed and comical texts and songs. In 1937 he performed his own songs in programs for the Reich broadcasters in Königsberg and Danzig .

1938 brought Willi Schaeffer Heinz Erhardt to Berlin at the cabaret comedian . In 1941 Erhardt was called up for military service during World War II . He had failed at two drafts , at the third he came - as a non-swimmer and wearing glasses - to the Navy in Stralsund , which was looking for a piano player for its orchestra . In the following years he worked in various places in the troop support and after the basic training never had a weapon in hand again. During the war he wrote peace poems. After the war, Erhardt and his family settled in Hamburg-Wellingsbüttel and worked as a radio presenter for the NWDR , his first well-known program was called So Was Dummes . In 1948, the station also took the composer Erhardt into its program with his 10 Pfennig opera . Before that, around Christmas 1946, Erhardt lived with his family in Hamburg-Blankenese . A report by Erhardt brought about a lawsuit with the landlord, which Erhardt lost, whereupon he had to pay a fine of 5,000 Reichsmarks . Then the Erhardts moved to Wellingsbüttel.

He celebrated his greatest successes in the cinema from 1957 as the main character in film comedies such as Der müde Theodor , widower with five daughters , The house tyrant , Always the cyclist , Of course the motorist and What is the matter with Willi? In many of his film roles, he plays a kind of nice, but somewhat confused and shy family man or uncle who likes to tell nonsense. At the same time, he mostly tried to depict the typical German from the time of the economic miracle .

In order to take away the fear of the audience, Heinz Erhardt wore horn-rimmed glasses with thick window glasses that did not correct his short-sightedness . As a result, he was only able to perceive the audience vaguely and was able to alleviate his stage fright .

humor

Erhardt's humor is primarily based on puns and twisted idioms . In the very last poem he acknowledged his role models Erich Kästner , Christian Morgenstern and Joachim Ringelnatz . The German German scholar Heinrich Detering described Erhardt as "a poet who did not always make it easy for himself and his readers because he wanted to make it too easy for them".

Many of his poems revolve around the themes of futility, transience and death in a subtle way, so that they can also be assigned to the genre of black humor .

Among other things, he served as a model for Otto Waalkes and Willy Astor .

Heinz Erhardt is also famous for his numerous funny poems. His performances included piano playing, intonation and dance, mostly in a small format, which rounded off his profile as a solo entertainer . There were also many partner numbers, for example in the film with Hans-Joachim Kulenkampff or Peter Alexander and on stage with Rudi Carrell or Udo Jürgens .

Honors, sickness and death

From the late 1960s, his health deteriorated; he often tormented himself on stage with a racing heart or a fever. On December 11, 1971 Erhardt suffered a stroke in which the language center of his brain was so affected that he could read and understand, but no longer speak and write. Due to this aphasia , he largely withdrew into private life. Tens of thousands of recovery letters were received for him.

In 1978/1979 Heinz Erhardt worked with his son Gero Erhardt on the television version of his comic opera Noch 'ne Oper , which he had already written in the 1930s. On February 21, 1979, one day after Heinz Erhardt's 70th birthday, this TV version was broadcast on ZDF ; There were many colleagues such as Paul Kuhn , Hans-Joachim Kulenkampff, Rudolf Schock , Ilse Werner and Helga Feddersen , his son Gero was behind the camera. Heinz Erhardt's voice was added from earlier radio recordings; In short, faded-in scenes, Erhardt himself could be seen sitting on a bench in a park as an amused poet.

The LP Was bin ich wieder für ein Schelm , released in 1972, sold over 250,000 copies by 1984 and was therefore honored with a gold record . The record company Teldec and the Klemner und Müller publishing house presented Heinz Erhardt with Das Goldene Gedicht on May 31, 1978 , a plaque with Erhardt's poem on Blähboy . This LP was released in 1985 in the GDR by VEB Deutsche Schallplatten and was also a great success there.

On June 1, 1979, Heinz Erhardt was subsequently awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany on his 70th birthday.

Erhardt died on June 5, 1979. He was buried in the Ohlsdorf cemetery in Hamburg. The grave is located in BI 66, 605–606.

Estate and posthumous honors

Heinz-Erhardt monument at Heinz-Erhardt-Platz in Göttingen as a scene in the film Naturally the drivers
Heinz-Erhardt-Park in Hamburg-Wellingsbüttel

Heinz Erhardt's estate included numerous piano compositions that he had written between 1925 and 1931. 23 of these pieces were first published on phonograms in 1994. The sheet music for these piano pieces was first published in print on his 100th birthday in 2009.

Heinz Erhardt is dedicated to a star in the star of satire - Walk of Fame of cabaret in Mainz .

The place in Göttingen , where Erhardt in the film Naturally the motorists as the police officer Dobermann regulated the road traffic, was renamed in May 2003 in Heinz-Erhardt-Platz . A stele was set up there. In mid-September 2019, the memorial made of vapor-coated acrylic glass initially disappeared without a trace. Slightly damaged, it reappeared on the Göttinger Wall on October 7, 2019.

In 2007 Heinz Erhardt came to vote for the best German-language comic in the ZDF program Our best - Comedian & Co. in second place behind Loriot . He was also among the top ten in the Our Best Actors Edition.

In 2009 John von Düffel wrote the play Ich, Heinz Erhardt for the comedian's 100th birthday as a humorous contribution to the integration debate. Murat Yeginer played the title role of the world premiere at the Staatstheater Oldenburg .

Also in 2009, Deutsche Post AG issued a special postage stamp worth EUR 0.55 (postage for a standard letter ).

On February 20, 2010, on the occasion of Heinz Erhardt's 101st birthday, the largest exhibition to date, Noch 'ne exhibition, was opened in Lutherstadt Wittenberg .

On June 24th 2010 the Heinz-Erhardt-Park in Hamburg-Wellingsbüttel was inaugurated. In 2009, the Wandsbek district selected a green area near Erhardt's former home in the Fasanenhain to celebrate the company's 100th birthday. In addition, boards with familiar verses were set up in the park.

In 2010 he was listed by TV critic Volker Bergmeister behind the front runner Loriot in second place of the ten most sustainable comedians .

In 2014 a hitherto unknown short film entitled Money was discovered in Vienna , which celebrated its television premiere on January 6, 2015 on NDR. The original film material was discovered in the estate of the director Johann Alexander Hübler-Kahla . The film is only 37 minutes long. It is not yet clear whether it is a short film or a supporting film for the cinema and why it was not published at the time.

Works

literature

Web links

Commons : Heinz Erhardt  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Heinz Erhardt  - Quotes

References and comments

  1. ↑ heinz-erhardt.de: biography
  2. ↑ Gustav Gangnus: The Hirschenhöfer . In: Social history of the Baltic Germans. Ed. V. Wilfried Schlau. 2nd edition. Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 2000. pp. 185–210, here p. 187.
  3. ↑ Erhardt's biography on heinz-erhardt.de
  4. Jump up ↑ The nation's rogue with a joke - Heinz Erhardt would have turned 100. ( Memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) - ZDF contribution on February 20, 2009.
  5. ↑ Due to the Control Council Act No. 18 , there was compulsory housing management
  6. ↑ Lothar Schröder: Legends: Heinz Erhardt Documentation. Beta gang production, 2017.
  7. ↑ Armgard Seegers: The fear of the stage. In: Hamburger Abendblatt , May 6, 2016.
  8. ↑ After: Steffen Jacobs (Ed.): Die komischen Deutschen. 881 witty poems from 400 years. Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-86150-598-3 , p. 803.
  9. ↑ For example Die Made , Stiche , Tatü Tatü , Der König Erl , Der Brummer , Beethoven's death mask . After: The strange Germans. 881 witty poems from 400 years.
  10. ↑ Waalke's interview on Die Welt , accessed on May 8, 2013.
  11. ↑ Astor Interview ( memento of September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) on Reutlinger Nachrichten of April 26, 2010.
  12. ↑ Gold / platinum database of the Federal Association of the Music Industry, accessed on July 16, 2016
  13. ↑ Erhardt, Heinz. on fernsehmuseum-hamburg.de, accessed on February 26, 2013.
  14. ^ The German comedian Heinz Erhardt dies on June 5th, 1979 in Hamburg. Website of the City of Hamburg, accessed on February 26, 2013.
  15. ^ The grave of Heinz Erhardt. on knerger.de
  16. ↑ The comedian composed delicious piano music. on zeit.de, accessed on February 26, 2013.
  17. ↑ Stars of Satire. at kabarettarchiv.de, accessed on February 26, 2013.
  18. ↑ Heinz Erhardt stele. at denkmale.goettingen.de, accessed on February 26, 2013.
  19. ↑ FAZ: Heinz Erhardt monument disappeared from October 5, 2019
  20. ↑ Göttinger Tagblatt: The Heinz Erhardt Monument is back from October 6, 2019
  21. ↑ Loriot, Otto & Co. continues to be top ranked among television audiences: 4.48 million ZDF viewers saw “Our Best Comedians & Co.” - 20.7 percent market share for the 160-minute show. on presseportal.de on April 28, 2007, accessed on October 5, 2019.
  22. ↑ Another rumor: Heinz Erhardt was a Turk. on welt.de, accessed on February 26, 2013.
  23. ↑ 100th birthday of Heinz Erhardt. at philatelie.deutschepost.de, accessed on February 26, 2013.
  24. ↑ The Life of a Rogue. at mz-web.de, accessed on February 26, 2013.
  25. ↑ Heinz-Erhardt-Park in Wellingsbüttel is inaugurated ( memento from September 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) hamburg.de, June 17, 2010, accessed on January 6, 2015.
  26. ↑ Photo Fasanenhain 9 in The celebrities once lived in these houses ( Hamburger Abendblatt ) with reference to Christiane Kruse: Who lived where in Hamburg. Stürtz-Verlag, Würzburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8003-1996-1 .
  27. ↑ The unforgotten rogue , on ten.de ( Memento from August 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  28. ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Unknown film by Heinz Erhardt discovered on mopo.de, accessed on December 21, 2014.
  29. ↑ NDR shows unknown Heinz Erhardt film ( memento from January 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) NDR, January 6, 2014.


personal data
SURNAME Erhardt, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Baltic comedian, musician, composer, entertainer, cabaret artist, actor and poet
DATE OF BIRTH February 20, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Riga , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH 5th June 1979
Place of death Hamburg-Wellingsbüttel