Hubert Schmidt-Gigo

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Hubert Schmidt-Gigo or Fred Gigo (birth name Hubert Schmidt , born June 4, 1919 in Waltershausen , † April 12, 2004 in Wilhelmshorst ) was a German officer , conférencier , parodist , radio and television presenter and motorsport reporter .

Life

Schmidt grew up in Hohenstein-Ernstthal . He attended the secondary school in Chemnitz , after which he worked as a patroneur and pattern maker , at times also as a dishwasher . In 1933 he stayed briefly as a student trainee in the United States of America, where he lived with his father, who worked there as a lecturer . He learned the English , French and Japanese languages .

Schmidt served in the Wehrmacht from 1939 to 1945 . He experienced the beginning of the Second World War in September 1939 in the Reich Labor Service in Poland . In November 1939 he began his six-month training as a flag boy . In the spring of 1940 he had his first frontline deployment near Antwerp during the campaign in the west . Because he swam through a canal by himself and blew up a bunker, he was promoted to corporal for "bravery in front of the enemy" and was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd class . After his next assignment in Dunkirk he went to Paris, where he was released from his regular duty in the guard regiment. Thanks to his good language skills, he was given special tasks such as city tours for the generals in Paris. In the spring of 1941, Schmidt-Gigo's troops were transferred to the Eastern Front, where he took part in the attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 as a lieutenant and company commander . Until the end of the war he was used as an officer on the Eastern Front. He was wounded six times and was awarded all three levels of the Wound Badge (1939) . He held numerous other military medals for his front service. He was also promoted to first lieutenant and on November 1, 1944 to captain .

In February 1945 Schmidt, meanwhile battalion commander , was ordered to occupy the Königsberg – Pillau railway line . By clever tactics, he was able to hold up a larger Soviet tank detachment long enough so that 14 trains with German refugees could get from Königsberg to Pillau . For this he was awarded the Knight's Cross on March 18, 1945 in Hohenstein-Ernstthal . When he was awarded the Knight's Cross, he received an entry in the Golden Book of the city of Hohenstein-Ernstthal. In the spring of 1945 he was taken prisoner by the Soviets , from which he was released a year later. When he was released, he received all military medals back.

In the summer of 1945 Schmidt gained his first stage experience in the Allotria Varieté in Chemnitz , where he appeared as an announcer and parodist. He made his first radio appearance on June 22, 1947 in a broadcast with Wilhelm Bendow and Beate Riehmann. In the spring of 1946 he appeared as "Fred Gigo, the mad reporter" in the Eros circus , where he parodied racing drivers and their machines. In 1949 Schmidt-Gigo played a decisive role in the successful revival of the traditional motorcycle races on the Sachsenring near Hohenstein-Ernstthal after the war-related break, which he not only helped to organize and commented on as a course spokesman - the "voice of the Sachsenring" - but occasionally (for the first time 1952) also competed as a driver himself. After that he was hired as a test driver, for example for Škoda , Tatra or Trabant . He had his own ranks at the German broadcaster and the German television radio , so he moderated the television program " From the world of traffic ".

From 1949 Schmidt-Gigo was under constant observation by the Ministry for State Security (MfS). In the meantime it was planned to recruit him as an unofficial employee because of his contacts with western racing drivers . After the MfS determined in the spring of 1964 that Schmidt-Gigo had received the Knight's Cross as a soldier during the war, it imposed a ban on him appearing on radio and television and banned his appearances at the Sachsenring. After that he played as an emcee, mainly on smaller stages.

In 1974 Schmidt-Gigo was rehabilitated and was able to return to the microphone and in front of the camera. From 1975 he presented his own radio series, including "Alle Nine", "Fun with Friends", "Well then ...". He had regular stage appearances among others in the Steintor-Varieté in Halle (Saale) , in programs of the concert and guest performance directors (ten years with the "Benny-Baré-Show") as well as in socialist countries , especially in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia , in Hungary and Poland. In the committee for entertainment arts he was involved in the “promotion of young speakers, game masters and disc jockeys”.

Schmidt-Gigo had his last public appearance at the 75th anniversary of the Sachsenring in 2002. In 2004 he gave the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) an interview about his life. In the same year he succumbed to cancer. In August 2016 the MDR broadcast a thirty-minute documentary entitled Hubert Schmidt-Gigo. The matter with the knight's cross. A life in two dictatorships.

Awards

Video material

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Uwe card: The matter with the knight's cross. Hubert Schmidt-Gigo - a life in two dictatorships. From the series: CVs. In: Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk , broadcast on August 18, 2016 at 11:05 pm; Length 30 minutes
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Jochen Cerny : Gigo, Fred (actually: Hubert Schmidt-Gigo). In: Federal Foundation for the Processing of the SED Dictatorship , Biographical Databases. Biographical information from the manual “Who was who in the GDR?”, Ch. Links Verlag, October 2009.
  3. ↑ a b c d Wilhelmshorster was known as the "voice of the Sachsenring". In: Potsdam Latest News from April 17, 2004
  4. ↑ Oliver Erens: Press work for dummies. John Wiley & Sons, 2012. ISBN 3-52764-230-7 , p. 379
personal data
SURNAME Schmidt-Gigo, Hubert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gigo, Fred; Schmidt, Hubert (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German conférencier, parodist, radio and television presenter and motorsport reporter
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Waltershausen
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 2004
Place of death Wilhelmshorst