Manfred Sondermann

Manfred Sondermann (born July 2, 1938 in Berlin ) is a German cartoonist .

Life

Sondermann grew up in Berlin and Zeulenroda and initially trained as a machine fitter, before studying mechanical engineering between 1962 and 1967 and working as a design engineer. Sondermann has a second job as a cartoonist. He lives in Zeulenroda.

Sondermann is a member of the Association of Visual Artists Thuringia and the eo plauen society.

plant

In his childhood, Sondermann preferred to draw humorous pictures and based himself on models such as eoplauen and Paul Simmel . The first cartoons were published in the local newspaper Volkswacht in 1954 . Due to his work as a mechanical engineer, Sondermann initially drew mainly technical caricatures, which have been published regularly since 1977 in the journal Maschinenbautechnik published by Verlag Technik , and produced illustrations for technical books. In the November issue of the magazine in 1981 Herbert Sandberg presented the "Sondermann special case" to a broad audience for the first time, the robots of which in the caricature are not just imaginary, "but are actually shown in a verifiably functional way".

In 1987, Verlag Technik published a small volume with technical caricatures, which both target the exaggerated belief in progress and the environmental sins of the early 1980s, as well as drafting possible scenarios for the future. In the last few years of the GDR , Sondermann increasingly turned to political caricature. His system-critical sheets, rooted or Das Haus, in which I live, could not be published in the GDR, but appeared immediately after the political collapse in the Wendebuch (Berlin 1990).

In 1991 Sondermann finally established himself as a draftsman of political caricatures with the figure of "Ossikar". Between 1991 and 2006 the caricatures, which usually consisted of four pictures, appeared regularly in the Hofer Frankenpost and Thüringenpost . The focus gradually shifted from the topic of 'reunification' to current political issues. Since 2004, Sondermann has been taking part in the flashback , a competition for political caricature and photography.

Publications

• The kiss for the robot and other caricatures . Berlin (Verlag Technik) 1987 ( ISBN 3-341-00331-2 )
• The reversible book . Berlin (Verlag Technik) 1990 ( ISBN 3-341-01024-6 )
• Ossicar . Hof (Frankenpost Verlag) 1994

Honors

The public observatory in Drebach (Ore Mountains) calls the planetoid 1999 RU32 after Ossikar, discovered on September 5, 1999. He now bears the official name (59828) Ossikar .

literature

• Herbert Sandberg: Special case Sondermann. In: magazine. Issue 11/1981, pp. 25-27
• Heinz Frotscher: The inventor of the Ossikar. In: Green hills, blue valleys. Stories from and about the Zeulenroda drive. Zeulenroda 2007, pp. 271-303

Web links

• Newspaper article "Exciting school excursion into the past" (Frankenpost from June 11, 2008)
• Selection of current political caricatures: www.digitale-schule-bayern.de