Otto Reutter

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Otto Reutter, 1900

Otto Reutter (* 24. April 1870 in Gardelegen ; † 3. March 1931 in Dusseldorf , actually Friedrich Otto August Pfützenreuter ) was a German singer , author of songs and comedian .

Life

Bronze sculpture by Otto Reutter in Gardelegen

As the son of Andreas Pfützenreuter (1843–1899), a traveling salesman who served with the Uhlans in the military , his father's side came from a Catholic family from Eichsfeld and his mother's side from the Altmark . Reutter attended the Catholic elementary school in Gardelegen and completed an apprenticeship as a commercial assistant in Gardelegen, Worbis and Lychen from 1884 to 1887. He later described his career as follows: “I wanted to go to the theater, a fight with my father. A businessman, secretly removed. ”In the summer of 1887 he was an extra in Fröbel's summer theater in Berlin. A first great success was the hit song I am a widow (song and Rhinelander) with music by Wilhelm Aletter , published in 1898 by the American music publisher The BF Wood Music Company Boston .

Otto Reutter in the Berlin Apollo Theater

During the First World War , from 1915 onwards, Reutter produced so-called war revues in the rented palace theater at the Zoo in Berlin; from the end of 1916 onwards, he sang songs in which the events and general opinion were sometimes presented critically as humorous. The song I would like to wake up when the sun is shining tells the story rather melancholy, sometimes even very sad about the general mood in the post-war period and Reutter's loss of his son Otto Reutter junior. (born 1896) in the Battle of Verdun in May 1916.

In the 1920s Otto Reutter performed those couplets , especially in the winter garden , which are still known today and which u. a. were performed and implemented by Peter Frankenfeld , Robert Kreis , Markus Schimpp , Meigl Hoffmann , Walter Plathe and other interpreters. In total, he is said to have written over 1000 couplets. Detected around 400 couplets that in various records are preserved recordings and printed music. Reutter's couplets were also often performed by other humorists such as Gustav Schönwald or Armin Berg . There are also recordings of this. Otto Reutter's recordings were partly accompanied by an orchestra (gramophone studio orchestra under the direction of Bruno Seidler-Winkler , later by the Paul Godwin Ensemble under the direction of Paul Godwin ), and in some cases he had a piano accompaniment.

Otto Reutter was also active as an actor. In 1912 he played in two short films, Otto married and Otto as a servant . It is possible that he was also involved in the films Otto, the Kinostar and the Dachshund and Otto Has Pech , but these films do not refer to Otto Reutter as a contributor except in the title. There are no more copies of the four films, only three still images are said to have been preserved. He also played in various films as an extra, including a film about Captain von Köpenick .

Memorial plaque on his house in Berlin-Wilmersdorf

In his couplets he not only foresaw social events, they also offered comfort in times of deprivation. However, his couplets always followed the current tastes and current events. One laughed with the crowd at the hereditary enemy , at the Reichstag, at the wonder horse Hans , at the union, at the woman. In a couplet of the 1920s, Reutter even called for a new strong leader so that things should move forward - although he certainly did not imagine an Adolf Hitler in the process. His couplets show the zeitgeist of that time quite impressively. His most famous couplet, Der Überzieher , also dates from this time. ( I look away - from the stain / Is the overcoat gone! )

Otto Reutter traveled to Düsseldorf at the end of February 1931, where he was to give several performances in the Apollo Theater . He had to stop the first performance on March 1st with heart problems and seek medical treatment. He died on March 3rd as a result of a heart attack in a Düsseldorf hospital. According to his request, his body was transferred to Gardelegen and buried there on March 7th. The funeral speech was given by Alfred Fossil , President of the International Artist Lodge (IAL). He praised Otto Reutter, who had been a long-time IAL member, as "the classic of German variety, which initiated a high level of development in this branch of German artistry".

Works (selection)

Otto Reutter, 1930
  • But the man
  • But it doesn't make you happy
  • But nobody starts
  • Oh, do that again
  • Oh how nice (it will be in 100 years) (around 1900)
  • Ännecken and Mannnecken
  • Alles weg'n de Leut '(1926)
  • Berlin, Berlin, despite all your mistakes ...
  • Berlin is so big
  • Before you die
  • I thank you, my fatherland
  • The Hirschfeldlied (1908)
  • This is the Max, the director (A hymn of praise for the Oedipus performance)
  • It's so easy and you don't think about it (1925)
  • The blouse purchase
  • The war profiteer (1919)
  • The dreaming Michel
  • The birthday uncle (original solo scene)
  • The Conscientious Mason (1920)
  • The Overcoat (1925)
  • The future rich day (original potpourri)
  • The mayor's daughter (original solo scene)
  • The real German thoroughness (a hymn to bureaucratism)
  • The whole story is not worth it
  • Little Han
  • The love gift box movement
  • The solution to the financial reform
  • So I'm glad I'm a German
  • A Saxon is always there (1930)
  • Once a year
  • I feel better and better in every way
  • It goes forward
  • There is only one Berlin
  • It is not a half, it is not a whole
  • Six men sat with the sparkling wine
  • Do not grieve
  • Let's found a GmbH
  • Do you have any idea about Berlin
  • Mr. "Block" from the Reichstag (original vocal potpourri)
  • Mr. Neureich
  • Mr. Pol from the North (A North Poliad)
  • I am an optimist
  • I am a widow (1898)
  • I can't take the pace
  • I wonder about anything more
  • In a steerable balloon
  • Always correct
  • On and on, on and on
  • In that moment
  • It's all over in fifty years (1920)
  • Isn't that strange
  • Children, children, take care of children
  • I'll be born one more time (soul wandering couplet)
  • Just get your nose changed
  • Let them starve
  • Let them go
  • Funny answers
  • They say
  • You get so humble
  • I dismissed them as cured (1928)
  • With the zippel, with the fidget, with the zeppelin
  • With the watch in hand
  • Well, don't pretend to be
  • Not so loud
  • Nu just not
  • Now you know
  • Take Your Old One (1926)
  • Oh, Karline
  • I don't know whether it's true - they say
  • Imagination is always more beautiful than reality
  • You see, that's why it's a pity that the war is over (1920)
  • Be smart
  • Be modern
  • do not be stupid
  • times are changing
  • Streick couplet
  • And thereby everything balances out again (1928)
  • And a volume of poems (original lecture)
  • And so we can't get out of joy at all (1930)
  • What I do not know
  • When you are young - when you are old
  • Widewitt bumbum
  • How lovely are the women
  • We start all over again (1925)
  • We'll see
  • Where do you have your ailments
  • Where have they been for so long
  • Twenty years later
  • over 50 more z. B. on the back of sheet music 220, Danner, Mühlhausen i.Thür.

Filmography

Otto Reutter in the film Otto is getting married
  • 1912: Otto Reutter wants to become an actor (as Otto Reuter)
  • 1914: Otto marries
  • 1915: Otto as a servant
  • 1927: Previous conditions

literature

Published records (selection)

  • Otto Reutter - The King of Cabaret - Volume 1 and 2 - 2005 Membrane Music Ltd., Distribution Grosser and Stein, Pforzheim, ISBN 3-86562-235-6 and ISBN 3-86562-236-4 .
  • OTTO Reutter - long-playing record AMIGA / VEB Deutsche Schallplatten Berlin GDR 1971 (AMIGA serial number 840088)

Web links

Commons : Otto Reutter  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Otto Reutter, by Kurt Tucholsky, In: The smile of the Mona Lisa , 1929  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herbert Becker: Gardelegen. A thousand years of a city . Sutton, Erfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-86680-840-9 , p. 75 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ Clarissa Bachmann: Otto Reutter wrote over 1,000 couplets. To this day he has remained the great role model of cabaret: Of the grace of a fat belly . In: Berliner Zeitung . ( berliner-zeitung.de [accessed December 26, 2016]).
  3. ^ Gardelegener Kreisanzeiger, March 9, 1931
personal data
SURNAME Reutter, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pfützenreuter, Friedrich Otto August (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German singer, songwriter and comedian
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Guards
DATE OF DEATH March 3, 1931
Place of death Dusseldorf