Ralf Reitel

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Ralf Reitel (actually Ralf-Peter Reitel , born November 15, 1951 in Plauen , Vogtland ; † June 5, 1987 in the Upper Palatinate district ) was a German theater actor .

Life

Career

Ralf Reitel grew up in the GDR . He had four siblings, including a nine years younger brother, the author Axel Reitel . From 1974 to 1977 Reitel studied at the Rostock State Drama School and graduated in 1977 with a diploma (FH). He had his first roles as a theater actor on the stages in Eisleben , Magdeburg and Stendal . In 1978 he was brought to the state theater in Rudolstadt , Thuringia, by a director , where he played mostly leading roles from 1979 to 1984. Various guest appearances took him to Weimar .

In 1983/84 Reitel took part in the meetings of those wishing to leave the “Rudolstädter Schweigekreis”. Thereupon he was arrested in January 1984 by the Ministry for State Security (MfS). After eight months in prison, he was ransomed by the Federal Republic , combined with his expatriation to the Federal Republic. In the Federal Republic of Germany he was still under observation by the Stasi, for which Division III of the Stasi headquarters in Rudolstadt was responsible.

In West Germany Reitel continued his career as a theater actor; Most recently he was engaged at the Städtisches Theater in Regensburg , where he also had leading roles.

Ralf Reitel died on June 5, 1987 as a result of a traffic accident on the motorway section between Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz and Regensburg. He was brought alive by rescue helicopter to Nuremberg University Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries two hours later.

Roles and meaning

In the course of his ten years as a theater actor, Reitel took on numerous roles, including many leading roles. His repertoire included Anouilh , Büchner , Brecht , Delaney , Kästner , de Beaumarchais , Ende , Fitzgerald , Hacks , Molière , Mrożek , O'Casey , Shakespeare , Schiller , Jewgeni Schwarz and Sternheim . His main roles included, for example, the man in the scene Der Verrat in the scenic play Furcht und Elend des Third Reich von Brecht (1980, Rudolstadt), the scholar in the fantastic opera Der Schatten von Jewgeni Schwarz (1981, Rudolstadt), the court marshal von Kalb in Schiller's Kabale und Liebe (1982/83, Rudolstadt), the Ossip in the play Die Dachdecker by Albert Wendt (1983, Rudolstadt) and the President of the United States of America in The President or The Sausage by F. Scott Fitzgerald , (1987, Regensburg).

Grave of Ralf Reitel in the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof in Berlin

Reitel's achievements were well received by theater critics in East and West Germany, for example in 1980 in Free Word (“Reitel shines as St. Just”) and in 1987 in the Regensburg weekly newspaper Die Woche (“Ralf Reitel, from and with which one could do a lot ”).

During his season at the Maßbach Castle Theater in 1985/86, Ralf Reitel also played alongside Lutz Moik, among others . In the drama George Dandin by Molière Reitel took on the role of the talkative and shrewd farm boy Lubin, who, although involuntarily, contributed to the humiliation of the horned and arrogant nobleman Dandin, who was played by Moik. In his last leading role at the Regensburg Theater, Reitel played in the play The President or The Sausage by Scott Fitzgerald in 1987, a postman in the USA who made it to the office of President, ruined half the world during his term of office, and finally as a refined postman Only wants to bring good news to people.

Ralf Reitel also wrote poetry . While he was still working at Theater Schloss Maßbach, he and his younger brother planned a comedy in which a family in search of material happiness makes a futile change of location. The fable was fed by the family's own history.

Afterlife

The exact circumstances of the traffic accident that led to his death are still unclear. A newspaper review of the radio feature , The Death of My Brother, produced jointly by the journalist Axel Reitel about his brother, Ralf Reitel, by MDR and rbb . Reconstruction of an alleged accident , assumes that "a murder covered by the Ministry of State Security [...] can no longer be ruled out".

In 2009 Ralf Reitel's funeral urn was reburied from the Bergfriedhof on the Dreifaltigkeitsberg in Regensburg to Berlin and buried there in the Dorotheenstadt cemetery .

On December 6, 2011, the Berlin tabloid BZ commemorated Ralf Reitel on the occasion of his 60th birthday: “Ralf Reitel's grave is located in the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof in Mitte ... 'Actor' says the stone, including the years 1951–1987. The fact that Reitel spent months in prison in the GDR and died in an accident in Bavaria under circumstances that were not entirely clear - we write that down here so that it remains part of the memory. "

Literary figure

Ralf Reitel belongs to the literary personage of the story Die Namenlosen by Utz Rachowski , in: Namenlose , BasisDruck 1993, p. 138.

Also in the following stories by Axel Reitel: Danger , in: The luck in Mäusebach . Stories, Oberbaum Verlag Berlin 1989, p. 11; The first chapter for a reader: Prisons in the Landscapes of Germany , in: Namenlose , BasisDruck 1993, pp. 20ff; Poetic Life , in: Age of Pisces . Stories, Chemnitzer Verlag 1997, p. 23ff; Drei Brücken , in: Namenlose , BasisDruck 1993, p. 60.

Text example and interpretation

To the unsuspecting
Tomato eyes
Fool's cap rattle
The mass clown happy
How nice it is at the regulars table
But I wish you were here
You would throw up the beer.

Ralf Reitel wrote this poem in the prison in Naumburg , where he had come after Stasi detention in Gera and conviction. However, it only refers indirectly to the oppressive conditions in the GDR penal system for political prisoners, which can be read about in many places today. Above all, it avoids the danger of one-dimensionality by directly naming deplorable circumstances by undertaking the shift to a non-binding space of universal sizes - mass clown, regulars' table, puking. The dangers listed - tomato eyes, the rattle of fools' caps - also refer to unconscious and conscious looking away from an unsafe, uncomfortable or uncomfortable situation with even more unclear negative consequences, which can be observed as global human behavior. The author certainly had the conditions to be endured at the place of detention in mind, but with the operation he managed to turn a regional experience into one that everyone can share, the decisive step in order to speak to all those who suffer in this world.

literature

Radio feature

  • Axel Reitel : The death of my brother. Reconstruction of an alleged accident. Radio feature, production: MDR / rbb , 2007. Overnight: BR2 2012

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Newspaper report in: Die Woche , Regensburg, June 1987.
  2. ↑ Sean O'Casey Papers (PDF) nli.ie. Retrieved April 24, 2016.
  3. ↑ See Theater der Zeit , publisher: Association of Theater Professionals in the GDR, Henschelverlag Art and Society, (East) Berlin, 35th year, issue 1–6 / 1980, ISSN  0040-5418 , p. 75.
  4. ↑ See Theater der Zeit , as before, but: Volume 36, Issue 1–6 / 1981, p. 85.
  5. ↑ See Theater der Zeit , as before, but: Volume 37, Edition 6/1982, p. 86.
  6. ↑ See Theater der Zeit , as before, but: Volume 38, Issue 1/1983, p. 86.
  7. ↑ a b Helmut Hein: Premiere for sausages. In: Die Woche , Regensburg, from January 22, 1987.
  8. ↑ The death of my brother. In: trinagel. The culture magazine by MDF Figaro , issue 10/2007, p. 95.
  9. ↑ The death of my brother. In: trinagel. The culture magazine from MDF Figaro , issue 10/2007, p. 93.
  10. ↑ Searching for traces in the normality of abnormalities (PDF) kas.de. Retrieved April 24, 2016.
  11. ↑ Tomas Kittan: October 5th: 9.30 a.m. Ralf Reitel is reburied . In: BZ of October 4, 2009; Retrieved March 9, 2011.
  12. ^ Berlin in the quiet: The stone for a Vogtlander in Berlin . In: BZ , December 6, 2011. Archived from the original on July 29, 2012. Retrieved on April 24, 2016. 
  13. ↑ Printed in: triangel. The culture magazine from MDR Figaro , issue 10/2007, p. 95.
  14. ↑ The death of my brother - reconstruction of an alleged accident . phonostar.de. Retrieved April 24, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Reitel, Ralf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater actor
DATE OF BIRTH November 15, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Plauen , Vogtland
DATE OF DEATH 5th June 1987
Place of death District Upper Palatinate