Willi Schwabe's lumber room

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Willi Schwabe's Rumpelkammer , or Rumpelkammer for short , was a very popular program on GDR television with Willi Schwabe from 1955 to 1990. Excerpts from old German sound films were shown here, ie from films from 1929 to 1945, e.g. Also until 1956, anecdotes and interesting facts about the actors were told and their birthdays and days of death were remembered. The former film classics were prepared for a wide audience, and you learned a lot about the German film actors of the time, their careers and fate. Schwabe also always tried to keep the series free of political influences and judgments as a pure entertainment program, which gave rise to the illusion of a “good old days” despite the politically explosive creation time of the films. The broadcasting slot of the junk room was postponed several times, and a repetition was broadcast in the morning hours of the following day in order to meet the needs of the shift workers. In the first program of the GDR television almost every Monday night ran from the 1960s at 20.00 old German films that had arisen in the above time ( Monday Movie ). The lumber room was accordingly the program that provided background information - including anecdotal and commentary - once a month on a Wednesday at 8 p.m. on the first program of GDR television (DDR1) with a length of approx. 50 minutes.

At the beginning of each program, Willi Schwabe climbed a staircase with a lantern in hand to a reconstructed attic as a backdrop. The melody “ Dance of the Sugar Fairy ” from “ The Nutcracker ” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was played on a celesta with its typical soft sound reminiscent of a carillon. Willi Schwabe unlocked the attic , lit the lantern and greeted the audience with the words, "Good evening ladies and gentlemen and a warm welcome to the lumber room". Then he bowed deeply.

The individual film excerpts were presented by Willi Schwabe, for example by finding the props or melodies (records or sheet music) used in the respective film in his attic pool and “dusting them off”. The viewer then experienced several key scenes or popular excerpts from the film, usually he was reminded of three to four films in one broadcast. In addition to the film excerpts, which mostly came from UFA productions, foreign films were also occasionally sent later - e.g. B. from the production of Austrian, Czech or Swiss film companies as well as German film stars and directors who have emigrated to the USA. In addition to the television broadcast, several records appeared in the series “Willi Schwabe's Musical Rumpelkammer”, on which sound film hits were presented in a corresponding manner.

The basis of this program was the GDR State Film Archive , in which almost all UFA productions up to 1945 were available.

The first broadcast was broadcast on December 13, 1955. After Willi Schwabe fell ill, the actor Friedrich Schoenfelder took over the moderation in 1990 and continued it until 1992. The show still achieved its old popularity, but was no longer viewed as valuable or even lucrative due to the changed TV landscape. The German television broadcasting service (DFF) was wound up and this program was also discontinued.

With a broadcast period of 35 years and a total of almost 400 episodes, especially with one and the same presenter, the Lumpelkammer is one of the longest-lived programs on German television. It was considered the longest-running entertainment program on television when it was set .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ All-time favorite "Willi Schwabe's Lumber Room" | Video | ARD media library. Retrieved April 17, 2020 .