I found out last night, Hellmuth Karasek, my fatherly friend, my beloved former boss at the “Mirror”, is dead. Sure, I knew that he crossed the eighty had, but I thought – that is to say, I left myself to it – that it is one hundred. At least. Put it this way:. I got used to it, that it exists, and as long as it existed in my area, this ideological overheated Germany was less grim, less stupid
It was fun-loving.
He gave me a lot right in many wrongs, but he advised me always to be careful what I generös struck in the wind. He was smarter than me. But he also knew that some victories to be bought only by defeats. He was just clever people.
And then we sat together at dinner, sometimes he was plump, sometimes he came from a detox. Then he was actually almost slim. Before, we played tennis together. Once I shocked him by the fact that I said Sunday morning is not because I’m in the mess
Oh, how he could enjoy. A few weeks ago still in Anna Sgroi in Hamburg. And I watched him enjoy and enjoyed his pleasures Art. And the jokes were still funny even the third time. And his vision.
He did not believe in an afterlife, he believed in life. “Dying is shit,” he once told me. But he endured it, that I believed. But I rewarded him with the meanest and most hellish anti Catholics joke ever. And he took him promise never weiterzuerzählen him. Of course I caught him at the earliest opportunity, chuckling with pleasure, as he told him. If there was something that he valued even more than good food, good wine, then it was the telling and hearing of new jokes.
I think so he has also dispelled the idea of death. He avoided the death, as Goethe did.
Hellmuth, the German scholar and Anglist
When I him met, I was in my early twenties and young theater critic, and he was standing around in the foyer of the theater, the arm this insanely exciting redhead, his wife ARMGARD, and I envied him his wit and this Trophäenweib (which itself came from the theater and later critic was ).
At that time, the theater played a role, then it went to pieces like the “Summer Guests” staged by Peter Stein, or the “Hamlet” , the Peter Zadek dismantled. Hellmuth loved him. Later he wrote a few bad reviews and Peter resented. I allowed the two later reconciled, in Paris, where Zadek the “Merchant of Venice” directed
Hellmuth, who earned his doctorate in German studies and Anglist -. He translated Chandler – was also a literary critic, one of the most intelligent and, if need be, merciless. This slating of “Butt” of Grass I will never forget. At that time there was criticism that could be aimed at training citizens in the best sense of the word because it was itself formed. Important but he felt that he entertained the reader. Theories interested him less, Avantgarde bored him often because he knew that it was not enough on the day.
He wanted the audience and chatted there, which is why he later with his friend Marcel Reich-Ranicki, a so congenial duo in “Literary Quartet” was formed. Augstein did not like that he went into television. He was jealous. Eventually Hellmuth was terminated for this reason, he had to decide between “mirror” -Apparatschik and television star. He clearly chose the latter. Why? Because he could.
It was the best for him, because now he could quite find himself, to his style as a columnist and entertainer. And he wrote the best journalists novel ever, “Das Magazin”, about the “mirror” in which he had not endured quite as long as I, 22 years.
He described this madness apparatus with the coffee ladies and the carnage in the large conference with beastly closer look, and it was seasoned guys, with whom he had to do that steeled war generation, Zwölfender who were jealous because he for Culture – then a revolution –
had prevailed author names We zerkloppten eggs
Our conferences.!? He asked: “What are we doing this week?”, And Urs Jenny, the other ingenious critics in the department said, smiling and Swiss deliberately “och, best nothing”, and that was perfectly fine, because now Hellmuth told the latest jokes that had Billy Wilder, another close friend told him, during his last visit in Hollywood. For this purpose, an almost religiously followed the custom, the magnum of Veuve Clicquot was Friday afternoon on the table, which he paid. The main thing that you could learn from him, that was: not himself so seriously
He was wonderfully playful. What were those funny Scharade- and games evenings in Hamburg, few politicians, some gallery owners, some theater people. How wonderful he was able to make the clown. As he starred in my blogs: On the day when I was sacked as chairman of culture, I turned a cooking blog in the canteen. We zerkloppten eggs we sizzling us Mirror eggs! About the staff who now heads the “mirror”, he laughed himself wrong.
As he worked there, the “mirror” was in fact an intellectual high-performance machine he was left, as left nor was smart, clever and educated.
how versatile he was created as baroque, and how very strange to him any fuss was. He was the opposite type to Fritz J. Raddatz. The spread little finger, he found ridiculous. Yes, Hellmuth wrote plays, one, “quail”, I liked. Was it his son, who staged? He was very proud of him, to all a sons, but when he talked about his picture beautiful daughter Laura, was a very special gleam in his eyes.
When I was a correspondent in Rio, he came to visit me, and we celebrated together the communion of my son. And I accompanied him and ARMGARD of Sugarloaf Mountain and showed him the sparkling Rio at sunset with golden lights in the hills and was so proud, as it was mine. And he admired and marveled that he was good at, he could accumulate wonderful praise to praise. An enthusiasm specialist, for the simple reason, because childlike enthusiasm feels beautiful.
The final of the Football World Cup 2014
As the last time we were in each others arms, Mario Götze had shot in the 113th minute in Rio the winning goal, and Hellmuth jumped, he said that I’ll never experience again, and I said that be we do not often experience so sure I was in terms of the national team and what Hellmuth.
Man, what a life! He was born in 1934 into fascism, was later in the Hitler Youth and the Napola. And after the war, the family ended up in the GDR, in his book “The Vanishing” he told them. Two totalitarian systems had immunized him completely.
It was the late years in which was from Karasek of Karasek, the Augstein always wanted to avoid – a free spirit, an entertainer, a wonderful novelist, the rate uncle on television, the expert on classic and education. He collected lexicons. In the list of the most popular German he landed at No. 17. The Augstein has never managed.
Matthias Döpfner has brought him to Axel Springer. He fit in, wrote columns, was free. We have presented our books each other. I am grateful to him. But most of all he was a loyal friend, a lovable, warm person, a terrific proud father and husband, an example of a human being.
It’s late at night , Hellmuth, excuse my stammering. I miss you.
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