TV's 'Derrick' served in Nazi Waffen SS: report

[Duque de Bragança]

http://www.france24.com/en/20130426-tvs-derrick-served-nazi-waffen-ss-report

Harry, hol schon mal den Panzer!

AFP - The late German actor who starred in the wildly popular television crime show "Derrick" was a member of Hitler's notorious Waffen SS, the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported Friday.

Horst Tappert, who played the beloved baggy-eyed detective from 1974 to 1998 in a programme that ran in more than 100 countries, was a member of an SS tank regiment on the Russian front, according to the report.

According to archives listing next-of-kin for Wehrmacht soldiers, Tappert joined the Waffen SS at the latest in 1943, the newspaper said.

Tappert died in 2008.

Several prominent Germans kept quiet after the war about their service in the Waffen SS, an elite corps responsible for some of the Nazis' worst atrocities.

"In his memoirs as well as in all his public remarks on the war years, Tappert never made mention of this," the newspaper said.

"In an interview he said he was a medic and was taken prisoner at the end of the war."

The report was based on the findings of sociologist Joerg Becker, who, while working on a biography of another academic, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, looked into the personal histories of members of a theatre company she co-founded.

Tappert belonged to the troupe in 1947. When Becker examined the archives of the notification service for next-of-kin of Wehrmacht soldiers in case they were killed in action (WASt), the researcher found the actor's name.

The Berlin-based WASt, which also has vast files on soldiers who survived the war, said Tappert started as a reservist in an anti-aircraft battery before joining the tank regiment.

Association with Hitler's SS has come back to haunt other high-profile Germans.

A Nobel laureate, Gunter Grass, saw his substantial moral authority undermined by his 2006 admission, six decades after World War II, that he had been a member of the Waffen SS as a 17-year-old.

I knew it! 

[11B4V]

So

During World War II he served in the German army in Norway. In interviews and his memoires, Tappert did not elaborate on his war history but simply stated to have served as a company medic in the Wehrmacht, after which he became a prisoner of war. In April 2013 it was revealed that in fact he had joined the infamous 3. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Totenkopf, then employed on the Eastern Front, in March 1943. Prominent historian Jan Erik Schulte, an expert on the history of the SS, said that the circumstances of Tappert's membership in the SS and the question of whether he was pressured or coerced to join remain unclear

[Ed Anger]

So

He takes an extra step loss when fighting Soviet Guards.

[Admiral Yi]

What kind of name for a kraut is "Derrick?"  I thought only osties born in the 80s had American names.

[Razgovory]

His name is Horst.  He played a character who's last name was Derrick.

[Admiral Yi]

Ah.

[syk]

I thought only osties born in the 80s had American names.

Those and kraut trash with American TV Shows as only educational input.

[The Brain]

No one knew Derrick well?

[Syt]

I never got the international appeal of Derrick which got exported all over the world. It might be that the show focuses on the cases, creating a somewhat general appeal. There's no wild action scenes, focusing on character drama instead, and the private life of the protagonists is non-existant (I think it's mentioned once or twice in 281 episodes that Derrick is actually married). It has a very, to put it charitably, deliberate pace which got mocked to great effect in a German comedy show in the 90s. At the same time it lacks the wit of, say, Columbo.

A very similar show was "Der Alte" ("The Old One"?).

[Syt]

For those not knowing the show:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrick_(TV_series)

[Legbiter]

Wonder if his SS tanker days were spent hovering around the Russians, never doing much but occaisonally taking indirect potshots, loitering a bit in his Tiger, then rumbling off to reappear much later with a grin and further needling potshots, more implied than actually fired, until the Russians just couldn't take it anymore and killed themselves out of a vague sense of it being the right thing to do.....

[Syt]

 

[The Larch]

Never heard about this show. The only German speaking shows that made if over here that I know are Rex and that road patrol one where the good guys drive fancy German cars (BMWs and Mercedes, mostly) and the bad guys American ones.

[Duque de Bragança]

Derrick a.k.a Hort Tappert in action vs Klaus Löwitsch (seen in Fassbinder's SF TV movie World on a wire and Peckinpah's Cross of Iron).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41vkbeorq58

Syt & Larch

Der Alte is the sometimes known as "The Old Fox" in the English-speaking world.
As for Spain, I remember stumbling upon it late at night and it was called "El viejo policía"
Last thing, Rex is an Austrian show. 

In France, it was called "Le Renard" (The Fox). Lots of German TV series for a while so they even referred to that as a new occupation.

I don't even remember a single clue to Derrick's private life, not that I minded it though. He was seen playing or appreciating After Burner as a coin-op game and drinking heavily cognac in the '70s and '80s episodes before getting really old. The series became more and more of a psychological drama though it ended with a shoot-out since a commando tried to kill Derrick before he went to Europol as a promotion. Guest appearance by the second Der Alte since the first one got killed in the series, an event that shocked France back then.

[Duque de Bragança]

Absolutely appalling!
http://www.diplomattitle.com/derrick-banned-from-german-public-television-because-of-his-ss-past/

Derrick banned from German public television because of his SS past
May 2nd, 2013 Comments Off


"ZDF no plans to broadcast episodes of Derrick", whether on ZDF or cable channels neo ZDF, ZDF and ZDF Kultur info, told AFP the spokesman for the chain, Peter Bogenschötz . "ZDF is surprised and shocked to learn that Horst Tappert belonged to the Waffen-SS," he also said. ZDF has produced more than 280 episodes of the series Derrick between 1973 and 1997, and sold in 102 countries. A full replay of the series began in early 2011 on ZDF and its subsidiaries. The last episode aired by the group's latest adventure phlegmatic investigator goes back to April 1 on channel ZDF neo.

In late April, the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published an article, based on the work of sociologist Jörg Becker, fell almost by chance on documents and evidence proving that Horst Tappert entered the Waffen-SS in 1943. Born in 1923 and died in 2008, the actor, known worldwide for this role, was part of a tank regiment embarked on the Russian front. These revelations also prompted the Dutch channel Omroep Max to cancel the replay of twenty episodes scheduled for July, confirmed a spokesman for the group, Sanne Rademaker. "We're not going to honor an actor who lied about such a past," explained the director of the channel, Jan Slagter, a Dutch radio.

Today Europe er. Germany, tomorrow the World?

PS: so reruns already cancelled in the Netherlands but not before a month at least in France. Yet no proof Horst was a volunteer for the Totenkopf division.