With “Adieu – people we don’t forget”, ZDF looks back on the year and remembers deceased personalities who often shaped an entire generation.24.12.2024 | 50:12 min
“I’ve been sitting in front of a few old photos for hours now. I’ve found a piece of memory,” sings Udo Jürgens in a song to his mother. Many people have a box with such memorabilia – in the attic, in the closet, under the bed.
World star Caterina Valente: she sang in 13 languages
What we keep usually doesn’t follow logic, but rather the heart. Memory is personal, so is comfort. Caterina Valente, for example, how she laughs so wonderfully happily. Klaus Töpfer’s belly flop into the Rhine is also unforgettable. Or the glasses of Iris Apfel, who signed her first modeling contract at the age of 97.
Presenter and music journalist Fritz Egner remembers Caterina Valente, whose musical repertoire ranged from swing to chanson to hits. 23.12.2024 | 4:24 min
We see some people in TV series for years and don’t even know what story their lives wrote outside of the role: Hannelore Hoger, unforgettable as “Bella Block”, had blood poisoning as a baby, her right arm was supposed to be removed, she was already lying down in the death chamber. Her mother stole her from the hospital.
Horst Naumann: Star of “The Dream Ship” and “The Black Forest Clinic”
Horst Naumann, Germany’s longest-serving series actor, was on the dream ship for 27 years: sun, sea, space. As an 18-year-old, he lay in the trenches during the Second World War, was a Russian prisoner of war, and later fled from the GDR to the West.
Horst Naumann and the then 21-year-old Barbara Wussow were already in front of the camera together in the ZDF series “The Black Forest Clinic”. 23.12.2024 | 2:57 min
And here as there, it wasn’t always easy. Political challenges, personal valleys: fear and alcohol tormented some. What seems glamorous to us was often living on the edge.
The archive box also contains some finds on the subject of equal rights: how Dieter Thomas Heck sweeps the show stairs in the hit parade while Johanna von Koczian sings “The Little Household”.
Doctors, inspectors, presenters of big Saturday evening shows – for decades only men played the main roles. Boundaries have been crossed in talk shows well into our decade, when older actresses are humiliated by being asked about their age or are asked to justify why they haven’t had children. Man, oh man.
Actor Fritz Wepper died in March at the age of 82. Janina Hartwig played alongside him for a long time. In conversation she explains her special friendship. 23.12.2024 | 4:17 min
Farewell to Franz Beckenbauer
And then there are the deeper shadows: Some people think of Franz Beckenbauer as the team boss walking alone across the lawn in the Olympic Stadium in Rome in 1990, others think of the revelations of the summer fairytale dream. Alain Delon remembers his love for Romy Schneider. Or alternatively his sympathy for the French right-wing extremists.
“A figure of light, but also a friend”. This is how companions like Andi Brehme and Paul Breitner describe Franz Beckenbauer. We look back at the football icon.19.01.2024 | 6:43 min
We know from ancient Greece that you shouldn’t say anything bad about the dead. Often it is even necessary to talk about the dark sides of a biography because everyone knows about it anyway. And the deceased can no longer explain themselves. And somehow it’s more heartwarming for us to remember the good. It is easier than the small, lowly, mean things that choke us.
In the Allianz Arena in Munich, FC Bayern said goodbye to Franz Beckenbauer with fans and prominent guests. The memorial service with moving moments in the video:19.01.2024 | 74:36 min
If you sit on a bench in the cemetery like in Robert Seethaler’s book “The Field” and think about where the paths of the deceased crossed and faced similar challenges, then you can see the threads finely coming together to form one big thing, like cotton candy Entire. This is life, this is also our story. A deep bow to those who left us in 2024!
“Adieu – people we don’t forget” on December 30, 2024 at 5:10 p.m. on ZDF.
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Source: ZDF
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