Edgar Külow | Edgar Külow 101: “There’s no such thing in a Russian film”

Group photo of Volker Külow, Holger Becker and Edgar Külow (from left) in 1997 in the stairwell in front of the editorial offices of the “Junge Welt” in Berlin, when the newspaper was splitting, but that is another story of the left in this country after 1990. Photo: Holger Becker archive “Every day that you don’t complain about the government is a lost day. Woll.« Heads were turning in the ND canteen, which was quite busy in the early afternoon. Edgar's voice easily filled the not exactly small hall. He also had his stage here. You could read on the faces of some of the listeners at the neighboring tables: “You know him...?”

I was no longer able to determine exactly when this happened. But it must have been in the spring of 1992. The ND canteen at Franz-Mehring-Platz 1 in Berlin still existed. Since 1972, the people from the editorial and publishing houses of the newspaper “Neues Deutschland” as well as the independent printing company of the same name had been fed very decently here. We contented ourselves with coffee. Edgar's random audience that day might have included a few gentlemen from the specialist publisher of Hitler diaries, Gruner + Jahr, who now ran the printing company. The PDS leadership sold it - like the Berlin publishing house on Alexanderplatz - to the major British publisher Robert Maxwell in 1990. But he quickly sold half of it to Gruner + Jahr. 

I told Edgar about this and also about rumors that Maxwell wanted to buy the newspaper “Neues Deutschland”. But now, after his mysterious death in November 1991 when he fell into the calm sea off Tenerife, that was all over. The printing company is now 100 percent owned by Gruner+jahr. In the cupboards of the ND editor-in-chief there should still be an obituary from the Briton, who was looked after by the British MI6, the Soviet KGB and also the Israeli Mossad, for Erich Honecker, whose autobiography "From my life", about half of which was written by my former boss Harald Wessel (1930-2021), was published in 1980 by Maxwell's publishing house "Pergamon Press". “There’s no such thing as a Russian film,” Edgar crowed. “Wool.”

The actor, author and cabaret artist Edgar Külow became known on GDR television. He worked until his death in 2012, stood on stage and in front of the camera, wrote books and a football column every two weeks for the "Junge Welt" under the title "Eckenbrüller", in which he contrasted current events in professional football in the Champions League and Bundesliga with the games of Unit Pankow in the Berlin district league - from the first to the seventh league and back again. A curve in the small unity stadium is now named after him, as is the annual Berlin cabaret prize “Eddi”. Born in the small Westphalian town of Werdohl, Külow went from west to east after the war as a KPD member, studied acting in Leipzig and then did cabaret at the “Pfeffermühle” there until he was released in 1964 for “ideological diversion,” even though he had previously worked for the Soviet secret service. In 1969 he moved with his family from Leipzig to Berlin-Pankow to work for the newly founded Second Program of GDR television. On the occasion of his 101st birthday on September 10th, his son, the left-wing politician Volker Külow and the historian Werner Abel are now publishing with Verlag 8.May "The Red Flash" with stories, adventures and texts from the life of Edgar Külow, supplemented by memories of people who had to do with Külow, such as the cabaret artist Thomas Freitag, the current ND and former JW editor Christof Meueler and the former ND and JW editor Holger Becker, whose text we are preprinting.

There is also evidence for the spring of 1992 as the time of Edgar's visit to the ND science editorial team: We talked about Wiglaf Droste (1961–2019) and the sensation of his work at the former central organ. In January, Wiglaf published his first text in the "ND" on the "Forum" page designed by "the Science": "Clamak in the Gauck House," in which he made fun of the "Schdohsi" hysteria that was taking place "to the neighing joy of the annexing West Germans and their hired clerks from Alzheimer's Messenger." Edgar's son Volker, who had arranged contact between Droste and me, was primarily responsible for this satirical liberation, which was applauded by many ND readers.

After this success, I was able to persuade the editor-in-chief to publish the weekly column “Schlachtbumler,” which Droste and I had come up with. However, it was decided to take a second man on board as a counterweight to Wiglaf, the Westerner: Mathias Wedel, the Easterner, who in turn was a good acquaintance of Edgar. Together the two designed, among other things: satirical interjections at PDS party conferences. The “battle stroller” worked excellently. Droste and Wedel encouraged each other to achieve top performance.

As Droste and I wanted, the texts were not in the features section, but on the second page of the newspaper, where serious political considerations were usually found. All the wishes of the editorial authorities to set the columns in italics and thus visibly attach the fool's bell of the humorous humor that regularly took place on the back pages of the paper could be rejected. In any case, Edgar was enthusiastic about Droste, whose work he obviously followed closely. “The homeland is beautiful/ If you have it/ The herring is also beautiful/ Especially the roast,” he recited one of Drost’s quatrains at the top of his lungs during our visit to the canteen. That wasn't in the "ND". And Edgar followed up. “It had to come to that first. Wool.”

Later, Edgar Külow and Wiglaf Droste often appeared on the same stage together. But this required the intervention of a third person. She called me in the ND editorial office in the summer of 1993: "Hello, this is Sellhorn from the magazine 'Horch & Guck'." - "Excuse me?" - "Sellhorn, 'Horch & Guck'. We are the magazine of the Stasi disbanders from the January 15th Committee." - "But aren't you the one from jazz, poetry, prose, the cow in the propeller and so on?" It was him, Werner Sellhorn (1930-2009), called Josh.

But the bigger surprise was yet to come. Sellhorn asked whether he could reprint Droste's "Schlachtenbummler" in the magazine he edited, which, under the title "Madonna from Brandenburg", awarded the church prince Manfred Stolpe, who had become prime minister in Potsdam, a top place "on the upwardly open Weizsäcker scale for silveriness, joviality and bonhomie". "Yes, yes, I read the 'Klamauuk im Haus Gauck' too," Sellhorn answered my question. »Also very nice. But that, as you will understand, is not possible yet." The Stolpe text appeared in the last "Horch & Guck" issue of 1992.

In 1994, Josh was thrown out by the Stasi dispersers. Wolf Biermann had gathered from the files that the Sellhorn who had given him opportunities to appear and gain popularity at “Jazz, Lyrik, Prose” in the 1960s was the IM “Zirkel”. Josh's liberal mentality also gave rise to criticism. In particular, the copying of texts from the "ND" did not suit the senior editor - his name was Schwenke - even though he himself had bombarded the newspaper with excessive volumes of texts in 1990. But if, according to Karl Valentin, with every harm there is also a benefit, in this case the benefit was considerable. Werner Sellhorn, rejected by Manfred Krug as manager of his rental apartments ("Josh, I need a pig for that, you're a human being."), got back on his feet by giving "jazz, poetry, prose" a second life and letting people like Edgar, Wiglaf and the gifted Uschi Brüning perform in well-filled halls.

I don't know whether I should regret never having been Edgar's personal editor. Maybe it was a good thing. Because the tension of professional collaboration can have a negative impact on your private life. I experienced this in the late 1990s when my friendship with Wiglaf fell apart. By then I was already editor-in-chief of “Junge Welt”. Two and a half years before I had to say goodbye there because my ideas about journalism were not in demand in a company that would soon employ Jürgen Elsässer again, I agreed to write a football column with Edgar. For her I came up with the title “The Corner Shouter”. However, it was stolen from an editorial handbook for the “FAZ”. They refer to a single-column news text at the top left of page 1 as “Eckenbrüller”. He wrote this column - the first appeared on August 16, 1997, from then on supervised by Christof Meueler and Arnold Schölzel - until shortly before his death in 2012 and made it a legend. The Federal Agency for Civic Education - and they should know - even quotes "Edgar Külow, football columnist for 'Eckenbrüller', Junge Welt" as a contemporary voice on the conditions in GDR football. As if the “corner screamer” had always existed. You can't achieve more, Edgar. Wool.

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