Acting legend Manfred Krug is dead
A German-German superstar died at the age of 79. In the GDR, Manfred Krug sang jazz and played in "The Trail of Stones". In the West he was known as a "favorite Kreuzberg" and "crime scene" commissioner.
DER SPIEGEL
10/27/2016
He was one of the very few personalities who were prominent and popular in both German states: the actor Manfred Krug made a career in the cinema of the GDR and was cheered as a show star. In 1977, he applied for his departure to West Berlin, where he became famous as a major actor and "Tatort" commissioner that Deutsche Telekom chose him as an advertising face for their stock exchange.
Manfred Krug was born on February 8, 1937, the son of a Eisenhütten engineer in Duisburg. When his parents' marriage broke down after the Second World War, he stayed with his father, who went to work in Leipzig and later to Brandenburg, where he was head of a steel plant as a company manager. Manfred Krug remained with his grandmother in West Germany, until he as a twelve-year-old in 1949 followed his father to the then GDR.
After an apprenticeship as a steel smelter and an evening school-leaving exam, Manfred Krug began a dramatic study in 1954, which he had to finish "due to disciplinary difficulties" soon. In Bertolt Brecht's Berlin ensemble, he then did a stage test. In the GDR, Manfred Krug quickly became a cinema idol, thanks to two main roles in films by Frank Beyer: "Fünf Patronenhülsen" and "Die Spur der Steine". The latter was banned by the GDR powers only three days after its premiere.
Manfred Krug was also popular as a singer: recording several albums and on GDR TV shows, he sang jazz standards and German-language songs, which were re-discovered and appreciated in connoisseur circles after the German reunification. Sangeseinlagen also indulged in his later role as a Hamburg "Tatort" commissioner.
In the GDR, Kruger's career came to an abrupt end, when he signed a protest petition against the expatriation of Wolf Biermann in 1976 and was denied a ban on part-professions. Manfred Krug then applied for his departure to the West in April 1977 and moved to West Berlin on 20 June 1977.
In the West, Manfred Krug quickly found popular television roles, such as "Sesamstraße", as a long-distance driver Franz Meersdonk in the ARD series "Auf Achse" or as a sympathetic Kiez attorney in the series "Liebling Kreuzberg" written by Jurek Becker.
Manfred Krug came to the summit of his popularity in 1984, when he took over the role of chief commissioner Stoever in the NDR "Tatort". Together with his colleague Brockmöller (Charles Brauer) Krug played Stoever in 38 cases, before retiring as commissioner in 2001 - a little later, with the achievement of the retirement age, Krug withdrew completely from the television. In 1997, he suffered a stroke, which temporarily forced him to pause.
Manfred Krug used his popularity as a popular advertising figure. From 1996 onwards, he promoted Deutsche Telekom and the T-share stock exchange. A decade later, Krug apologized in the "star" to the Telekom shareholders for the losses suffered later, stressing that he still owns all his T-shares. ("I regard this as a kind of self-imposed.") The Telekom Group then ended the partnership. In the campaign of legal protection insurance, Krug acted as a lawyer, which ironically played on his role as a lawyer's favorite.
Since his television debut, Manfred Krug has published poems and narrations, in two biographies he looked back in his book on his life: Abgehauen (1996, filmed by Frank Beyer) and "Mein schönes Leben" (2003). Also as a singer, the TV pensioner became more active again. In the summer of 2001, for example, he played live in Berlin for the first time in 25 years. Again and again he sang with the Berlin Jazz Orchestra. After a heart valve surgery in the autumn of 2014, he went on tour again - together with Uschi Brüning, with whom he would have performed this coming December 5 in Dresden.
Now Manfred Krug has died at the age of 79 years. His management confirmed a corresponding report of the "Bild" -Zeitung. On Friday, October 21, he was "peacefully at home in the circle of his family." He wanted a funeral in the closest family circle.
KRUG, Manfred
Born: 2/8/1937, Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Died: 10/21/2016, Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Manfred Krug’s western – actor:
Kit & Co. 1974 (Wild Water Bill)