Thomas Gottschalk: He says goodbye to former colleagues

Thomas Gottschalk (75) said goodbye to a former companion. As reported, Gottschalk’s ex-band colleague, the radio presenter Frank Laufenberg (1945-2025), died after a short, serious illness. He was 80 years old. Laufenberg’s wife confirmed death.

Gottschalk founded the RAP group GLS-United with the radio legend and moderator Manfred Sexauer (1930-2014). The trio covered the song “Rapper’s Delight” by the band Sugarhill Gang in German and ended up in the top 50 of the German Singlichts in April 1980. Gottschalk also referred to this in what he shared in honor of his former bandmate.

“Frank Laufenberg died – the musician among us, with the deepest voice and the biggest record collection,” the entertainer mourned around his former companion. “So now I’m the last out of the trio that is still alive.” He had already lost his bandmate Sexauer in 2014.

Gottschalk also wrote about an image of the covers of her single “Rapper’s German”: “None of us had something with rap. Nevertheless, we made it into the charts with the ‘greatest mistake in music history (so music critics classified our song at the time). What could have been a warning for future generations did not work back then!”

Frank Laufenberg started his radio career in the early 1970s. He was one of the first moderators of the pop station SWF3 and was one of the co-founders of the music program “Pop Shop”. Laufenberg also shared his music knowledge as an author. He published several books on his special areas of rock and pop, including three volumes of his “Hit lexicon of rock and pop”.

As a TV presenter, Laufenberg presented the game show “Supergrips” and the music show “without a filter”.