Jörg and Annette Pilawa: How the Father’s death unites her

She is his best friend, his closest consultant and his greatest critic: Moderator Jörg Pilawa (59) speaks full of warmth about his sister, the film producer Annette Pilawa (60) in the upcoming edition of the Radio Bremen talk show “3nach9” (Friday, July 25, from 10 p.m.). “She knows things from me that nobody else knows,” reveals Jörg Pilawa in an interview with host Judith Rakers (49) about the very special sibling relationship between the two.

The fact that Jörg and Annette Pilawa are so closely connected to this day is also due to a traumatic experience that they had to go through together in their youth. At that time, her father fell ill from a brain tumor – for years the siblings fought him together until he finally died. “That welds you together,” explains Annette Pilawa about the deep bond with her brother. A formative experience that they could only speak openly many years later.

“Back when my father was dead, we were unable to talk about it,” explains Jörg Pilawa. Today, since he and his sister are roughly the age in which her father died, they also look at their own life differently. On the occasion of his birthday, the TV presenter gave each of his children a measure of measurements last year – with units that symbolize a year of life.

“And my father’s death was exactly on my birthday,” says Pilawa. “It became clear to me again that it was actually over for him now.” The fact that the father could no longer experience what has become of his children is particularly painful for the siblings. “We were currently graduating from high school at the time or were just finishing with school, but he didn’t see anything else,” regrets Jörg Pilawa. Nevertheless, both agree: her father would have been very proud of what his children had achieved.

He owes to his sister Annette that Jörg Pilawa became a moderator at all. She once opened the door into the media world so that he could finance his medical studies. Later he landed on Radio Schleswig-Holstein. He received an unusual order there on the first day: he was to go to the Reeperbahn and collect O tones for a contribution about peep shows that had just been banned in Hamburg.

“The ladies there also had the outfit from the night, namely almost nothing at all,” Pilawa recalls his first journalistic steps with a smile. The critical studio manager liked the collected interviews so well that they were sent. “So by chance I ended up with the Peepsehow landed on the radio,” summarizes the successful moderator.