He is a bitter satirist and anarchist – but many Germans know him from “Sesame Street.” Henning Venske is considered a notorious all-rounder. The artist is now 85 years old.
Wisdom of old age? Henning Venske waves away. “I think the word is a rumor. And is often confused with being indulgent,” says the agile-looking 84-year-old. And explains: “That’s not to be expected from a satirist like me. I’m at least as vicious as I was 50 years ago.” Incidentally, he never gave up reading and learning – there is always something to add to what he already knows. In one respect, however, the cabaret artist, satirist, author, journalist and presenter, who celebrates his 85th birthday on Wednesday (April 3rd), describes himself as downright mild in his age: “Compared to my two granddaughters, I am the dearest grandpa in the world. That’s where the mildness comes in fully closed.”
Venske, who lives with his wife Hilde in Hamburg and Munich, tells the German Press Agency in the Hanseatic city that he is only there to pamper. With coffee and butter cake in his favorite café since 1967. Unusual words from the mouth of a man who is present to millions of television viewers from programs such as “Music from Studio B” (1971-1974) and “Sesame Street” (1978-1980). However, as a teacher’s son and trained actor born in Stettin (Pomerania) in 1939, he caused a sensation for decades as one of the republic’s most biting and controversial political cabaret artists. As part of the Munich Laughing and Shooting Society – in 2010, with his favorite partner Jochen Busse, he received the honorary award for the German Cabaret Prize.
“Germany’s most fired satirist”
“Henning is the master in the special class of cabaret that he has created himself: razor-sharp analysis, apt exaggeration, linguistic elegance, Boooomm,” describes him Jan-Peter Petersen, the head of Alma Hoppe’s Lustspielhaus in Hamburg, another place of work. However, differences in content with employers such as Hessischer Rundfunk (HR) and Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) in the 1970s and 1980s led to bans on broadcasting and broadcasting.
Venske, who was also editor-in-chief of the satirical magazine “Pardon” and has written four books about white-collar crime, has the reputation of being “Germany’s most fired satirist.” To this day, he stubbornly positions himself as an “anarchist” – and vehemently opposes “people gaining power over other people.”
Venske represents provocatively radical views
The half-brother of the writer and former PEN International General Secretary Regula Venske (68, “You shall not kill”), who grew up in East Westphalia, has written his provocatively radical views as diary thoughts on his homepage venske.de since he left the cabaret in 2018. The declared pacifist, who as a child experienced first-hand the horrors of the Second World War caused by the Nazis, longs for the plane crash of top politicians in an imaginary kind of prayer. Or claims that the media are mostly liars and illiterate, reporting about the Ukraine war one-sidedly and with a manipulative choice of words. It would be more appropriate to first understand Russia and its motives, Venske insists in a sharper tone.
He doesn’t care what the Pope means otherwise, but the Ukrainians should adopt his suggestion of using white flags to signal a willingness to talk. “German angst” is also a hot topic for Venske – because instead of taking refuge in feelings, Germans should think and do something about their causes.
The political leader doesn’t have much to do with tolerance either – it often has to do with indifference, cowardice or arrogance, as he explains to dpa. Close to Venske’s heart are socially committed, partly forgotten authors such as Erich Mühsam, an anarchist who rebelled after the First World War and was murdered in the Oranienburg concentration camp in 1934. He’s going on tour from time to time this year with Mühsam-Lesungen.
Satirist hopes to have given food for thought
Does he believe that he has achieved something with his lifelong professional activities? Venske thinks about it and answers: “There is hope that you have given food for thought. Of course not to everyone, but every now and then to someone. If that happens, then you have fulfilled your purpose as a cabaret artist or satirist.” And can he actually imagine his utopia of a perfect world in reality? “It has to do with the question of human nature. I’m not such a misanthrope that I say it’s not possible,” says the artist, who has to endure the death of two of his three adult children. “There are enough friendly, helpful neighbors and people with whom I enjoy living. I can imagine that everyone is like that. But there are a few characteristics like greed, envy and competition – but that could be taught.”
Venske, who also enjoyed success as a children’s book author (“When the Cars Went Backwards”, 1976), has just written an emigrant and immigrant story for young readers with his little granddaughter. One with a lot of imagination and bizarre moments, as the grandfather explains. The eleven-year-old contributed her very remarkable self-painted pictures. Both are now looking for a publisher. This is also a Venske way of perhaps making the world a little better.
Source: Stern
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
