“Dalli Dalli”: “That was great!” – Show legend Hans Rosenthal would now be 100

He was one of the biggest post-war entertainers: Quizmaster Hans Rosenthal (1925-1987) would have been 100 years old on April 2. The ZDF recognizes its superstar of once with the television film “Rosenthal”, which runs on April 7th in the second and is already streaming.

The stars played curling or sausage machines

Florian Lukas embodies the popular entertainer outstandingly well, in which celebrities approached skill games. Stars like Sepp Maier or the Kessler twins gambled curling or served a sausage machine.

“Hans Rosenthal was one of the most formative personalities of German television, especially for ZDF.

The best known creation of the show genius is the game program “Dalli Dalli”. In millions of people, it is unforgettable how the delicate show master made an air jump with particularly great performance by the candidates and “that was great!” cried. When he was in the air, the picture was frozen.

However, Rosenthal’s life was by no means as sunny as his public appearance. As a Jewish youth, he survived the Holocaust hidden in a Berlin gazebo. “In his greatest emergency during the Holocaust, he received help from two women who endangered their own lives,” says son Gert Rosenthal in an interview with the German Press Agency.

Two brave women saved his life

Because the two women had existed, it was possible for his father to stay in Germany. “Because he also got to know the good Germans.” Hans Rosenthal’s brother was murdered by the Nazis.

Rosenthal’s prehistory was almost unknown in the millions of “Dalli Dalli”. Many probably didn’t want to know exactly. “He didn’t hide it,” recalls Rosenthal’s daughter Birgit Hofmann in the dpa interview. “He also never made a big secret of it professionally, but it wasn’t hung on the big bell.” Her father always wanted to be like everyone else, “without advantages or disadvantages”.

The ZDF drama “Rosenthal” shows both sides of this moving life, pointed to one of its most symbolic days: November 9, 1978, 40th anniversary of the anti-Semitic pogrom night. In 1938 Nazis had lit synagogues and looted business. Many Jews died that night. On this anniversary in 1978, the 75th “Dalli Dalli” program was scheduled. To celebrate a reason for the ZDF at the time.

A human -friendly perfectionist

The film by director Oliver Haffner accompanies Florian Lukas as Rosenthal with always new attempts to talk the Makabre’s Macabre broadcasting on the ZDF program officers of the 1970s.

Anyone who has experienced Rosenthal live on the screen many years ago can only take the hat on how much Lukas plays in the role of this human -friendly perfectionist, the volume of his voice, which is perfectly and slightly pressed, imitates perfectly.

“First of all, I was afraid to play someone whose idiosyncrasies can still know an incredible number of people or can check very quickly. In the first attempts to approach his character, I noticed that it was not as impossible as I initially thought,” said actor Lukas about ZDF.

As the film shows, Rosenthal redesigned the show on November 9, 1978 with clever gestures. And yet the day probably hit the showmaster. Because he was on the air, he could not take part in the central memorial event in Cologne. However, there was still a trigger for him to deal with his Jewish identity, as his son knows.

The perfect neighbor writes a book

“Two newspapers who wrote were very significant for my father that Hans Rosenthal would be someone that one would like to have as a neighbor,” reports Gert Rosenthal. “Then probably came – as it is shown in the film – November 9th. He said that he would like to show who this neighbor is, whom you would like to want and that he has to tell about his first life. Then he started writing the book.” The autobiography “Two Life in Germany” was released in 1980.

What remains of Hans Rosenthal? At first there is his social commitment, as his son says: “At the end of every” Dalli Dalli “show, one or two families were supported who were in need through no fault of their own.” The Hans-Rosenthal Foundation continues today what it has launched himself.

And then the sentence with which it is often quoted is: “You have to like people.” His son Gert, named after the brother who died in the Holocaust, describes the appearance of his father as follows: “Nobody was afraid to go on stage with my father. Because everyone knew that he was not done, he was protected.” In some games he rolled himself on the ground. “I think this warm, this charm he brought across is what partially differentiated it from others.”