Radio play: The queen of radio plays: Heikedine Körting is 80

This room is a real time machine. This is exactly where all the cult sentences have been recorded for ages that can pray millions of radio play fans. Sentences like “Justus, he has a knife” or “dumplings, I think my pig whistles”. In the middle of the radio play studio Europe in Hamburg is an ancient recording desk the size of a church organ. Magnetic tape devices with wood veneer, discreetly connected to high-end electronics of 2025.

In 1979 “Der Super-Papagei”, the very first radio play of the youth crime series “Three ???” was created in 1979. The series “TKKG”, “Hanni and Nanni” or “Five Friends” were also born here. The woman behind all these hits, Heikedine Körting, turns 80 on June 18.

The director is still flashing back and forth in her studio. She tenses tapes, she pushes controllers back and forth, she presses buttons. Steps come from the loudspeaker, become Halliger – more scary.

Many combine the Europe label primarily with nostalgia – but the boss has always gone technically over time, always bought the best devices. “We still produce most of the noises for every radio play.” Legendary European sounds: the dog bark, the circular saw, the creaking door. It collected 100,000 noises.

She brought stars to the studio, the modern theater Satthaten

The petite, lively, life clever lady is certainly one of the most influential women from the German pop culture of the past 50 years, even if not everyone knows their unusual name, inspired by a great-grandanton. Three generations have grew up with their youth adventures.

Körting already produced her first radio play as a little girl: “A friend of mine had a tape about the parents, as we as small children have already recorded radio plays with distributed roles.” In the early 1970s it became her profession.

Alone from the “three ???” – With over 55 million sound carriers sold, the world’s most successful radio play series – around 250 episodes have been published so far. 32 billion streams have been counted to this day. “There is hardly any famous German actor who did not like to take part in the radio plays,” recalls Körting.

Unforgettable Peter Pasetti as Alfred Hitchcock or Horst Frank as Commissioner Reynolds. Again and again Jürgen Thormann, the German voice of Michael Caine. TV stars like Katharina Bramuren, Judy Winter, Hans Clarin. Even Amanda Lear – artist, singer and muse from Salvador Dalí – already participated.

“Many actors – especially the somewhat older ones – were also a bit frustrated by the theater at the time,” said Körting. In the 1970s, the “director theater” was trendy. “I still know, as Hans Paetsch said:” I can’t stand it anymore, I’m no longer going there. I come to a rehearsal. In the past, everyone had their text intus when they came to the rehearsal and then we rehearsed. Now it is like this: many come and then start learning. I don’t participate anymore. “” She captured such actors for the radio play. Paetsch (1909-2002) is considered the most important storyteller in Europe.

The just published, very worth reading biography of radio play researchers Cr Rodenwald rolls up the family history of the Grande Dame Körting, which is often called “the radio play queen” in the industry and has been wearing the Federal Cross of Merit since 2022.

As a child she was paralyzed and dreamed of it

In the book “Heikedine Körting – The Queen of Radio Plays”, fans learn a lot from childhood and youth that was previously unknown. At the age of seven, Körting ill with Polio. For months she spends paralysis in isolation in a hospital room that has set up her family at home. The little girl escapes into a fantasy world. With tablets, training and gymnastics, she finally overcomes this terrible time on a farm in Bavaria, which she shaped a lot.

They accompanied school problems through the youth. “I fantasize too much, for example it was under my essays,” Körting recalls today. However, the teachers annoyed that teenagers twisted so many young men.

A great love of her life was the musicologist and radio play producer Andreas Beurmann (1928-2016). Her long -time husband was almost 20 years older than her. That was quite an issue when she moved in with him as a young law student. The two were considered a glamor couple in the 1980s in Hamburg. Beurmann’s voice knows millions of people as the figure Uncle Titus.

“Some – not all – were of the opinion that I should only sit behind the mixer because Andreas Beurmann protect me. He hadn’t explained the mixer at all. I just taught myself everything.”

When Körting in 1979 with the speakers Oliver Rohrbeck (Justus Jonas), Jens Wawrczeck (Peter Shaw) and Andreas Fröhlich (Bob Andrews) the series “The Three ???” started, two of the three were still flown to recordings from the walled-in West Berlin in the scheduled aircraft. The teenagers of yore are now men in the best years. Your voices today: age.

“The boy is no longer allowed to drive”

“And that is also the wonderful,” said Körting. “That they are no longer twelve or 13 years old, of course not of the voice. But they still have this childish and youthful behavior, the style to speak the way.” She also tries not to let the three junior detectives speak a little higher or as children. “But you say yourself:” When I ask you: the moment you slip into your role, you are just Justus, Bob and Peter. No matter what age they are. “”

Nevertheless, the social environment has changed over the decades. Körting is sometimes a bit irritated by how the scope, which can be said in a radio play, have finally shrunk. “There are many more specifications that you should pay attention to. Do you know what I am not allowed to do? Nikolaus is no longer allowed to get the rod out of the bag. The dog is no longer allowed to wag the tail. The boy is no longer allowed to drive.

However, it is certain that the “radio play queen” will continue to go over time and move further generation of children into their acoustic world. Incidentally, as well as millions of other listeners, she uses her radio plays as a sleeping pills in the evening: “I can sleep wonderfully with radio plays. It has a charm and you know everything goes out well.”