House Call on a Madman

Chapter 83 of Who Was WM? Investigating a Televisionary: The Life and Work of Wolfgang Menge

WM Injects Chaos into Order, Fun into Boredom: Two TV stars filming on the island of Sylt in 1987 (Illustration: Google’s DeepMind Imagen).

When British Journalism was Still a Model

Summer 1987 on the island of Sylt, Germany’s chic North Sea resort. Hanns Joachim Friedrichs is wandering off the beaten path — in front of WM’s house in Braderup. A camera crew from Radio Bremen tails the handsome, exceptionally distinguished-looking man with the white, slightly wavy hair. He has rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and sweater to his elbows. In his right hand, he grips a bulky microphone.

Friedrichs is three years younger than WM and one of his oldest and closest friends. In 1949, they missed each other in London by a hair — when WM was banned from England, Friedrichs arrived to work for the BBC’s German Service. In 1955, he goes back to Germany and becomes a reporter at NDR in Hamburg. Three years later, after returning from Hong Kong, WM also joins NDR, working in their Rothenbaum studio with Jürgen Roland on Steel Mesh. Friedrichs and WM have known each other ever since. Both men share the formative influence of British journalism.

“That’s what I learned in my five years at the BBC in London,” Friedrichs says. “Maintain your distance; don’t align yourself with any cause, not even a good one.”

From New York to Sylt

In 1964, Friedrichs moves to ZDF, the newly launched Second German Television network, as U.S. correspondent. While on a trip, he lets Marlies and WM stay at his New York apartment for a few days. On April 21, 1966, Friedrichs writes to Marlies:

“Funny how life works out — we both apparently found something upon returning home that wasn’t there when we left. You, a baby (were you traveling last summer, too?), and me, whiskey, a tea strainer, a spatula, and above all, a fabulous can opener, I want to thank you very much for that — you really shouldn’t have. Though, of course, I desperately needed such a thing. It will hardly surprise you that I’ve been living on canned food for over a week now; 17 already-opened cans are still in the icebox. (Five of them are from you, many thanks for those, too.)”

Friedrichs plans to come to Sylt in the summer.

“I’ll make it out to Kampen eventually. I just don’t know when. I’ll have to trust my luck.”

WM writes back from Sylt on May 19, 1966:

“I don’t know if I should advise you to come. The weather has been like the height of summer for over four weeks. I can’t imagine it can last. I’m quite certain we’ve long since used up this year’s quota of sun. Poor vacationers. They always arrive just after the good weather has passed. Then again, it occurs to me you don’t even want the sun. So, by all means, come.”

Three years later, ZDF brings Hanns Joachim Friedrichs back to Germany. He first anchors the nightly news program Today (Heute), followed by a decade as the face of The Current Sports Studio (Das Aktuelle Sportstudio). In 1985, two years before our meeting, he returns to ARD as one of the three anchors of Topics of the Day (Tagesthemen), Germany’s leading news magazine. On Sylt, he’s moonlighting for a quiz show hosted by Margarethe Schreinemakers, taping a three-minute feature. Wolfgang’s second home on Sylt is meant to offer clues about its owner, his character, and his preferences so that the contestants can guess his identity.

WM Is Putting on His Act

On quiet sneaker soles and with a friendly smile, Friedrichs now enters through the front door of the red brick building.

“Whoever lives here,” he says, “collects a heap of knick-knacks; numerous ashtrays are sitting around — ”

He doesn’t get any further.

“Would you mind,” Wolfgang yells, interrupting him, “pointing out that those are expensive ashtrays? From Maxim’s, Sacher … I don’t just snatch any old junk, after all!”

Wolfgang ticks off each establishment’s name, recalling his purloined souvenirs and, more impressively, the patrons who’d picked up the hefty check. His own name does not appear on this list. Stern magazine — my place of employment at the time — is also missing; for now. Just last night, we blew through the equivalent of a college student’s monthly allowance on the expense account. I’m trying to remember what the ashtrays looked like.

The pained expressions on the TV crew’s faces bring me back to the present. They decide to set up the shot differently. Camera, lights, sound. It’s going to take fifteen minutes. Wolfgang and I sit down on the patio and resume the epic biographical interview I’ve come here for.

WM Keeps Writing … Sometimes Crime Dramas …

Wolfgang is 63 years old, close to the legal retirement age. The royalties from reruns of his most successful television plays, especially “Ekel Alfred,” pour more money into his bank account than he can spend. He hasn’t had to work in years. Yet in the decade since One Heart and One Soul, he has written as much as ever — though only partly in the genres that made him famous: crime dramas, “what-if” scenarios, and sitcom-style series.

He wrote arguably his most successful crime drama in 1975: an adaptation of Ralph Maloney’s novel The Nixon Recession Caper. He transposed the American story to the high society of Munich and Starnberg. The economic recession of the 1970s hits a quartet of once-successful men. They can only maintain their families’ lifestyles through illegal means. Wolfgang Petersen directed the caper comedy Four Against the Bank (Vier gegen die Bank ) — in which the robbers, needless to say, get away scot-free — with an outstanding cast, staging it as a “sharp satire on the affluence and oversaturation of the seventies.”

Exactly one decade later, WM concocts a kind of sequel: the six-part ZDF miniseries Operation Köpenick (Unternehmen Köpenick, 1986). Its hero is a gourmet food manufacturer, Philipp Kelch, played by Hansjörg Felmy. His company is bankrupt. To save his employees’ jobs and continue to provide his children with their accustomed lifestyle, he recruits his secretary and chauffeur as accomplices. Together, they plan a series of cunning but always non-violent heists. It would turn out to be the last crime series from the creator of Steel Mesh.

… Sometimes “What-If”-Scenarios …

WM also continues to work in the “what-if” scenario genre, in the tradition of Dubrow Crisis, Million Game, and Smog. In 1977, he and Wolfgang Petersen deliver Maneuver (Planübung). The television film dramatizes a Bundeswehr military exercise simulating a war scenario on West German soil. The following year, Tom Toelle directs God’s Greetings, I’m from the Other Side (Grüß Gott, ich komm von drüben). In a style that oscillates between fairy tale and comedy, the film imagines the hypothetical takeover of a West German company by East German communist functionaries. The commissioning editor, Gunter Witte, described the plot:

“An East German citizen inherits a medium-sized shoe factory in West Germany and cedes it to his government, which thus becomes the owner of the Luxor Works in the small southern German town of Furlach. The Foreign Trade Minister of the German Democratic Republic appoints his old friend and fellow concentration camp inmate, Biddecke, an experienced shoe expert, as the plant manager. Biddecke sees a great opportunity to establish a small model of socialism on the soil of the capitalist Federal Republic, convinced of its magnetic appeal.”

It is, of course, a story that isn’t destined to end well.

“Menge delivered more than just the pathetic failure of an experiment,” Eckhart Schmidt noted in the Süddeutsche Zeitung after the television play aired in October 1978. “He exposed the narrow-minded East German employers to general ridicule. We witnessed showpieces of robust satire that thoroughly savaged the comrades from the other side.”

… Sometimes Entertainment Series …

In addition, WM also wrote entertainment series, among them Room for Rent — Near the UN (Zimmer frei — Uno Nähe), about a group of German women sharing an apartment in New York, whose twelve 30-minute episodes ran in the early evening lineup starting in 1979, and the comedy series Love is Dumb (Liebe ist doof). This adaptation of a British female-led sitcom had nine half-hour episodes, which aired in 1980 and 1981 and were mercilessly panned. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung, for instance, diagnosed the “decline of television entertainment” and spoke of “a sour, unappetizing mush of fussy solicitude, clichés, lack of imagination, and those few hoary innuendos that already circulated at grandfather’s regular pub table.”

“What’s the last thing of yours that aired on television?” I ask.

Wolfgang doesn’t like the question.

“Codeword: Seagull (Kennwort Möwe),” he growls. “A year ago.”

“Must have missed it …”

“What do you actually watch on TV?”

“Not much,” I say. “Some of us have jobs.”

“It was about the Schleyer kidnapping!”

“Oh, you wrote that? I think I saw a few minutes of it, somewhere in the middle …”

Wolfgang looks resigned.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, and it sounds like he’s consenting to his own incapacitation. “Let’s drop it. I don’t read stern either.”

Sometimes, Though, He Only Pilfers Ashtrays

The makeup artist comes over and dabs Wolfgang’s bald head. He is supposed to be visible only in the background, from a distance, and from behind. The TV team stands ready. We move into the hallway.

Hanns Joachim Friedrichs makes a second attempt. He enters the house, this time without the microphone in hand, and takes a few steps into the hallway. He looks around and points his finger toward the dresser.

“Lots of ashtrays, hand-pilfered from exclusive establishments.”

Naked fear suddenly flashes across Wolfgang’s face, a fear all too clearly for the possessions he acquired on countless raids.

“Could you please mention,” he calls out, “that there’s nothing else of value in the house, but that the property is nevertheless electronically secured?”

The soundman resignedly lowers his boom mic. His expression says it all: House call on a madman.

Friedrichs, however, smiles affectionately at his old friend and colleague, like a psychiatrist at a patient who has grown dear to him over years of treatment.

“Yes,” Wolfgang says, exaggerating the feigned fear on his face, “all electronically secured — with a direct line to the German army!”

Hanns Joachim Friedrichs turns around wordlessly and walks back to the door. He shoots his friend a brief, warning glance. Then he starts yet another take.

This time, Wolfgang stays quiet. He has achieved what he wanted: to inject chaos into order, fun into boredom.

“But above all,” Wolfgang says, turning to me, now completely serious, “I have spent the last ten years focusing on German history.”

***

Previous Chapter: 82 From “III After 9” to “People”

Next Chapter: **84 From Telling Stories to Telling Histories**

German-Language Version: Wer war WM?

German Book Edition — published in December 2024

This post is part of a series: new chapters appear weekly. The book is already available in German. If you don’t want to wait — and read German — you can order it from Amazon.de or directly from the publisher Kadmos. They also offer an e-book version