“Actually, one is surprised that she doesn’t have it yet, the Dieter Hildebrandt Prize,” was how the jury began its reasoning for awarding the renowned award to Maren Kroymann in 2023. After all, the actress and cabaret artist had already appeared in 1985 alongside Dieter Hildebrandt in “window wiper”. After his death in 2013, Kroymann said that Hildebrandt was “a person with attitude” who was also highly professional – “unique in this mixture”. The jurors (e.g. Severin Gröbner and Maria Peschek) contradicted this: Because the same applies to Kroymann.
“She is a figurehead for revolution, emancipation, tolerance and democratic steadfastness, for courageous and pioneering female cabaret, packed with a lot of humor and (self-)irony,” praised the jury. She is not only a great actress and virtuoso singer, but above all one of the most important pioneers and foremen of feminist cabaret in Germany.
After her first stage program “Auf du und du mit dem Heelschuh”, she went on television in the 1980s and challenged some male top dogs with her first own satirical show “Nachtschwester Kroymann” on ARD: “I was feminist, lesbian and tended to be intellectual – the worst thing for them was the intellectual part,” she is said to have said herself. Kroymann, born in Waldrode in 1949, is also known from television series such as “Oh God, Herr Pfarrer”. Since 2017 she can be seen in the satirical show “Kroymann”.
The city of Munich has been awarding the Dieter Hildebrandt Prize every year since 2016 to “demanding political or decidedly socially critical cabaret” from all over Germany. It is endowed with 10,000 euros.