Dietramszell: Rainer Erler celebrates his 90th birthday – Bavaria

In 1965, screenwriter and director Rainer Erler cast the role of Dr. Gerstl with the then largely unknown Gustl Bayrhammer. The shooting took place in Weildorf, Upper Bavaria. Erler was already known for his socially critical and provocative films. For Bayrhammer it was the breakthrough for his later film career. The rapid rise of the village of Füssing to become the health resort of Bad Füssing inspired Erler to write the bitter satire about greed and greed. And the film promptly met with violent reactions: when it was first broadcast in 1966, the broadcasting council of Bavarian Radio railed that the film was a “contempt for the Bavarian way of life”. When ARD put the film back on the program in 1968, BR withdrew from the joint broadcast and broadcast the Komödienstadel. Today Erler can laugh about it. This Saturday he celebrates his 90th birthday.

Anyone who looks back on his life’s work will be amazed: Erler has not only shot more than 40 feature films in 30 countries, he has also written 14 novels, a good two dozen stories and short stories and five stage works. “I’ve always been interested in controversial issues,” he says. His works were socially critical, forward-looking and always provided a topic for discussion.

Erler was born in Munich on August 26, 1933 and grew up in Solln. “We used to spend long vacations on the Baltic Sea,” he says. At Easter, Pentecost or in the fall we went to the Anzenhofers, who ran a tannery in Obermühlthal, a district of Dietramszell. “It was always a dream vacation.” He is still friends with his son Thomas Anzenhofer, who is the same age. However, his stays in the district were not to be limited to vacations for long.

When he appeared as a boy in July 1944 with his parents for the entrance exam at the Wittelsbach Gymnasium, the air raid alarm promptly went off. There was no more exam. “The shelters in the school were limited,” he recalls. So they fled under the station. “There we sat with thousands of people seeking protection, who kept screaming in fear when the bombs crashed into the station. And the smoke. It was really scary.” The heaviest air raids on Munich took place in mid-July 1944, laying the entire city center, including the Residenz and the opera house, in rubble and ashes.

To the Ickinger Gymnasium with the Isar Valley Railway

The mayor of Dietramszell at the time, Martin Eichner, who was a friend of Rainer Erler’s father, had advice: A new high school was being founded in Icking at the time, which was easy to reach from Solln with the Isar valley railway. “Despite the years of shortages and hunger after the war, the most wonderful school years that one could wish for followed,” says Erler. “I was in charge of the school’s theatrical productions. That I would later do films was a given since I was twelve.”

In German class he gave a lecture on film dramaturgy: film and theater directing as a contrast. His thesis on the subject of “modern sound film technology” covered more than a hundred pages and later helped him with his application to the director Rudolf Jugert, who hired him as an assistant for eight years after graduating from high school in 1952.

Open detailed view

Erler learned his craft in the film studios of Munich, Hamburg, Berlin and Vienna, among other places. He assisted the directors Harald Braun, Kurt Hoffmann and Franz Peter Wirth. He learned how to produce from Erich Prommer, who wrote film history with “The Last Man” and “Metropolis”.

Erler’s first feature-length film, “Migration of the Souls”, received the cinema rating “particularly valuable” and was awarded numerous prizes: the Ernst Lubitsch Prize, the Prix Italia, the Golden Nymph (Director’s Prize at the Monte Carlo Festival) and the Otto -Dibelius Prize at the 14th Berlin Film Festival. After its first broadcast on ARD in October 1962, it ran for nine weeks in the “Münchner Studio für Filmkunst” and then for more than ten years in other German arthouses.

Open detailed view

He met his wife Renate in 1960. The two married a year later. Together they built a spectacular house in Bairawies in the municipality of Dietramszell, which is still family-owned today. There, in his bright, large studio with a view of nature, Erler wrote most of his works. In 1972, the couple founded the Pentagramma production company.

The bizarre comedy “Endkampf” was created on the Buchberg

Her first self-produced film “Seven Days” takes place in Geretsried and deals with the conflict between the profession and vocation of a Protestant pastor. For this, Rainer Erler received the Adolf Grimme Prize. The film was also nominated for the prize of the German Academy of Arts. The bizarre Bavarian comedy “Endkampf” was filmed on the Buchberg above Bad Tölz. It describes the last two days of the war on a deserted farm, with Gustl Bayrhammer and Ruth Drexel playing the leading roles. In Wolfratshausen, Königsdorf and Geretsried, Erler filmed the comedy “Mein Freund der Scheich” with Josef Bierbichler and again Gustl Bayrhammer in the leading roles.

Erler’s five-part series “The Blue Palace”, filmed in Thailand, Hong Kong and the USA, is considered one of the best science fiction productions on German television. One of his most successful films is the psychological thriller “Fleisch”, with which he addressed the topic of organ trafficking as early as 1979. For the leading role he used the then 25-year-old actress Jutta Speidel, who became internationally known with the film. “Fleisch” ran in 127 countries and was even a success in the GDR: “Twelve million cinema tickets were sold there,” says Erler.

When, in 1980, a few young bald men suddenly ran around the district, those in the know knew that they were extras in Erler’s satire “A Guru is Coming”. The film addresses a commercially oriented, west-east cult hype.

Second home in Australia

Erler made three films in Australia: “The beautiful end of this world”, “Journey into a bright future” and “Sugar”. The family has a special relationship with Perth in Western Australia. Daughter Tatjana graduated from a private school there, completed her studies as a Master of Clinical Psychology and has been “happily married” for 23 years, as Erler says. He and his wife Renate are grandparents of two adult grandchildren. Since 1982 they have found their second home in Perth. They spent the winter months there for many years. They have lived there exclusively since the 2020 corona pandemic, but “longing for our beloved Bairawies”, as Erler says. Her son Tobias now lives there and takes care of the property.

In addition to his job, Erler was also politically involved in his home town of Dietramszell. He founded the “Zeller Tal Protection Association” to prevent a motorway link and later a road expansion between Bairawies and Dietramszell through the nature reserve. He went through the Au forests with school classes to collect rubbish and organized a protest meeting against a rubbish dump, which was then also reported on BR television.

Australian sparkling wine for friends and neighbors – and a gift from BR

In 2004, Rainer Erler received the German Fantasy Prize from the city of Passau and the Federal Cross of Merit from the Federal President at the time, Johannes Rau, for his complete works. 22 of his films are currently available in video stores. For his 90th birthday, Bavarian television was just repeating the short film “The Last Regulars’ Table” from 1984. A grumpy taxi driver (Gustl Bayrhammer) drives a grumpy pensioner (Hans Stadtmüller) through Munich to his hated new home of Neuperlach. Topics such as evictions, luxury refurbishment and the shortage of housing are discussed in a humorous way – as relevant today as they were 40 years ago.

How is Erler celebrating the big day? “With a champagne reception for the family, six German-speaking friends and four neighbors from the hills where we live,” he says. Australian sparkling wine is served, not imported. In the evening there is a big Thai meal. And does he have a birthday wish? “BR has already fulfilled that for me with the broadcast of my film ‘The Last Regulars’ Table’.”