The longtime news presenter on GDR television, Klaus Feldmann, is dead. He died at the age of 87, as announced by the Eulenspiegel publishing house. Feldmann was the face of the “Current Camera”. From 1961 to September 1989, the trained book printer and journalist read the news for GDR citizens on the evening broadcast.
The readers of the GDR program magazine “FF dort” voted the popular speaker 14 times their favorite on GDR television. According to the Federal Agency for Civic Education, the last broadcast of the “Aktuelle Kamera” was broadcast on December 14, 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Feldmann then started as a press officer at the testing company Dekra. He later worked as an announcer and editor for local television stations.
The news man wrote several books and was also on the road with readings. Most recently, in 2016, he published a book entitled “Verhörte Hörer”, in which he presented stories from radio and television under socialism that were never supposed to happen. He recalled slips of the tongue such as “democratic testicular reform” or “colorful banners and trusses” or the “SED Pilot Office”.
While that was often perceived as comical by listeners and viewers in the GDR, a number of colleagues were constantly afraid that the tongue salad would be interpreted in a politically negative way, Feldmann wrote. He also recalled that a message about Erich Honecker always had to be read out first – but not without a title: “General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and Chairman of the Council of State of the German Democratic Republic.”
With a planned new edition of the book, which is now due to appear in three weeks, he actually wanted to go on a reading tour this year, said a publisher’s spokeswoman.