actor
Diaries provide fascinating insight into the life of Manfred Krug
On February 8, 2022, Manfred Krug would have been 85 years old
© Sebastian Kahnert / dpa infoline
On February 8, the actor Manfred Krug would have been 85 years old. His diaries from 1996 and 1997 are now being published. In “I Collect My Life Together” Krug draws a picture full of contradictions.
What a life. Bigger than any of his roles: Manfred Krug was first the acting star in the GDR, and after moving to the Federal Republic in 1977 he was also a crowd favorite there. In addition, as an autodidact ignorant of music, he advanced to become a jazz singer worth listening to. Made a career as a book author, was also a bald-headed Casanova, father of four, controversial Telekom stock advertising star.
When the heart-sick pitcher finally died in Berlin in 2016 as a result of pneumonia, time stood still for a second in East and West. Almost every TV viewer had a movie starring Krug in their head. Whether “König Drosselbart” (1965) or “Spur der Steine” (1966), which was put on the index in the GDR, his later series roles in “AufAxis”, “Liebling Kreuzberg” or “Tatort” – the growler with the distinctive scar on the very high forehead everyone had gladly let it into their living room.
A stroke leaves him speechless for a moment
Manfred Krug is unforgotten in East and West. That’s why his descendants released his diaries right on time for his 85th birthday on February 8th. In “Manfred Krug: I collect my life together” the actor is neither squeamish with himself nor with others.
It’s a fascinating glimpse into the star’s life. The fact that the most intimate things were left out was evidently ensured by his long-time advisor Krista Maria Schädlich, who also moved from East Germany to West Germany in 1977 with her husband, the writer and Krug friend Hans Joachim Schädlich.
Nevertheless, Manfred Krug lets us share in two difficult years in his life. In 1997 he suffered a stroke, the physical consequences of which he said he was struggling with. The tree of a man – helpless. The eloquent cynic – temporarily speechless. We have to imagine the rehabilitation clinic as hell for him.
Manfred Krug does not spare himself
But Krug pulls himself together. But he only becomes more insightful in moderation: the cigars are a little fewer and shorter, the food is sometimes less hearty, only three glasses of red wine are added – at least sometimes that has to be enough. Krug doesn’t spare himself, but neither does his environment. His wife Ottilie probably suffers in silence. Or he doesn’t want to see it. After three children from his marriage to Ottilie, Krug and a colleague fathered another girl in 1995, who often lives in the back building with her mother, so that Krug can see both of them.
The two families mostly avoid each other. Marlene, that’s the name of the child, once again awakens very tender paternal aspects in Krug. Ottilie Krug, on the other hand, often only appears in “I collect my life together” when she is praised for her cooking skills.
He struggles with getting older
The aging pitcher is annoyed about the worsening “Tatort” scripts, the ARD bureaucracy or his arch friend “Minchen” Armin Mueller-Stahl, who fought with him for the crown of the most popular actor in the GDR and continued after moving to the West moved to the USA and made a career as an Oscar candidate.
Next to it in black and white are Krug’s ratings of other actresses, whom he likes to reduce to their appearance. There you meet a man in the TV chair who is struggling with aging and who you don’t like to meet.
Diary writing is always a source of consolation and a wailing wall rolled into one. Krug himself sums it up like this: “Everyone over 50 should write a diary, because then they experience more.” Then there is the wit again, the courage to see yourself critically and to write it down. This makes “I collect my life together” a document that, after so many years, still commands respect for Manfred Krug, despite some lengths in the description of everyday life. This charming disgust, this gifted Bollerkopf is missing.