Memories of a visit to Claus Seibel, summer 2001. His beautiful apartment in Wiesbaden, he had wine and plenty of time. And this voice, just looked up again in the story from back then: “His voice always sounds the same, when arranging an interview on the cell phone it sounds like it’s on TV, through the intercom system in his apartment it sounds like it’s on TV, during a conversation it sounds them like on TV.” On the one hand, it may not be very spectacular that a voice stays true to itself. On the other hand: This reliability also explains why old newscasters have become so dear to one’s heart.
Seibel, who in 1971 for the first time today– read the news was a man of the old television, the old Federal Republic. No anchorman, but one of the inconspicuous. He did not moderate a talk show on the side, he did not grow a mustache and was therefore the talk of the day, like ARD colleague Karl-Heinz Köpcke. Seibel was the category Otto Diepholz and Gerhard Klarner: ZDF people who brought world events closer to you and who you hardly knew anything about and couldn’t google. The fact that color television had been invented hadn’t made her any better as a person. Jean-Philippe Toussaint, the Belgian writer, has not only reflected on the melancholy of the football hero Zinédine Zidane, but also on Claus Seibel: “I confuse them all a little, these newscasters, despite the three million little dots of all colors that characterize them .”
He hardly ever got muddled or rustled with the notepaper like Köpcke after puberty
Remembering Seibel is remembering a TV time that wasn’t better, but different. You didn’t have to become a brand to be able to defend your regular place on TV. Although he could have become a brand: Claus Seibel, perfectly fitting suit, tie man of the year 1988, who radiated more warmth than announcers Diepholz or Heinz Wrobel. Maybe he was overqualified for his job, but because he was still himself and didn’t even trundle through the game shows as a candidate, Seibel, the news anchor, stayed with Seibel today from 1971 to 2005. He hardly ever got stuck. Unlike Köpcke, he never rustled his notebook after puberty. He never lost his composure. Only almost once, he talked about that during the visit. In 1990 he had to inform the audience about the death of his colleague Klarner: audience favorite, everyday companion, speaker for decades, reliable. Seibel almost cried when he read the death notice, but fortunately it was the last news, then he only had to move on to the weather.
Claus Seibel, 85, died on Tuesday. According to the obituaries, he was a grand seigneur. And it is now similar to the death of Hajo Friedrichs, Ulrike von Möllendorff, Wilhelm Wieben: You remember the newscasters who accompanied you and who ended up having more good than bad to report. And it just feels like the memory of a time that won’t come back.