After the death of Father Beimer, all Lindenstraße

Stand: 15:23 | Reading time: 4 minutes

KÖln (dpa) – From the point of view of the fans of "Lindenstraßen", it must appear retrospectively as a bad omen that Hans Beimer suddenly collapsed in a hut in a forest and made his last breath.

A few weeks after the death of this central figure, the West German Broadcasting (WDR) announced Friday the end of the complete series – the longest broadcast of German television.

The last episode will be screened in March 2020, after more than 34 years. Producer Hans W. Geißendörfer (87) and his daughter and successor Hana (34) reacted with annoyance: "We are dismayed and we can only express our lack of understanding." In times of right and xenophobia, the series is "more important than ever".

Rumors had circulated for years about the impending outbreak of the epidemic, but the production contract had been extended several times. After all, "Lindenstraße" is a "German television icon", says Volker Herres, director of programs at The First.

At the beginning of the series, on December 8, 1985, Helmut Kohl was only three years old Chancellor. In the east, Erich Honecker was firmly in the saddle. And in the "Lindenstraße"? As a family, Beimer played coffee and cake for the first advent. "Shall we stop?" Were the first words of the series of Benni Beimer (Christian Kahrmann). Father Hans answered, "We have just started!" Prophetic words.

The series was initially strongly criticized. Even the RDM itself has admitted its problems of youth, they go too slowly. Geißendörfer was not in agreement: "The series is set in the normal rhythm of life.If Hans Beimer must one day lose his head, you can prepare the audience for six or eight years.

From now on, Lindenstraße has been the mirror of the moral and social history of the federal republics. The dream wedding between Helga and Hans Beimer broke after he left his "dove" for neighbor Anna. Carpenter Benno Zimmermann has died of AIDS. In 1990, a German series showed how two gay men kiss each other. Drug trafficking, alcoholism, gambling addiction, suicide and even a killed rabbit – compared to the "Wicherts next door" or "country doctor" of the ZDF, hell was taking place in Lindenstraße.

But also the big policy was reflected: In 1998, the Lindenstraße was ingested in the election campaign by creating a Vietnamese as an alternative Chancellor candidate to Helmut Kohl (CDU) and Gerhard Schröder (SPD). On Sunday of the federal elections last year, the residents even reacted to the result that we had just known: the creators had used different scenarios and inserted the appropriate variant currently.

From the beginning Geißendörfer has pursued the goal of seeing the inhabitants of Lindenstraße as neighbors. The border between fiction and reality is blurred. Irene Fischer-Probst, Anna Ziegler's actress, a friend of Hein Beimer, has been described as "adultery" at the supermarket. CSU politician Peter Gauweiler sued Lindenstraße in 1988 because a resident called him a "fascist". Some spectators have even wanted to rent a car in Munich's Vorortstraße, which only exists as a backdrop to a WDR site in the torn suburbs of Cologne.

And now the end – how could this happen? This also has to do with the history of the Federal Republic. When the "Lindenstraße" started, the public right had just competed, RTL was still very young. At the time, in the 1980s, an average of 12 million people were watched. In the end, there were just over two million left.

After all, a good year, the series will continue, as the current production contract is long. And then, of course, it is like that: it is only when a series is part of the story that it becomes a cult. It's almost as if Father Beimer had anticipated all this. His last words shortly before his death a few weeks ago were: "It's not an end, it's only the beginning."

Episode with the serial death of Hans Beimer

First Linden Road Series