Dietmar Schönherr

Schönherr’s television career was accompanied by scandals, triggered by the broadcast formats or his behaviour as a moderator. Entertainment show playbooks for ‘Wünsch Dir Was’ (1969–72), which he co-moderated with Vivi Bach, and a notebook with questions for the first talk show on German television (‘Je später der Abend’, 1969–72) document preparations for show appearances. The Swiss television programme ‘Rendez-vous’ (1981) was cancelled after only one episode because Schönherr insulted US President Ronald Reagan on camera. A collection of numerous letters show how much he polarized audiences with his appearances. Handmade fan books and proposed ideas for entertainment shows, declarations of friendship and encouragement, but also wild insults and threats stand for the social and media projection surface that Schönherr personified. As collected press clippings indicate, ‘Kain’, a film he wrote and directed, also caused divided reactions, because Schönherr focused on the German National Socialist past and the present-day divided country in 1973. The film was accepted into the Cannes Film Festival programme. This archive reflects Schönherr’s conception of himself as a multifaceted artist. Treatments, notes and correspondence related to novels, film scripts, films and television formats, as well as a children’s book he wrote and illustrated, can all be found. Alongside his work in film and television, Schönherr was also shaped by his political and social engagement. In 1985, together with Peter Reichelt, he set up the Stiftung Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe (an aid organization with an emphasis on self-help), through which Schönherr mainly committed himself to social work in Nicaragua. The holdings in the archive came into the Kinemathek through Reichelt in 2018. (Text: Georg Simbeni)