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Klaus Feldmann
Photo: Christophe Gateau / dpa
He was the chief spokesman for the »Current Camera« on GDR television: Klaus Feldmann is dead. He died at the age of 87 at home in Berlin, as a spokeswoman for the Eulenspiegel publishing house said on Tuesday – "after a long illness in the arms of his wife".
From 1961 to September 1989, the trained book printer and journalist read the news for GDR citizens in the evening broadcast. The readers of the GDR program magazine »FF dabei« voted the popular speaker 14 times as the GDR television favorite.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the last broadcast of the "Current Camera" was broadcast on December 14, 1990, according to the Federal Agency for Civic Education. Feldmann then worked as a press officer at the testing company Dekra. Later he was a spokesman and editor of local television stations.
Stories from Radio and Television under Socialism
The newsman wrote several books and was also on the road for readings. Most recently, in 2016, he published a book entitled »Interrogated Listeners«, 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 broken ribbons" or the "pilot office of the SED".
While this often came across as comedy to listeners and viewers in the GDR, a number of colleagues were constantly afraid that the tongue salad would be interpreted politically negatively, Feldmann wrote. He also recalled that a piece of news about Erich Honecker always had to be read out in the first place – but not without a title: General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and Chairman of the State Council of the German Democratic Republic.
With a planned new edition of the book, which is now to be published in three weeks, Feldmann actually wanted to go on a reading tour this year, said the publisher's spokeswoman.
bbr/dpa