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Peter Sodann in December 2013
Photo: Marc Müller / dpa
The actor, director and theater director Peter Sodann is dead. He died on Friday at the age of 87 in Halle an der Saale, as his family announced on Sunday. He passed away peacefully on April 5th. The “Mitteldeutsche Zeitung” had previously reported.
A wide audience then became known on television as “Tatort” detective Bruno Ehrlicher, whom he played between 1992 and 2007. Until 2005, Sodann was director of the new theater (nt) Halle, which he founded in 1981.
Sodann came from Meißen in Saxony, where he was born on June 1, 1936 as the son of a worker. After an apprenticeship as a toolmaker and a foray into law, he studied at the Leipzig Theater University.
In Staucha he ran the Peter Sodann Library, where he collected all books that were published in eastern Germany between May 8, 1945 and October 2, 1990. In 2005, Peter Sodann was made an honorary citizen of Halle.
Candidacy for the office of Federal President
Sodann also ran a cabaret that was closed in 1961 because of a program that was found to be counter-revolutionary. He was then arrested for anti-state agitation. He spent nine months in prison in the GDR, and later the Stasi spied on him. After his release from prison, he trained as a top turner and then enrolled again at the theater school in 1963.
In 1986 he received the National Prize in the GDR. In 2001 he was also awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.
In 2005, Sodann wanted to run for the federal election in Saxony as a non-party top candidate on an open PDS list. Two days later he withdrew his announcement.
In October 2008, the Left Party announced that it would be running as a candidate for the office of Federal President. He received 91 votes in the May 2009 election. Horst Köhler was elected Federal President in the first round of voting.
svs/dpa