His awards included two red boxing gloves, which he was proud of and which he honored: Klaus Pierwoß was a fighter for the theater, for which he fought and fought, even in almost hopeless situations.

He could dish out - and take in.

It was often about survival.

Stability, but also sensitivity, stubbornness, but also slyness and fairness were his virtues.

Andreas Rossman

Freelance writer in the feuilleton.

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Pierwoss fought his toughest and most enduring struggle in Bremen, the last stop in his theater life, where he was general manager from 1994 to 2007.

When he took office, the Green Senator for Culture, with whom he had negotiated, had already been replaced, and he was dealing with an administration that wanted a musical temple, sent management consultants after him and imposed savings rounds that he fended off or at least kept small had to.

In public, Pierwoß appeared close to the people, rode a tandem bike with Mayor Scherf in a Werder jersey to the Weser Stadium and swapped costumes with King Otto (Rehhagel);

but against politics he defended the theater tooth and nail.

He saw nine cultural senators come and go – and saved the house from bankruptcy.

when he left

the four-division operation was secure in its existence and artistically on more than just a solid level;

the Bremen Music Theater was voted “Opera of the Year”.

Groundbreaking record

Pierwoß, who was born in Berge in Lower Saxony in 1942, found his first engagement as a dramaturge in 1971 at the Landestheater Tübingen, to which he returned in 1978 as director after three years at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, where he co-founded the Schillertage and put on world premieres by Volker Braun.

Already at the Cologne theatre, where he stepped in as Jürgen Flimm's successor in 1985 after more than a dozen candidates had been publicly presented and scared away, he showed that he was capable of taking the job.

For a long time he was estranged from the city (and above all they with him), but in retrospect his balance sheet showed groundbreaking: Manfred Karge initiated a small Hans Henny Jahnn renaissance with "Medea", Dimiter Gotscheff immigrated to the German theater, Frank Castorf made his western debut with "Hamlet" shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

When Pierwoß moved to Berlin's Maxim Gorki Theater as chief dramaturge in 1990, even before reunification, it was perceived as a career break, but the "old man" understood the opportunity to continue the work contacts he had cultivated over many years in the GDR and to bring them into the epochal break Sixty-eight”, as he called himself, as a historic opportunity.

Then Bremen called and he had to put on the red boxing gloves that he had already been given in Cologne: for a fight that demanded all his abilities and became his masterpiece.

Klaus Pierwoß died on Pentecost Sunday at the age of 79.