Dieter Wedel could have gone down in the history of German television as the man who struck a chord with the times and perfected a genre by exposing this nerve in such a way that it concerned everyone.

The Bread Rolls and the "Bellheim Effect"

Michael Hanfeld

responsible editor for feuilleton online and "media".

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Epic storytelling of the present, that was his thing.

He created multi-part series – today one would say “mini-series” – with which he swept the streets clean and coined terms.

Anyone who hears "Once in a Lifetime" and sat in front of the screen in the 1970s knows what is meant - the Semmeling family's middle-class dream of owning their own home, the promise of a small piece of happiness that turns into a great tragedy, staged by Dieter Frond.

There is the "Bellheim Effect", which emerged from the department store epic "Der Große Bellheim" (1992, with Will Quadflieg, Mario Adorf, Hans Korte and Heinz Schubert), which means that the value-conscious old people should show the capitalism-drunk youngsters again, what true virtues are.

And finally "Der Schattenmann" (1995), played by the then not very well-known Stefan Kurt,

Borrowing from the Hollywood stars

All of this was created by Dieter Wedel, who showed at the beginning of his career, when the man who was born on November 12, 1939, made himself three years older in order to get his first direction, that he knew how to tell stories.

Critics have already noticed the borrowings he took from famous colleagues such as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone and Woody Allen.

That was true for the "shadow man" and for "The Semmeling Affair" (2002).

In the latter case, Wedel and ZDF had to pay the author Manfred Zach and the Rowohlt publishing house for copying.

However, that didn't take the momentum out of Wedel's career, it just took a new direction.

With the resumption of the story of the Semmeling family, Wedel had passed his zenith on television.

What was previously dramaturgically compact, exciting and theatrically moving, in the "Schattenmann", in the "Großen Bellheim" or the "König von St. Pauli" (1998), seemed overloaded and no longer up to date.

But Wedel caused a sensation at the theater.

From 2002 to 2014 he directed the Nibelungen Festival in Worms, and in 2015 he took over the Bad Hersfeld Festival and caused quite a stir.

It was said that he was a man killer

That was one side of the shadow man that Wedel not only brought to television, but that he was himself.

His public appearances were sometimes bizarre, that he was a human abuser was also heard behind closed doors.

At the beginning of 2018, the dark side became apparent.

Several actresses went public with accusations that Wedel had sexually abused and raped them.

The crimes he is accused of go back a long way.

Actress Esther Gemsch said Wedel tried to rape her in 1980, hit her and severely injured her.

Her colleague Ute Christensen reported that Wedel sexually harassed her, which is why she suffered a nervous breakdown and lost her unborn child.

Another actress said Wedel raped her in 1975.

Actress Jany Tempel testified that Wedel forced her to have sex in a Munich hotel in the summer of 1996 when she was auditioning for a role.

The victims did not hear

Wedel rejected the allegations one and all.

However, the broadcasters and production companies with which he had worked were forced to investigate the allegations.

Nothing conclusive was found at Bavaria, NDR, Sat.1 and ZDF, but was found at the production company Telefilm Saar and Saarland Radio, for which Wedel had shot the early evening series "Boards that mean the world" in 1980.

The "task force" set up by the broadcaster in 2018 found that a number of those responsible up to the then director knew about an alleged attempted rape, but - remained silent.

Those affected were “not granted any lasting protection”.

The pattern is known.

In 2018, the Munich public prosecutor's office began investigations against Wedel, and in March 2021 they brought charges of rape.

It was only this Wednesday that the Munich I Regional Court wanted to announce whether the trial against Wedel would begin.

Instead, the message came that he died on July 13.