This time there was no return ticket.

Joachim Schweighöfer, unforgotten as Professor Hinzelmann, who loves to travel, in Benatzky's operetta "Im Weißen Rößl", anticipated his obituary years ago at the Frankfurt Volkstheater.

With a new text to a famous old Viennese song: "Only when it will be over / with a desire to travel and sunshine / I'll drop off at the last station / my luggage.

/ But then, dear world / I'll give away what my rucksack will hold / and drive away."

Claudia Schulke

Freelance author in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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He gave away a lot: warm-heartedness and modesty when he strolled along the Oeder Weg in smart country house fashion, charm and acting talent when he was on stage.

This ran in the family.

Born in Frankfurt in 1936 as the son of an actor and a costume designer and sponsored by the Berlin actor Joachim Gottschalk, “Joschy”, as his friends call him, already knew at the age of five what he wanted to be.

At the age of six he appeared on stage for the first time in "Hansel and Gretel".

At the age of 17 he came to Harry Buckwitz as a "slutty chick" or jack of all trades, who also used him as an extra: in 1954, for example, alongside Oskar Werner in "Prinz Friedrich von Homburg".

Sponsored by the actor Hanns Lothar and trained free of charge by Elisabeth Kuhlmann, then Grande Dame of the municipal theaters, he was hired by the Landesbühne Rhein-Main in 1956 for the roles of character actor and lover.

Here, at Eschenheimer Tor, he also met Liesel Christ, who brought him to her Volkstheater years later.

For a long time she had considered him "too fine".

Schweighöfer earned this title from Fritz Rémond, who cast him in 1961 as Jakobsche in the “Fünf Frankfurtern”.

In 1976 Schweighöfer played the student in Goethe's "Urfaust" alongside Boy Gobert (Mephisto), Hilde Krahl (Gretchen) and Theo Lingen (Wagner).

The Fritz Rémond Theater remained his artistic home under Egon Baumgarten and Claus Helmer.

He never got a permanent job.

Radio lured with radio plays, film and television lured him with dubbing offers: He voiced Little Joe in the western series "Bonanza".

In the 1970s he sat on horseback with director Fritz Umgelter in Simplicissimus.

Riding was his childhood dream, he learned it from farmers in Neu-Anspach.

In the mid-nineties he made his debut at the Volkstheater: as a duo in Fürst Klausthal-Agordo, again in the “Fünf Frankfurtern”.

He later played Tiger Brown in Brecht's The Threepenny Opera;

he also made guest appearances in Helmer's "Comedy".

There he was in 2014 in "Out of Control" for the last time on a stage.

He had long since said goodbye to the summer festivals in Bad Hersfeld, Ettlingen and Jagsthausen.

But the actor dynasty lives on: in 2011 Joschy met his nephew Matthias Schweighöfer.

With his partner Brigitte, he hiked through the northern Black Forest and finally moved to Ettlingen, where she is at home.

He died there on Epiphany at the age of 86.

"I'm an eternal dreamer," he confessed on his 80th birthday.

Like Professor Hinzelmann: “And if unfortunately there is no return ticket / yes, what do I do then?

/ I ride a sky train / around the whole sky then / and never stop.”