He was one of the truly great ones of Germany’s political cabaret – last night, Dieter Hildebrandt sadly died at the age of 86. Only yesterday there were reports that he was gravely ill, before he seemed almost indestructible and had been on stage until quite recently. Although his presence was limited to German-speaking audiences, I’m writing this article in English to give everyone an impression how great his influence had been. So far there has been only one English-language obituary about him, but he also deserves to be recognized outside of Germany.

As a co-founder of the Müncher Lach- und Schiessgesellschaft in the 1950s he was one of the driving forces of political satire in a time when it was most needed. Their stage shows were broadcast on radio and television and the end-of-year revue Schimpf vor Zwölf became a long-standing tradition and ruffled many a politician’s feathers – the biting social and political satire was unprecedended back then. The group even made one high-profile movie called Zwei Girls vom Roten Stern (Two Girls from the Red Planet), a brilliant cold-war satire in 1966, but they were more at home on the political cabaret stage in their own Munich theatre. Hildebrandt had left the group as a performer in the 1970s to concentrate on solo projects, but remained as a writer and advocate ever since.

His first endeavour together with his Lach- und Schiess colleagues Sammy Drechsel and Klaus-Peter Schreiner behind the scenes was the satirical news show Notizen aus der Provinz (Notes from the Province) which ran from 1973 to 1979 on ZDF, Germany’s second state television channel. The show annoyed even more politicians who often tried to interfere with the broadcast and sometimes succeeded – after six years the program was finally cancelled, but Dieter Hildebrandt did not give up and moved to the ARD one year later.

He teamed up again with Sammy Drechsel and Klaus-Peter Schreiner to create Scheibenwischer (Window Wiper), which was more a cabaret show, always broadcast live, with many guest performers – apart from featuring friends like Werner Schneyder, Bruno Jonas or Konstantin Wecker, he also gave younger satirists a chance. The mix of political sketches and music numbers proved to enormeously successful and, to Hildebrandt’s delight, created even more controversies and complaints from politicians. Dieter Hildebrandt chose to leave the program after 23 years in 2003, he left it in the capable hands of his friends. Internal differences made Scheibenwischer last only until 2008, when all original participants had left and the focus on comedy instead of satire had been too much for Dieter Hildebrandt, who finally revoked the rights to use the Scheibenwischer title.

After only occasionally returning to the television screens, Dieter Hildebrandt often toured through Germany with his one-man stage show, reading from his several books – he even wrote a humorous novel about his traveling experiences. He never gave up and was always full of energy even after turning 80 in 2007 – sadly his 85th birthday last year had not been as much celebrated, but he remained in the public’s eye as one of the  Only this year he was one of the several political satirists creating the crowd-funded Störsender.tv, an internet television satire show where he still seemed like his old self.

He will be terribly missed, there will probably be no-one like him again – with his unassuming appearance and his charming stutter, his cynical and always spot-on observations about the state of politics have become legendary for a good reason. He was never a pretentious showman, but someone who loved to tell the truth and make people laugh about it in an intelligent way. Political cabaret in Germany will never be the same without him.

To celebrate his life and work, have a look around Youtube if you are fluent in German – there are a lot of classic Scheibenwischer episodes around and even some early programs of the Münchener Lach- und Schiessgesellschaft. Maybe I will add a playlist to this article later.