Reinecker, Herbert (1914-2007)

Reinecker, Herbert

WRITER (GERMANY)

BORN 24 Dec 1914, Hagen, Nordrhein-Westfalen - DIED 27 Jan 2007, Berg-Kempfenhausen am Starnberger See, Bayern
GRAVE LOCATION Starnberg, Bayern: Waldfriedhof, Josef-Sigl-Strasse 10 (W-02-11)

Herbert Reinecker was the son of a railway conductor. From the age of fifteen he wrote stories for the Hagener Zeitung. In 1932 he vecame a member of the Hitlerjugend. In 1936 he became the editor-in-chief of the yout magazine "Der Pimpf". He wrote propganda books for young Germans and in 1939 he started writing novels. From 1938 he worked for the Franz Eher publishing house. Around that time he married Angela Schmikowski. They had two children and divorced in 1954.

During the Second World War he worked as a war correspondent. In 1942 he was put in charge of the magazine "Junge Welt". He also worked as a screenwriter for propaganda movies and plays. In 1942 his anti-soviet play "Das Dorf bei Odessa" was first staged. On 1 November 1943 he joined the NSDAP. On 5 April 1944 he wrote his last main article for "Das Schwarze Korps", a paper published by the SS. Shortly before the end of the war he left Berlin and he lived in hiding in Kärnten for the next three months.

He lived in several places before he settled in Hamburg in 1951. Under the name of Herbert Dührkopp he wrote radio plays together with Christian Bock. His novel "Kinder, Mütter und ein General" about children in the last phase of the war was published in 1953. His screneplay for the movie "Canaris" (1954) was awarded the Bundesfilmpreis of Western Germany. Under the name of Alex Berg he wrote screenplays for Edgar Wallace movies and other productions.

In 1959 he married his second wife Brunhilde and they lived at the Starnberger See near Munich. He became very successful with his scripts for the television productions. He wrote 97 episodes for "Der Kommissar" (1968-1975) and 281 episodes for "Derrick" (1974-1998). He suffered from bad eyesight and was forced to dictate his last creations.

Events

20/10/1974

The first episode of the German television series "Derrick" is broadcasted. The title of the episode was "Der Waldweg". Horst Tappert played the part of Stephan Derrick and Fritz Wepper was his assistant Harry Klein. Other actors were Wolfgang Kieling, Lina Karstens, Herbert Bötticher, Karl Lieffen and Hilde Weissner. The screenplay was written by Herbert Reinecker, Dietrich Haugk was the director and Helmut Ringelmann was the producer. 281 episodes of "Derrick" would be produced. [Tappert, Horst][Weissner, Hilde]