The longtime television director Dieter Pröttel (1933-2022) is dead. He died with his family on December 26 at the age of 89, said the television producer Werner Kimmig (74) on his website. Pröttel stands like no other for the early days of the big television and family shows.
As a show and film director, moderator and editor-in-chief, he had a significant impact on the 1960s to 1990s and worked as a director until 2006. He also directed the first color television program in Germany. In 1967, at the Radio Exhibition in Berlin, Willy Brandt pressed the famous red button to initiate color transmission.
As a student, Pröttel first toured the concert halls of the young Federal Republic as a member of the “Drei Halodries”. The trio offered cabaret cover music and was finally discovered by Peter Frankenfeld on “Who wants, that can”. Pröttel worked for SWR for ten years as a full-time show director and editor and really got going straight away.
In doing so, he developed new formats such as the “talent shed”, which is considered the forefather of all casting shows long before Dieter Bohlen (68) worked on the jury. The big stars of the industry such as Marlene Dietrich, Rudi Carrell or Joachim “Blacky” Fuchsberger worked together with Pröttel.
But he also discovered many new talents, including the world-famous show magicians Siegfried and Roy or the comedian Hape Kerkeling (58), who is still very popular today.
He was also the editor-in-chief of the television magazine “Bild Funk” and built up a music label and a television production company for the Burda publishing house. His “Supernasen” films with Thomas Gottschalk (72) and Mike Krüger (71) are probably best known (1983 and 1984).
Dieter Pröttel was extremely popular with all production teams. He was said to have the ability to bring even the most disparate star characters together. Above all, however, he treated all employees from the cable helper to the moderator with the same respect.
The television producer Werner Kimmig remembers: “I could always fall back on his advice. And the advice was always spot on. I will miss him very much. And our family owes him a great debt of gratitude. The gap he fills not only in the life of our family left behind, nobody will be able to fill. Our sympathy goes especially to his dear wife Birte and his three sons.”
