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Herbert Reinecker

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Herbert Reinecker
Born(1914-12-24)24 December 1914
Died27 January 2007(2007-01-27) (aged 92)
Kempfenhausen near Starnberg, Bavaria, Germany
Occupation(s)Novelist, television writer

Herbert Reinecker (24 December 1914 – 27 January 2007) was a German novelist, dramatist and screenwriter.

Career

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Born in Hagen, Westphalia, Reinecker began to write short stories already as a high school student. In 1936, he moved to Berlin, where he became editor-in-chief of a youth magazine, Jungvolk. In the same year, he also co-authored a book, Jugend in Waffen (Armed Youth). This was a time when the Nazis had already been in power for three years and when the media had long been gleichgeschaltet. In 1943, he joined the Nazi Party and worked as the editor-in-chief of a book entitled Der Pimpf about the training system of the Hitler Youth. Reinecker served in a propaganda company of the Waffen-SS during World War II.[1]

In the early 1940s, Reinecker also wrote a number of plays, among them Das Dorf bei Odessa, and the novel Der Mann mit der Geige. In 1944, he wrote an award-winning screenplay, Junge Adler (Young Eagles).

After the war, he started working for radio and television. At the same time, he wrote screenplays for the series of German feature films of the 1960s that were loosely based on Edgar Wallace's novels as well as TV adaptations of Francis Durbridge novels and plays.

In the late 1960s, Reinecker and producer Helmut Ringelmann wanted to create a truly German police detective. At first tentatively conceived as a "German Maigret", Reinecker's Kommissar Keller soon metamorphosed into a full-fledged character. Erik Ode was chosen to play Keller in the TV series, Der Kommissar, which was finally launched in 1969 and which became a huge success. In 1974, Reinecker and Ringelmann started a new, similar series, Derrick which was in production until 1998 with major international success.

Personal life

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In 1938 Herbert Reinecker married Angela Schmikowski, with whom he had two children – daughter Rita (also a writer/author), 1941, and Hilmar (1944–2001). Divorced in 1954, he married Brunhilde (Holly) Schubert in 1959.

Reinecker is reported to have stopped writing due to macular degeneration. He was nearly blind when he died on 27 January 2007, aged 92.[2]

Selected filmography

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References

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  1. ^ Hanns-Georg Rodek: Derrick und sein Schöpfer, der SS-Offizier. Die Welt, 15 September 2011.
  2. ^ "Aktuelle Nachrichten | RP ONLINE".
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