To him we owe the “scene of the crime:” Now, Gunther Witte died at the age of 82 in Berlin. He had shaped the German television sustainably, said WDR Director Tom Buhrow.
The success formula of the detective series, Gunther Witte summed up on three criteria: regionality, the leading role of the Commissioner and stories, “which have to do with our reality.” The Format have kept over the decades, was due to young authors and Directors, which sought to expand the boundaries of the genre and to exceed.
Witte is already died last Thursday as a surprise. The WDR learned from the family circle. “With his unique invention of the ‘Tatort’-series he has coined the WDR and the German television is so sustainable like no other,” said WDR Director Tom Buhrow. As an editor, developed Witte in 1969, the concept for the “Tatort”series, whose first episode, “Taxi to Leipzig” in the following year.
Unmistakable trademark: the “crime scene”-preload
Almost 20 years Director of the TV game
Witte came on 26. September 1935 in Riga, Latvia for the world. In East Berlin, he studied in the 1950s at the Humboldt University, German literature and theatre Sciences, in Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz), he worked on the Urban theatre as a Dramaturg. Witte came to the West and worked since 1963, as an editor and dramaturge for the drama Department of WDR. In 1979, he was head of the Department of television, game, and in 1998 he retired.
As a producer, Witte was involved, among others, Volker schlöndorff, “The lost honor of Katharina Blum” (1975), after Heinrich Böll, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s series “Berlin Alexanderplatz” (1980) and Alfred Döblin. In his time as a TV game chef is also the Start of the series “lime street” in 1985 fell.
tla/ka (dpa, epd)