»Winners are boring.« Herbert Fischer-Solms or: What was once possible on the radio
A few days ago I learned from a research coincidence that Herbert Fischer-Solms died on November 6th.
Herbert was a voice. Herbert had one vote. For almost 40 years she was in sports programs of the Deutschlandfunks been heard. He had a voice in two senses of the word: his voice had weight, and one liked to hear his firm, pleasantly colored but never commanding voice, extremely gladly.
Something about the »zeitgeist«, about the »social climate«, about the constitution of the situation, can be seen in voices as well as in faces. Just as today, without exception, all TV presenters wear the same featureless, childish smiles and grins, so on the radio you hardly hear a distinctive voice that testifies to a stubborn intellectual physiognomy. The pressure to conform, the self-adjustment, the terror of the uniformization of “attitude” and “attitude” are all articulated in a depressing way in a medial monotony that no longer knows or allows any realities, no perspectives, no complexity, no deviance.
In 2011 I had in Cologne Deutschlandfunk-Hochhaus led a panel discussion on the decline of public broadcasters as part of the first »sports conference«. Herbert came in after me, as always, heaps of paper in his hand, on which he quickly jotted down more notes before grabbing the microphone. As calm and concentrated as he always seemed, I often thought he was still energized. No detail on a sport-political question or on his interlocutor should have escaped him. He researched as one can only research, he was a journalist who wanted to know something, who wanted to find out something and didn’t allow himself to be fobbed off with phrases, ideologemes and the idiocies of the business and came to terms with it.
After the event we sat in the lobby of a hotel on the arterial road and drank our way through the night. Herbert, Thomas Kistner and Hajo Seppelt reported on monstrosities from the world of professional sports that exceeded anything I could have imagined. We laughed and drank cups, and when we couldn’t get any more beer at reception, Herbert took a taxi to the nearest gas station and returned with six-packs and sausages.
Herbert was actually completely incorruptible and infinitely curious. the time recognizes him as one of “the pioneers of critical and intellectual sports reporting” who “defyed officials and sports politicians”. Anno Hecker bows in the DOES in front of him and says that each of his programs was “a kind of history lesson in sports”.
Nobody knew better than Herbert about the systemic doping messes in West and East. »Lying and deceit, deception, forgery, trickery« (Deutschlandfunk) he rightly acknowledged everywhere, without losing his enthusiasm for sport, for simple, unorganized sport. On the phone he raved about his grandchildren playing football in the garden.
Telephoning extensively with Herbert or having an extended breakfast with Luise and him in Wetzlar – it was a delight, a gift. Herbert despised the Olympic hype, the inflated and inflated figures in and beyond the competition venues, the nationalistic bohemianism about the “medal table,” the miserable rabble in the associations. And he had wonderful stories ready, for example about the legendary Bruno Moravetz, with whom he went ski flying in Planica. To get an overview before the event, Moravetz drove up the hill elevator, stepped out to the starting beam, and at the foot of the facility there was immediately thunderous cheering, which Moravetz acknowledged with gracious gestures. The spectators took him for Tito.
For Herbert, the radio was not just a carrier of information. For him, radio was a form that had to be expressed linguistically. And because he loved radio, he was a real archive of radio. Meticulously drawn media-historical features by him are a reminder of what was once possible in radio and a benchmark for successful work. Herbert was a teacher who did not teach. He showed things by making them speak.
Herbert Fischer-Solms hired me as a freelancer in 1996 or 1997 Deutschlandfunk fetched. Until he retired in 2011, he let me do, do, do. The longest leash in the world (it wasn’t even a leash). If six minutes had been agreed, I impudently gave him twelve, he broadcast them, once he even broadcast a sports year review and outlook in three parts of nine minutes each. Unimaginable today. A few years ago, where shape, salary and style were, suddenly they had to become junk and quotas. (Of the Deutschlandfunk just took a little more time than the other institutions to mess up, to dismantle.)
Rarely do you have the feeling when you first get together: This is a good person. It was like that with Herbert, and I was proud when he offered me the familiar form. He liked writers, not “content providers,” as he didn’t see athletes, but people. “You can learn something from the losers,” he said. “Winners are dull. I’ve always preferred to interview the underdogs.”
It may sound like an exaggeration, but sports radio has gone with Herbert Fischer-Solms. Herbert is missing. Very.
