Individual, expressive, extravagant, ironically full of relish – with a hat and binoculars always within reach: Heinz Florian Oertel
Photo: imago/Kai Bienert
Passion exerts violence, passion enslaves us, it induces sweat, it trains the muscles, it binds the mind. Passion increases our dissatisfaction with the balance of existence to such an extent that a paradox arises. Namely happiness, the outward expression of which – torment and exhaustion – easily misleads about the real thing: a successful life. We call it: sports. We know the places: cross-country ski run, ski jump, boxing ring, tartan track, ice rink, playing field, street. We also know names: Raissa Smetanina, Helmut Recknagel, Teófilo Stevenson, Lasse Virén, Katarina Witt, Pelé, Täve Schur.
Sporting events, wrested from the boredom of everyday life, create singers and storytellers, because the moving event needs to be passed on. Like the art. It’s art. Even if the singers and storytellers in sports only call themselves reporters. Often they are not much more. They write or speak as if keeping the ball low is imperative. Heinz Florian Oertel, however, was a reporter of a completely opposite kind. Own, expressive, extravagant, ironically full of lust. Showmen and language obsessed. unique.
I had to think of him when the Colombian James Rodríguez took the ball with his chest at the 2014 World Cup and, after half a turn, volleyed it under the crossbar of the US goal with his left foot. A radio reporter from Bogotá cheered: “A painting just like by Picasso!” Totally wrong, this comparison, and yet a direct hit. Picasso!? Yes! Such extravagance must be. The surface may be football, but the subsoil is aesthetic. Reality is game, but truth is frenzy. The Picasso prime example could have been von Oertel. With him it sounded like this: “Dear young fathers perhaps or prospective fathers, have courage: Feel free to call your newcomers today Waldemar!« The most famous sentence from the live report when Waldemar Cierpinski became Olympic marathon champion in Moscow in 1980.
Oertel was born in Cottbus in 1927 and was taken prisoner by the British as a sailor. At that time, crash courses shaped the way to peace: actors, teachers, reporters. The young radio man Oertel was allowed to broadcast the last minutes of the Brandenburg women’s handball final between Luckenwalde and Jüterbog. The inexperienced chronicler on the microphone didn’t hear the decisive goal. This does not hinder the ascent. From 1952 Oertel became a commentator on almost all international sports highlights. Experience eight soccer World Cups. Is 17 times »GDR television darling«. Moderates the “Kessel Buntes”, leads through TV hit shows and the popular radio show “He, he, he – Sport an der Spree”. More than 250 times it is said in Adlershof: »Portrait by phone«: Oertel as talk host. An all-rounder. An experimental enthusiast in the sense of the craftsman Zettel from Shakespeare’s »A Midsummer Night’s Dream«: »Let me play the lion as well.« He plays it whenever he can. His mind is untalented for the tiger skin of a lazy bedside rug.
The joy of sport is a light-hearted religion directed against fundamentalism: ambition yes, zeal no. It is a religion that goes no further than an athlete can jump or a ball fly. Beautiful sport does not have to be proselytized, apostles are not asked. What you see is what you see. Nothing more and nothing less. But we still want to hear and read the commentary.
Oertel’s TV and radio commentaries cultivated the best thing about sport: being able to worship. Yes, he adored. Beautiful weakness, being able to fall for others without consequences. In other areas of society this can be dangerous. Not in sports. In this weakness, Oertel became the legendary strongest in the industry. Throughout his professional life he also wrote columns in the »Lausitzer Rundschau«, in the »Berliner Zeitung«, in the »BZ am Abend«. He was the cosmopolitan in small-small socialism. The uninhibited in the general narrowness. Who invented the Berlin New Year’s Run and was an eloquent advocate of popular sports.
Naturally, his versatility and his urge to be present polarized people. And the chatterer was also a propagandist, a first-class ambassador among all the sporty “diplomats in tracksuits.” After the end of the state, he was hit by the experience of all the changing times: Suddenly there were far fewer people who wanted to cheer than was deafeningly heard just a moment ago. And Oertel’s name was also chanted in the swelling scapegoat chants. He did not allow himself to be carried away by bitterness. But the books he wrote became—in a consistently easy way—more fundamental: ‘Thank God. No more gossip«, »When you stand up, the bow gets deeper«.
Thinking of Oertel means thinking of friendliness. Not a bad omen in a bad time, because: Under Apocalypse nobody does it anymore. We are subscribed to the big bang. We can do it, we all help. The faces test hardness and untouchability at every opportunity. Man’s need of comfort makes him poor; that he can hardly offer consolation makes him angry. But: The fact that our need for consolation keeps growing again and again makes the shine flicker. And the sport was, is, remains such a glory, such a consolation – because it is defiance. Despite the joy that career and pursuit and final battle and shot are very peaceful words. Sport is also language rescue. It was Oertel’s field where he spoke bluntly through the flower. Style blossoms can also shine.
He rested – restless to the extreme – in the self-confidence of the extraordinary character. “One would like to cling to the hands of history to stop the clocks!” That was another of Oertel’s exultant Cierpinski cheers. The hands of the clocks cannot be overtaken, slowed down or even stopped by the course of life. But memory celebrates exhilarating victories, and seconds can constitute an eternity. That of the unforgettable story. As has only just become known, Heinz Florian Oertel died on March 27 at the age of 95.
