Director Dieter Pröttel died

Dieter Pröttel was also responsible for the “super noses”. Now Dieter Pröttel has died at the age of 89.

He staged West Germany’s start into the color television era: The director Dieter Pröttel is dead. The SWR and the television producer Werner Kimmig confirmed this at the request of the dpa news agency. He died on December 26 at the age of 89 “with the family” near Starnberg, as it was said.

Worked with many stars and discovered many talents

Pröttel was considered an industry legend. His best-known work is likely to be his directing work on the comedies “Die Supernasen” (1983) and “Zwei Nase tanken Super” (1984) with Mike Krüger and Thomas Gottschalk, which developed into real blockbusters. But he also shaped a lot of popular entertainment shows from the 1960s to the 1990s, such as the “Rudi Carrell Show”, “Die Pyramide” or “Auf Los geht’s los”. In the “talent shed” he was a moderator.

“He worked with the big stars of the industry such as Marlene Dietrich, Caterina Valente, Gustav Knuth, Rudi Carrell, Peter Alexander, Hildegard Knef and Blacky Fuchsberger,” recalls colleague Werner Kimmig. But the Offenburg native also built up new stars: “Dieter Pröttel discovered many new talents in his shows, including Siegfried and Roy, Michael Schanze and Hape Kerkeling, for example.”

Director of the first color television show

Pröttel also directed Germany’s first color television program in 1967: the transmission from the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) in West Berlin had begun as a black-and-white broadcast. The Vice-Chancellor at the time, Willy Brandt, symbolically pressed a red button to convert the live transmission from the trade fair to color TV.

“Dieter Pröttel was extremely popular with all production teams,” recalls TV producer Kimmig. “He had the ability to bring even the most disparate star characters together. Most importantly, he treated everyone from the cable guy to the host with the same respect.”

After more than 3000 productions, Pröttel ended his active work as a director in 2006.