Cabaret artist Konrad Beikircher has died

Cabaret artist Konrad Beikircher has died. He passed away on Monday at the age of 80. WDR first reported the death, then Beikircher's management confirmed the news to the portal "t-online". The family did not want to comment on details initially.

Beikircher was born in South Tyrol in 1945 and later completed his high school diploma at a Franciscan monastery boarding school in Bolzano. In 1965, he came to Bonn to study psychology and stayed there for 60 years. On stage, he later explained how Rhinelanders speak and why they are the way they are.

15 years at Siegburg prison, then the leap into the unknown

Before the stage lay a completely different professional life. After his studies, Beikircher entered civil service and worked for 15 years as a prison psychologist at the Siegburg correctional facility, where he counseled young offenders. He found his outlet in the evenings at Bonn pubs, where he sang Viennese chansons.

There, WDR noticed him in 1984. The broadcaster gave him his own radio column, "Sarens, Frau Walterscheidt". With the character of baker Roleber, he created a memorial to a landlady. The success of this column gave him the courage to quit his secure civil service job and become a cabaret artist. In the Rhineland language, he found his great theme, effortlessly parodying every dialect and filling auditoriums with it.

"I would prefer to die in the old-fashioned way"

In his final years on stage, Beikircher became more political. The professed Catholic took on religion in the Luther Year 2017, under the tongue-in-cheek title "500 Jahre falscher Glaube". He processed the Corona period in "Kirche, Pest und neue Seuchen", a cabaret journey through the history of pandemics.

He had clear thoughts about the end of his life. He wanted to die at home in Bad Godesberg, surrounded by his family. "I would prefer to die in the old-fashioned way, at home, the hand of the women in my hand, blessing the children or at least looking at them", he once said. "That would be my ideal. If I can arrange it, then I will do it that way."