He was 82 "Drombuschs" star Hans Peter Korff is dead
Pretty much every TV viewer knows his distinctive narrow face: Hans Peter Korff has inspired entire generations of viewers. After a TV career spanning more than 50 years, he has now died.
10.03.2025, 10:11
10.03.2025, 10:12
dpa
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- Hans Peter Korff, known from ZDF series such as "Diese Drombuschs", has died.
- The German actor was 82 years old.
He was one of Germany's best-known TV faces: the actor Hans Peter Korff has died.
The head of the radio drama label Europa, Heikedine Körting, told the German Press Agency in Hamburg. She had recently worked with him.
Korff was one of the busiest actors in Germany and remained active into old age. The Hamburg native has appeared in more than 160 different productions since the mid-1960s.
Many people know him from a Loriot movie
His best-known roles were probably the letter carrier "Onkel Heini" from the ZDF children's series "Neues aus Uhlenbusch" (1977-1982) and the family man Siegfried "Sigi" Drombusch from the ZDF series "Diese Drombuschs" (1983 to 1994).
He is also remembered by many people as Uncle Hellmuth in the Loriot movie "Pappa ante portas" (1991). The number of his TV appearances was huge.
Yet the Hamburg native was actually supposed to become a typesetter like his father, as he reported in a dpa interview on his 70th birthday in 2012.
"I did an apprenticeship in one of those horrible places," Korff recalled. "It was in a dark hole - it was a horror! I can't describe it negatively enough."
He begged on his knees to go to drama school
At 17, the young apprentice joined the student theater at Hamburg University, where Claus Peymann was head of the troupe. And Korff made it to the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in his home town, where Eduard Marks taught, without taking his A-levels. "I ambushed him, fell to my knees in front of him on the street and begged him."
Marks let him sit the entrance exam. "I played for my life - and was accepted." In his own words, being someone else as an actor was a "great liberation".
Many people over 50 automatically think of the theme tune to the children's series "Neues aus Uhlenbusch" when they hear Korff. Decades later, he was still not bothered by the fact that people would sometimes sing "Auweia, Auweia, der Hahn legt keine Eier" when they recognized him as the naive, friendly Heini of old. "I like being asked about it," he said.
Recently a guest on the "Drei???" show
In addition to television and cinema, Korff remained loyal to the theater, traveling the country with his wife, actress Christiane Leuchtmann, to give readings. In 2023, he was still involved in the cult series "Die drei???" as a narrator at Hörspielstudio Europa.
In the 223rd episode "The Three??? and the Bone Man" he was Mr. Lincoln. Together with his wife, he was involved in the IVQS Foundation against old-age poverty among actors.
Now he died on Sunday at the age of 82, according to radio play director Körting. The "Hamburger Abendblatt" also reported on his death.
Korff's widow wrote in an obituary that a cultural icon had "departed from the stage of life": "You, an outstanding actor and connoisseur of human nature, lent depth, humor and lightness to countless characters. I will let you travel, even if it tears my heart apart."
