Boiler implodes Presenter Beckmann loses his Hamburg home

Reinhold Beckmann returns from India - and finds his home devastated. An imploded boiler has flooded the entire house. The presenter now needs a new place to stay.

DPA

07.02.2026, 21:17

dpa

The presenter, musician and author Reinhold Beckmann has to look for a new place to stay due to massive water damage. "I'm about to pack my bags," Beckmann said on the NDR talk show on Friday evening. He no longer has a home. His apartment had been flooded - in such a way that "there's nothing left to save". He assumed that the necessary renovation would take a year.

The damage was caused by a boiler in rooms above his apartment, said Beckmann. "It imploded and flooded the whole house." He found out about the water damage during his trip to India. Fortunately, a neighbor picked up the mail on Saturday and saw the waterworks. Otherwise, the damage would probably not have been discovered until Monday.

Beckmann, who turns 70 on February 23, has lived in a kind of factory building in Hamburg's Ottensen district for many years. He is the only resident of the building, otherwise there are only business premises there. Beckmann was born in Twistringen in Lower Saxony in 1956. He became famous through the sports program "ran", among other things. In 2023, he wrote a book about his family during the Second World War.

Research documents saved for second book

Beckmann said on his return: "Then you come back, the place stinks because of the damp, all the food has gone off, some of the clothes, luckily not the instruments." The research documents for his second book were also saved by the fire department. "Everything is ok there." But the whole kitchen "is gone, broken". That's when he realized "you're losing a home that you loved very, very much and you're now forced to move out and look for something new".