In the organizer's words:

Gramophone reading

His new gramophone reading focuses on the exciting biography of the all-round talent Friedrich Hollaender. He was a composer for theater, cabaret and film - and usually wrote the lyrics himself.

He was a cabaret director, author of several books (including the important emigration novel "Menschliches Treibgut") and friend of many stars such as Marlene Dietrich, for whom he wrote many of her great hits in Berlin and Hollywood. Hollaender was one of the few German emigrants to make a career in Hollywood as a film composer - including an Oscar nomination. But he never really felt at home in America... Hollaender returned to Germany in the mid-1950s and experienced the rejection of the Germans towards the remigrants at first hand.

So it is fair to say that Hollaender's life was as colorful and tragic as his chansons and hits.

To mark the 50th anniversary of his death in 2026, Jo van Nelsen will commemorate one of the most creative minds in German entertainment culture with shellac records, photos and many excerpts from Friedrich Hollaender's books.