On February 12, Adolf Gustav Rupprecht Maximilian Bayrhammer would have been 100 years old. We know him as Gustl Bayrhammer. The man from Munich with the comfortable mustache has burned himself into our collective memory like only a few so-called folk actors. Gustl’s parents didn’t want him to be an actor (although his father was one himself – or because of that), then the war came. He invested his money as a radio operator in lessons with Heinrich George at the Schiller Theater in Berlin. He played a wide variety of roles on many different stages, then from 1972 to 1981 he was inspector Melchior Veigl in “Tatort”. And no one has ever read the Christmas story to Ludwig Thomas as beautifully as he has. But for me, as for many others, he will always be, above all, Master Eder.
In the radio play series “Meister Eder und sein Pumuckl” Alfred Pongratz originally spoke the master carpenter, after his death in 1977 Bayrhammer took over. Through the television series, which ran from 1982 to 1989 (and has been repeated constantly since then), he became Master Eder as much as Hans Clarin became Pumuckl. The two managed that the wonderful characters of Ellis Kaut became formative life companions for many people. They stood for a world that was as cozy as it was free – the backyard was small, but the Pumuckl could test all his limits there, protected and rarely seriously reprimanded. Who wouldn’t have liked to live with Master Eder and play tricks in his workshop? It was a cozy idyll, at least from a child’s point of view. We didn’t even notice at the time that the forever bachelor only had one “caretaker” and no other female contacts. He had his regulars’ table.
In general, things were pretty casual at the “Pumuckl”, people would drink beer there in the mornings, the little one sipped too much cherry liqueur, and only when he stole a chain once did Eder’s hat burst, and rightly so. Otherwise, he displayed amazing patience, and of course we loved him for it. If only our parents had been so understanding! Gustl Bayrhammer filled this role with a believable composure, but was able to rumble at the right moment. He was always full of mischief, so he was the ideal partner for Pumuckl, and his voice gained even more expressiveness thanks to the Bavarian accent: When he shouted “Crucifix!”, the goblin was quiet too. For a few seconds.
Gustl Bayrhammer died of a heart attack at home in Krailling on April 24, 1993 at the age of 71. Hans Clarin followed him in 2005. As Meister Eder and his Pumuckl, we will both remain forever.
I haven’t heard a “Pumuckl” for about 40 years (at least not every night before bed), but I can still always recite my favorite poem, which the Pumuckl rhymed after he was sent home from a suckling pig dinner where he again once caused chaos:
I’m home alone now
the moon looks like a dumpling.
And if he wasn’t up in the sky
I nudged him, he was lying on the ground.
I poke everything big and small,
the stars and the chip pig,
the bowls, plates and the clouds,
and then everything would have to be folken to me.
But so I follow here now in silence
the Eder for the sake of friendship.
The Kullerknödel aren’t worth it
that Eder locks me in a drawer.
(The ending was unnecessarily softened in the TV series:
I’m sure I’ll see it in my dream now
a huge dumpling tree.)