Helga Hahnemann

Helga "Big Helga" Hahnemann (8 September 1937 - 20 November 1991) was an East German multi-faceted stage performer and entertainer. She came to wider prominence through her television and radio appearances after 1962. By the time reunification arrived in 1990 she had become a leading star of the small screen in East Germany. She fell terminally ill and then died shortly afterwards, possibly because of the extent of her addiction to cigarettes: she was 54. Her death left unanswered the question of how successfully her performances might have captivated pan-German television audiences post unification.

The annual "Goldene Henne" (literally "Golden Hen") prize was inaugurated in 1995 to celebrate and commemorate her. (One of Helga Hahnemann's informal soubriquets among fans was "Henne".)

Life and career

Helga "Henne" Hahnemann was born in Berlin-Wilhelmsruh, the youngest of her parents' four children, a couple of years before war broke out. Wilhelmsruh was a central quarter of Berlin which after 1945 would find itself administered as part of the Soviet occupation zone. The zone was rebranded and relaunched in October 1949 as the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic (East Germany). She later told an interviewer that she discovered her talent for comedy while still at school. Passing her Abitur (school final exams) opened the way for a university-level education: between 1956 and 1959 Hahnemann studied at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin-Niederschöneweide. In 1959 she made her stage debut with Die Pfeffermühle (literally, "The Pepper Mill"), a mildly edgy cabaret ensemble established five years earlier in Leipzig.