A LIFE BETWEEN GASOLINE AND OPERA

The "Gas Station Attendant" from Cottbus

Author:

Burghard Ciesla | Juergen Ast

Director:

Juergen Ast

Commissioning Editor:

Hellmuth Henneberg

Duration:

30'

Production:

astfilm productions | for ORB

For more than 70 years, the state theater of the city of Cottbus has a very faithful guest, an opera buff with a place of honor - Wilhelm Scholz. Since 1928 he knows all the people at the theatre: the cloakroom attendants, the directors, the artists. He didn't miss a single premiere and till today, theater is his passion.

Who doesn't know the movie "Die Drei von der Tankstelle", "The Three from the Gas Station". It was one of Heinz Ruehmann's starring roles and if there is still somebody, who could had played along, it would have been Wilhelm Scholz, "the gas station attendant from Cottbus". In the early 30's he started his career at a gas station. Than the 2nd World War came. And afterwards, everything was different again. But the gas stations remained. The Soviet occupying power and the "socialistic" progress, they were in need of a place to refuel. And the first gas station in Brandenburg was the one of Wilhelm Scholz in Cottbus, where he worked for decades.

The documentary visits with Wilhelm Scholz places in Brandenburg, that had marked his life: the disused gas Station next to the Glienicke Bridge. It is here where back then he was for a short time instructor, today the place is well known as a repair shop for old motorcycles; Wilhelm Scholz at the state theater, on his place of honor, on the stage with friendly artists; at his old workplace. Once a clinker construction, after the German reunification it had to make place for a new building. And of course, the today's owner was once an apprentice of Scholz. The memories, they bring a piece of German gas station history to life again, a three-quarter century of Cottbus's history and especially an extraordinary biography of Brandenburg.