Horst Tappert

Horst Tappert (26 May 1923 – 13 December 2008) was a German film and television actor best known for the role of Inspector Stephan Derrick in the television drama Derrick.

Biography Horst Tappert was born on 26 May 1923 in Elberfeld (now Wuppertal), Germany. His father, Julius Tappert (1892–1957), was a civil servant; his mother was Ewaldine Röll Tappert (1892–1981). Following high school and at the age of 17, Tappert was drafted into the German Army during World War II. Aged 19, he was, according to his widow against his will, transferred from the Army to the Waffen-SS, where the author of the Derrick series, Herbert Reinecker, had also served. Initially a member of a reserve anti-aircraft unit in Arolsen, he was listed as a grenadier with the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf in March 1943. In 1945, he was briefly a prisoner of war in Seehausen, Altmark. Following the war, he was hired as a bookkeeper at a theatre in Stendal, Germany, and became interested in acting. He took acting classes and gave his stage debut in Stendal, playing Dr. Stribel in Paul Helwig's Die Flitterwochen.

In the following years, he changed employers several times, and in 1956, started working at the Kammerspiele, Munich. An independent actor since 1967, he worked as an actor until he died.

In the late 1950s, Tappert started taking part in movie and television productions. His big breakthrough was in 1966 with the three-part television show Die Gentlemen bitten zur Kasse, in which he played train robber Michael Donegan. In 1968, he changed sides by playing Scotland Yard detective Perkins in Edgar Wallace movies. In 1970–71, he co-starred in three crime dramas directed by Jesus Franco, She Killed in Ecstasy, The Deadly Avenger of Soho and The Devil Came from Akasava.

When the second public television station in West Germany, the ZDF, started planning a new mystery series with a different type of investigator in 1973, he was chosen for the character of detective Stephan Derrick, with sidekick assistant Harry Klein (played by Fritz Wepper). The character Stephan Derrick became a cult figure. The series was licensed in 104 countries and was popular with audiences in China, Japan, and Italy (and even Pope John Paul II). The last of 281 episodes was filmed in 1998, when Tappert reached his self-imposed age limit of 75 years old for being a television actor.

Personal life Divorced twice, he last lived in Gräfelfing near Munich with his third wife, Ursula Pistor (married in 1957). He was the father of three children. Tappert enjoyed fishing and hunting. He had a summer holiday home on the coast of northern Norway, a country where he also became a popular visitor, as Derrick, as well as a private person. Tappert and his wife Ursula had a cabin in Hamarøy Municipality in Nordland from 1990 to 2008, when due to his age and failing health, they had to sell the cabin. His wife Ursula Pistor is also an actor, a graduate of the same acting school in Berlin as Ellinor Hamsun, daughter of Knut Hamsun.

In interviews and his memoirs, Tappert did not elaborate on his World War II career, claiming to have served as a company medic in the Wehrmacht, after which he became a prisoner of war. In April 2013, he was revealed to have joined the 3. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Totenkopf, then deployed on the Eastern Front, in March 1943. Historian Jan Erik Schulte, an expert on the history of the SS, said that the circumstances of Tappert's membership in the SS and the question of whether he was pressured or coerced into joining remain unclear.

Following the discovery of Tappert's service with the Waffen SS during the war, German broadcaster ZDF dropped all repeats of Derrick. Similarly, Bavaria's interior ministry said it was considering stripping the late actor of an honorary chief police inspector title awarded to Tappert in 1980.

Filmography

1950: Doctor Praetorius - Verkäufer (uncredited) 1958: The Trapp Family in America (with Ruth Leuwerik) 1958: Wir Wunderkinder (Aren't We Wonderful?) (with Hansjörg Felmy, Robert Graf, Johanna von Koczian) - Teacher Schindler 1958: Arms and the Man (AAN as Best Foreign Film) (with O. W. Fischer, Liselotte Pulver, Ellen Schwiers, Jan Hendriks) 1959: The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp (with Nana Osten, Henry Vahl, Ullrich Haupt) - Herr Parker 1959: Jacqueline (with Johanna von Koczian, Walter Reyer, Götz George, Hans Söhnker) - Haack, Journalist 1959: The Beautiful Adventure (with Liselotte Pulver, Robert Graf, Bruni Löbel) - Frécon 1959: Ruf ohne Echo (TV film) (with Hans Christian Blech) - Pierre 1961: Zu viele Köche (TV miniseries) (with Heinz Klevenow, Joachim Fuchsberger, Karl Michael Vogler) - Hoteldetektiv Odell 1961: Ein schöner Tag (TV film) (with Joachim Teege, Hugo Lindinger, Trude Hesterberg) - Er 1961: Küß mich Kätchen (TV film) (with Peter Carsten, Harald Leipnitz, Christiane Maybach) - Erster Ganove 1962: (TV miniseries) (with Heinz Drache, Albert Lieven, Erica Beer, Eckart Dux) - Vikar Nigel Matthews 1962: He Can't Stop Doing It (with Heinz Rühmann, Rudolf Forster, Grit Boettcher, Lina Carstens) - Simpson 1962: Snow White and the Seven Jugglers - Hugendobler, Künstleragent 1963: Das tödliche Patent (TV film) (with Wolfgang Preiss, Gisela Trowe, Siegfried Lowitz) - Inspector Morland 1963: (Whiskey and Sofa) (with Maria Schell, Karl Michael Vogler, Robert Graf) - Krause 1963: Leonce und Lena (TV film) (with Dieter Kirchlechner, Gertrud Kückelmann) - King Peter of the Kingdom of Popo 1964: Der Aussichtsturm (TV film) (with Claudia Sorbas, Konrad Georg, Monika John) - Eliott Nash 1964: Sechs Personen suchen einen Autor (TV film) (with Helmut Förnbacher, Robert Freitag) - Regisseur 1965: Eine reine Haut (TV Movie) (with Herbert Fleischmann) - Harry 1966: (The Great British Train Robbery) (TV miniseries) (with Hans Cossy, Günther Neutze) - Michael Donegan 1966: Ein Tag in Paris (TV film) (with Paula Denk, Ingeborg Solbrig, Peter Fröhlich) - Boury 1966: Der Kinderdieb (TV film) (with Isolde Bräuner, Lucie Mannheim, Walter Jokisch) - Colonel Bigua 1966: Das ganz große Ding (TV film) (with Carl-Heinz Schroth, Brigitte Grothum) - Jimmy Warren 1966: Der Mann aus Melbourne (TV film) (with Herbert Stass, Alf Marholm, Roma Bahn) - Der Fremde 1966: Jerry Cotton: Die Rechnung – eiskalt serviert (with George Nader, Heinz Weiss) - Charles Anderson 1966: Four Queens for an Ace - Man in Restaurant (uncredited) 1966: (TV film) (with Curd Jürgens, Dieter Borsche) - Narrator (voice) 1967: Liebe für Liebe (TV film) (with Wolfgang Büttner, Helmut Griem, Klaus Löwitsch) - Scandal

1968: (with Charlotte Kerr) - Walter Bergmann / Travel agency owner 1968: The Hound of Blackwood Castle (with Heinz Drache, Karin Baal, Hans Söhnker, Agnes Windeck) - Donald Fairbanks 1968: Das Kriminalmuseum: (TV series) - Friedrich Groth 1968: The Gorilla of Soho (with Uschi Glas, Uwe Friedrichsen, Hubert von Meyerinck) - Insp. David Perkins 1969: The Man with the Glass Eye (with Karin Hübner, Fritz Wepper, Hubert von Meyerinck) - Insp. Perkins 1969: Seven Days Grace (with Joachim Fuchsberger, Konrad Georg, Karin Hübner, Petra Schürmann) - Klevenow 1970: Perrak (with Erika Pluhar, Judy Winter, Werner Peters) - Kommissar Perrak 1971: The Devil Came from Akasava (with Soledad Miranda, directed by Jesus Franco) - Dr. Andrew Thorrsen 1971: Und Jimmy ging zum Regenbogen (The Caesar Code) (with Alain Noury, Ruth Leuwerik, Horst Frank, Judy Winter, Doris Kunstmann) - Dr. Otto Forster 1971: (with , Uwe Friedrichsen, Siegfried Schürenberg) - Stubenrauch 1971: The Captain (with Heinz Rühmann, Johanna Matz, Ernst Stankovski, Horst Janson) - Konsul Carstens 1971: She Killed in Ecstasy (with Soledad Miranda, directed by Jesus Franco) - Inspector 1972: The Deadly Avenger of Soho (directed by Jesus Franco) - Charles Barton 1972: (TV film) (with Max Mairich, Liselotte Pulver, Florian Halm) - Michael Richardson 1973: Eine Frau bleibt eine Frau (TV miniseries) (with Lilli Palmer) - Oberstudienrat 1974: Plus minus null (TV film) (with Anaid Iplicjian, Rolf Becker) - Schattat 1974–1998 Derrick (TV series) - Stephan Derrick 1974: Auch ich war nur ein mittelmäßiger Schüler (I Wasn't a Very Good Student Either) (with Jutta Speidel, Georg Thomalla, Rudolf Platte) - Dr. Siegfried Elsenbeck 1987: Cinématon 2000: Der Kardinal – Der Preis der Liebe (The Cardinal) (TV film) (with Christine Reinhart, Enzo De Caro) - Clemens Roetger 2001: In 80 Jahren um die Welt (TV film) 2003: The Uncrowned Heart (TV film) (with Eleonora Brigliadori, Franco Nero, Jacques Breuer) - Rudolph der Listige 2004: Derrick – Die Pflicht ruft (Derrick – The Feature Film) (Animated film with original voice of Tappert and Wepper) - Stephan Derrick (voice) (final film role)

Books