Horst Lettenmayer from Dachau has perhaps the most famous eyes in Germany.
For 50 years they have been looking at the “crime scene” spectators every Sunday.
Horst Lettenmayer's eyes are probably the most famous in Germany.
For 50 years they have flickered on the television screens every Sunday.
But for Lettenmayer, the anniversary of the “crime scene” is no reason to celebrate.
Dachau
- The name Horst Lettenmayer has a worldwide reputation: Its lamps and lighting systems illuminate - among other things - the Casino of Monte-Carlo, the royal Balmoral Castle in Scotland or the “Sy A”, the most expensive sailing yacht in the world.
In Germany, however, it is less his career as an entrepreneur and designer that has made him famous.
In this country it is his eyes who, as Horst Lettenmayer put it, have been “staring out of the box” every Sunday evening for 50 years.
For each anniversary of the crime series, Lettenmayer has to tell his story of how, as a 29-year-old, more or less successful actor, he ran around for one day for “crime scene” test recordings at the old Riemer airport and looked seriously into a camera.
He got 400 marks for the job - far too little considering what happened to the crime series.
The eyes of the “crime scene”: Horst Lettenmayer has many journalists visiting for his 50th anniversary
It's that time again this year: for the 50th “Tatort” anniversary, journalists will be giving each other the handle in Lettenmayer's Dachau apartment.
The now 79-year-old then reports regularly from his life, although most of them - unfortunately - are only interested in one thing: the tragedy of the man who belongs to the regular Sunday evening cast and does not earn anything from it.
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The best-known pair of eyes on German television: Horst Lettenmayer in the "Tatort" opening credits.
© ARD
What hardly interests them: that Lettenmayer has had a life behind him that is so full of stories that other people would need five lives for.
As a native of Biberach, little Horst serenaded Konrad Adenauer with the Rottweiler Boys' Choir, as well as three popes.
As a young man, he was drawn away from the Swabian region and into Schwabing.
Visually a mixture of Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo, with a big voice and even greater self-confidence, he was part of the dazzling Isar crowd.
As a qualified actor, he appeared in the Kammerspiele, smiled in advertising campaigns and directed.
But my career didn't really work out: “For me it was about freedom.
About self-actualization.
As an actor, you're always just a slave. ”But he is a type who“ sometimes makes himself unpopular;
authentic, but not everybody's darling ”.
Video: Horst Lettenmayer in the opening credits of the "Tatort"
This attitude, as well as his electrical engineering studies, which he had completed before his acting training - at the urgent request of his Swabian parents - finally led him to do his own thing: Betec Licht AG, his "baby", as he calls the company.
Started as a one-man operation, the company grew quickly thanks to his technical and aesthetic skills, and Lettenmayer needed larger business and production facilities.
“In 1980 I became Dachau”, he now employs 14 people in Felix-Wankel-Strasse in Dachau-Ost.
In addition to precision mechanics, polishers and electricians, the Betec workforce also includes an accountant and a secretary.
He passed on the chairmanship of the board to daughter Julia for reasons of age, "but I am the designer!"
Horst Lettenmayer has all of his lamps protected by the Patent and Trademark Office
Also very important in the Lettenmayer universe: patent attorneys.
He has his lamps protected by the German art protection at the patent and trademark office.
When a luxury hotel in Nice had copies of Betec lamps installed in its rooms, the man from Dachau struggled through a process that lasted years - which cost him hundreds of thousands of euros, but which he won in the end.
As with his sophisticated lighting systems, he is also someone in life “who actually always finds a solution”.
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Perfect light: Horst Lettenmayer in his company in Dachau-Ost.
Betec Licht AG has been offering premium lighting systems for 40 years.
© Norbert H Farewell
Despite the alarmingly high blood pressure, according to his doctor, he does not think about quitting or giving rest.
“What else should I do?” Asks the almost 80-year-old bundle of energy with a laugh.
When he has the press inquiries about the “Tatort” anniversary behind him, he wants to spend Christmas in his house in France.
There he cultivates French savoir-vivre, including good wine, good food and a cigarette every now and then.
Horst Lettenmayer: "I have an honest job, I have an honest salary."
In retrospect, he certainly does not regret that he only made it to Dachau instead of Hollywood.
When these “smart people from ARD” asked him: “Latvians, what are your lamps doing?” He could only smile tiredly: “I already know what my lamps do myself.
I have an honest job, I have an honest salary. "
"They are a trademark"
Horst Lettenmayer about his eyes
The corona crisis is currently having less of an impact on his company.
There are still “so many people with so much money” that he doesn't worry about his handcrafted light work “made in Dachau”.
And he is not afraid that his eyes will soon disappear from the crosshairs of the ARD Sunday evening. “They're a trademark,” he says. Should there one day be a new “Tatort” opening credits, Horst Lettenmayer will get over it. To stay in crime fiction jargon: "I'm so far off the beaten track that I don't care."