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The band City plays with its members Manfred Hennig (lr, keyboardist), Fritz Puppel (guitarist), Toni Krahl (singer) and Georgi Gogow (not in the picture, violin) live on their farewell tour in the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin.
© Annette Riedl/dpa
He founded the band City with drummer Klaus Selmke and, even in the difficult times after the fall of the Berlin Wall, believed that there was a future for the rock group.
Fritz Puppel was right.
Berlin - A young guitar teacher became the founder of one of the most successful GDR rock bands.
And a guitarist who was still rocking the stage at the age of well over 75.
Fritz Puppel, who founded the band City in 1972, was there until their disbandment 50 years later.
He died unexpectedly on February 10th at the age of 79, as City singer Toni Krahl told the German Press Agency on Thursday.
“In the certainty that his, our music, will endure beyond everything earthly, we bow to a very, very great one.
Fritz, we thank you for your inspiration, your strength, your courage and your music,” said Krahl.
With a cool head, Puppel was constantly the inspiring driving force for upcoming challenges.
Puppel, born a few months before the end of the Second World War, only ever wanted to make music.
“Because that was the only way for me to move outside the predetermined channels in the GDR,” he explained shortly before the turn of the millennium.
But first his mother got the young Fritz an apprenticeship as a toolmaker.
At the same time he graduated from night school.
Then the music started - but not with City, but initially with the Lunics.
In 1963, Puppel founded this band with the future Puhdys singer Dieter “Machine” Birr.
But in May 1965, Fritz and “Machine” were called up to the NVA - the Lunics era ended.
After the army, Puppel began studying to become a qualified polytechnic teacher in 1966.
At the same time, he attended the Friedrichshain music school - and became a guitar teacher there after graduating.
But a little later he quit again.
The reason: He was now a sought-after musician, played as a guitarist in the studio, for example for Frank Schöbel, and was live on stage as a substitute musician.
In 1972, Puppel founded the City Band with drummer Klaus Selmke.
They brought in an organist, a bassist and a singer.
“Suddenly you walk past the advertising column and there it says City,” reported Puppel 30 years later.
On February 3rd, the band played in the Artur Becker Club in Berlin-Köpenick in front of around 200 listeners.
In the repertoire: songs by the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix.
So that young people in the GDR could hear the songs of their favorite bands from the hit parades of the West stations live, the GDR rockers replayed them from the 1970s onwards.
“People were friendly to us because people were friendly to this music back then,” Puppel reported years later.
After several band changes, the city musicians then composed their own songs - in German.
“Once you know, this remains forever.
It's not intoxication that already sues the night" - with these lines from the poet Hildegard Maria Rauchfuß, the band, now only called City, catapulted themselves into the charts in faraway Greece in 1977 and became the first GDR band ever to receive a "Golden Record". “.
The hit, which was then covered many times, is called “Am Fenster”.
Whether “The King of Prenzlauer Berg”, “Wand an Wand” or “Glastraum”: Although - or precisely because - many texts are on the edge of what was permitted in the GDR, the Berliners with the charismatic singer Krahl were among the most successful musicians of the time GDR.
And then the wall came down - exactly on the day the City album “Keine Angst” was released.
Hardly anyone wanted to hear music from the GDR at first.
But while most of the other GDR musicians fell into a deep career hole, Puppel and Krahl simply continued to be on stage - in smaller clubs, with guest musicians.
And they founded the private record company K&P Music.
From 1995 onwards, City was back in its pre-Wall line-up.
The fans returned and large concert halls also filled up again.
At the band's 40th anniversary in 2012, Puppel said: “It's a lived dream.
It's a constant dream.” His distinguishing features as he gets older: cowboy hat (or bald head) and narrow tinted glasses.
He kept fit by jogging regularly.
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Two years before the 50th anniversary, drummer Klaus Selmke died of cancer.
A shock for his colleagues.
They decide that City will leave the stage at the end of the 50th year.
“We want to try when it's best to stop.
And not to waste the whole thing,” says Puppel.
On December 30, 2022, the band said goodbye in front of thousands of fans in Berlin's Mercedes-Benz Arena.
About his plans afterwards, Puppel said 14 months ago: “I want to jog more and travel a lot.
“It’s all fallen by the wayside.” dpa