Hans Meister
TV icon dies at the age of 77
The legendary presenter Hans Meiser died of heart failure at the age of 77. He became known from the 80s on the RTL broadcaster.
The legendary television and radio presenter Hans Meiser is dead. As his current station Radio Wellenrausch announced on his official Instagram account, the TV legend died unexpectedly of heart failure at the age of 77. Meiser leaves behind a wife, three children and three grandchildren.
Meiser was considered a man of the first hour on German private television. After his first attempts at radio at Süddeutscher Rundfunk, Südwestfunk and Radio Luxemburg, the native of Lower Saxony moved to what was then RTL plus in 1984, where he was anchorman of the news programs “7 vor 7” and “RTL aktuell” until 1992. During this time, Meiser was harshly publicly criticized when he was the first journalist to telephone the perpetrators in the besieged bank branch during the Gladbeck hostage-taking and the interview was then broadcast.
Hans Meiser celebrated the highlight of his career in the 90s
Meiser achieved his greatest popularity in the 90s when he was one of the first to host a classic afternoon talk show. “Hans Meiser” started in September 1992 and was discontinued in 2000. Other programs he moderated included the reality show “Notruf”, the breakdown show “Life! Stupid” and the quiz “Twenty-One”.
From 2015, Meiser appeared regularly in the “The Little Man” section of the ZDFneo show “Neo Magazin Royale” by Jan Böhmermann (42), where, among other things, he played the fictional Federal President Hans-Meiser Steinmeiser. In 2017, the collaboration ended after it became known that Meiser had made commercials for an online portal that spread right-wing populist conspiracy theories.
Most recently, he founded the radio station Radio Wellenrausch with Harald Thoma, the son of the legendary RTL boss Helmut Thoma (84), which only started broadcasting on October 29, 2023. “We will never forget this great man, friend and co-founder of our station Radio Wellenrausch! Thank you Hans. Thank you for everything,” says the announcement of Hans Meiser’s death on the station’s Instagram page.