Klaas Heufer-Umlauf
Joko Winterscheidt inaugurates the “Klaas statue”
Joko Winterscheidt (left) thanks his colleague Klaas Heufer-Umlauf with a statue.
© ProSieben / Stefan Gregorowius
During the 15 minutes broadcast on Wednesday evening, Joko Winterscheidt surprised his colleague Klaas Heufer-Umlauf with a “Klaas statue”.
After two defeats in a row, Joko Winterscheidt (42) and Klaas Heufer-Umlauf (37) were able to earn 15 minutes of broadcasting time in the last edition of “Joko & Klaas against ProSieben” on Tuesday evening. How did you use it on Wednesday evening at prime time?
Winterscheidt had already announced on Tuesday evening that he would do the 15 minutes alone and thus surprise his colleague. So, with a visibly queasy feeling, Klaas Heufer-Umlauf was brought in a car through the inner city of Berlin to Berlin Central Station. There was not only a red carpet, thunderstorms of flashlights, an orchestra and a few fans and friends who cheered him from a distance. Seated on a throne, he listened to a speech by Winterscheidt, who stated that he wanted to “say thank you after 15 years together”.
Special greetings from Oldenburg
“I wanted my words to be followed by deeds. But what do you give a man who already has everything?” Joked the moderator. Then he presented his solution: With a drum roll, he unveiled a larger than life statue that is supposed to represent Heufer-Umlauf. “It’s a memorial, a place of pilgrimage, an image of yourself,” explained Winterscheidt. The “Klaas statue”, which was created together with an artist collective, came to stay. In the square in front of the Berlin train station, it will only be rotated and anchored in the ground.
The monument is even an “interactive statue”: instead of the heart, passers-by can leave a small gift in a hole in the figure. An inscription with the moderator’s data, coat hooks and an integrated bottle opener complete the copper statue. A greeting from his homeland was also a must: The Oldenburg mayor Jürgen Krogmann (57) insisted on giving a laudation to “the city’s offspring” and handing over a gingerbread heart. He praised the moderator, who is characterized by “wit, humility and social commitment”. “I’m not even dead yet, I haven’t done anything for this country yet,” Heufer-Umlauf was visibly ashamed of the many honors he was given. But his broad grin revealed in the end that he could soon get used to his own monument.