Vmany people in Duisburg have long been at odds with Horst Schimanski, the Duisburg “crime scene” investigator played by the great Götz George. Thanks to “Schimmi”, Duisburg is fixated on its image as a dingy “crime scene” backdrop, they found. The Duisburg city administration has long seen things differently. “Schimanski was rough, honest and authentic – a real advertising medium for the city,” said Mayor Sören Link recently.
A little more than 40 years after the broadcast of the first Schimanski episode called “Duisburg-Ruhrort”, the city is now honoring George, who died in 2016, with a bronze bust. The sculpture, created by a Duisburg artist and financed by a local gallery owner, is currently in the town hall, but will later be installed in Horst-Schimanski-Gasse in the Ruhrort district.
This is indeed the most worthy place – because in Ruhrort there are numerous locations for the 29 episodes of “Tatort” and above all because there is Horst-Schimanski-Gasse there. However, it took a while before the formerly nameless alley was named after “Schimmi”. First, the Duisburg building law office rudely rejected the proposal from the district council responsible for Ruhrort. The narrow passage is not a publicly dedicated area, and it also contradicts the naming requirements to name a street after a fictitious character.
It was farcical because there are “Snow White Trails” and “Rapunzel Streets” everywhere in Germany. The Schimanski friends did not give in. The administration checked a bit more; in the summer of 2014, the “Horst-Schimanski-Gasse” was finally signposted.
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