Dhe seventies were a golden era on Hamburg’s Reeperbahn – for the Luden. The prostitution business was more lucrative than ever, and Hamburg’s politicians and police looked the other way as long as the milieu kept to itself and left the well-behaved citizens alone.
At the beginning of the decade, a new squad of pimps had taken over the supremacy in the neighborhood. The older competition mockingly called the youngsters the “Nutella gang”, as if it was a kindergarten group and not organized crime. But the young pimps not only had 300 women hired for them, they also brought a new style to the neighborhood: blond permanent waves, diamond-studded Rolexes and big cars became the insignia of their success. No one embodied this new type as perfectly as Klaus Barkowsky, also “The Beautiful Klaus” or “Lamborghini-Klaus”, to whom the Amazon series “Luden” has just erected a monument. Many documentaries have also dealt with his life and his era in recent years and glorified both.
The chubby glamor became a cult nonetheless
That handsome Klaus and the others could dazzle because they exploited women – for free. In the meantime, her chubby glamor has become a cult. Maybe it’s because the previous generation of Luden acted even more brutally than the “Nutella gang” and things got really dark on the Reeperbahn in the 1980s with contract killer Werner Pinzner and the AIDS wave. Barkowsky first tried himself in the drug business and later as an artist in Altona. However, he remained loyal to the Reeperbahn, especially to his favorite pub, the Elbschlosskeller. There he sat to the end, his hair still blond and long but thinning, his clothes still conspicuous.
A week ago, Daniel Schmidt, landlord of the Elbschlosskeller, sounded positive with a view to his probably best-known regular guest: “The Corona period was good for him. Because everything was closed, he had to stay at home and was no longer forced to live so excessively,” said Schmidt. In the years before the pandemic, Barkowsky had already moved all the memorabilia of his time as Hamburg’s most famous slut. Had traded sunglasses, watches and expensive clothes for drugs and alcohol.
He also liked the hype about himself in the course of the “Luden” series and the cinematic interpretation of his life, said the Kiezwirt – in contrast to many other Paulians, including Schmidt himself. “I don’t watch the series. A few excerpts were enough for me to see that this has nothing to do with the real Klaus. If only because Klaus looked much better than this actor.” Barkowsky was an ambivalent personality to the end. “On the one hand, he felt sorry for what he did to women. On the other hand, I’ve never seen him treat a woman with respect.”
Klaus Barkowsky was found dead in Hamburg on Tuesday at the age of 69.
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