Dieter Nuhr
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Dieter Herbert Nuhr (born 29 October 1960) is a German
kabarett Kabarett (; from French ''cabaret'' = tavern) is satirical revue, a form of cabaret which was developed in France by Rodolphe Salis in 1881 as the ''cabaret artistique''. It was named Le Chat Noir and was centered on political events and satire. ...
artist, comedian, author and television presenter. Nuhr's stage program ''nuhr in Berlin'' (the title is a pun; for explanation, see below) is the first German stand-up comedy which was created exclusively for
Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
. Nuhr is one of the most successful cabaret artists in Germany, with more than 200.000 viewers per year. Nuhr is regarded as a mediator between ''classical'' comedy and ''intelligent''
Stand-up comedy Stand-up comedy is a performance directed to a live audience, where the performer stands on a stage (theatre), stage and delivers humour, humorous and satire, satirical monologues sometimes incorporating physical comedy, physical acts. These ...
. In his work, he gives a critical glance to social behaviour in society and media, often satirising relationships and families. Nuhr has also been known to caricature the typical German know-it-all. A saying of Nuhr is frequently quoted in forums and
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due to its provocative nature (and use of the semi-offensive word ''Fresse''): "''Wenn man keine Ahnung hat: Einfach mal Fresse halten''", which roughly translates to, "''If you haven't got a clue: Shut your puss for once.''"


Early life and education

Nuhr was born in
Wesel Wesel () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany. It is the capital of the Wesel (district), Wesel district. Geography Wesel is situated at the confluence of the Lippe River and the Rhine. Division of the city Suburbs of Wesel i ...
but his family moved to
Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...
when he was four years old. Growing up he attended the secondary school Leibniz-Gymnasium. In 1981 he started to study art and history at the
University of Duisburg-Essen The University of Duisburg-Essen () is a public research university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In the 2019 ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'', the university was awarded 194th place in the world. It was originally ...
and received his teaching degree in 1988. From 1981 to 1989, Nuhr studied art and history at the
Folkwang Hochschule The Folkwang University of the Arts is a university for music, theater, dance, design, and academic studies, located in four German cities of North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 1927, its traditional main location has been in the former Werden Abbey in ...
in
Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...
.


Career

His first appearance on stage was with a school theater group where he also started to write his first own texts. In 1986, he and Frank Küster founded the cabaret-duo V.E.V.-K.Barett. Their first official appearance on stage was part of their program called "Haben Sie sich ihre Schranknummer gemerkt?", which can be translated as "Have you memorized your locker-number?". In 1987, he appeared for the first time as a cabaretist. In 1989, the duo developed their second stage program "Pralle Pracht" (lit. bulging opulence) and after a name change in 1990 to V.E.V.Kabarett the duo performed their third stage program "Schrille Stille" (lit. sharp silence). The last project of the group called "Zipfeltreffen", which is a play on words in German (Gipfeltreffen = summit conference whereas Zipfeltreffen = summit of dicks), followed. In 1994, Nuhr started his first solo-project called "Nuhr am Nörgeln". (This program title contains, like most of Nuhr's titles, two different meanings. It could be literally translated as "just grumbling" or as "Mr. Nuhr is grumbling" because the German word "nur", meaning "just", is homophonic to Nuhr's last name.) From 1982 to 1992, he was an active artist, and several of his works were exhibited in the
Rhineland The Rhineland ( ; ; ; ) is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly Middle Rhine, its middle section. It is the main industrial heartland of Germany because of its many factories, and it has historic ties to the Holy ...
. He has since gained notoriety for his numerous television appearances on '' Die Harald Schmidt Show'', ''Genial daneben'', '' Schillerstraße'', '' Quatsch Comedy Club'' (Channel Pro7) and '' 7 Tage, 7 Köpfe'' (lit. ''7 days, 7 heads'') on the channel RTL. In an interview with the newspaper Westdeutsche Zeitung in 2006, Nuhr was asked how he had developed his unique style: "I started my solo career because the manager of a theater in Mönchengladbach had talked me into it. He allowed me to perform on his stage and directed me. While I was practicing my program more and more requisites went missing because he took more and more of them away. So when the day of my first performance came close there were no requisites left anymore. I just stood there and talked to the audience. This is how my very own style was born. At first I thought that this could not work at all, but the fewer requisites I used, the better it finally worked out for me. So I thought that this is what I should do: not use any requisites but talk to the audience in my own way." (28 January 2006). In 1998, the stage program "Nuhr weiter so" (lit. "Simply go on") received an award: the Deutsche Kleinkunstpreis in the category cabaret and in 2003, he received the (German comedy award) for best live performance, making him the only person who received both of these well-known German awards. His performance "Ich bin's Nuhr" was visited by approximately half a million people. After presenting a humorous review of the year's events in 2004, he has been broadcast on
ZDF ZDF (), short for (; ), is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. Launched on 1 April 1963, it is run as an independent nonprofit institution, and was founded by all federal states of Germany ( ...
with a similar TV show at the end of every following year. Nuhr presented the German comedy award for the first time on 24 October 2008 and did so over the course of the following five years. Since 3 October 2009 his four-part comedy series has been shown live on ZDF on four Tuesday evenings. In 2009, Nuhr was asked whether he would like to participate in the album "A Tribute to Die Fantastischen Vier" for the 20th anniversary of the group Die Fantastischen Vier. It is a compilation album with varied artists covering songs of the hip hop group from
Stuttgart Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...
. Nuhr recorded the song "Buenos Dias Messias" in his office room. In this song he played all the instruments himself and recorded it with his equipment, which he uses for radio shows otherwise. In addition to that, the album includes a conversation between Nuhr and the initiator of the album project Andreas "Bär" Läsker. From 20 January 2011 until 2014, he presented the TV show "Satire Gipfel" on ARD. He replaced Mathias Richling, whose contract ended in 2010. In October 2014, this TV format was replaced by "Nuhr im Ersten" which was presented by him as well. Nuhr produced a two-part TV special concerning the
2010 FIFA World Cup The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national Association football, football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010. ...
. In doing so he referred to the topic
soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...
in an ironical way. Furthermore, he produced weekly cabaret segments for the radio station WDR 2. Together with Ralph Casper he presented the quiz show "Null gewinnt" in the early evening time slot of ARD from July to March 2013. In the year 2012, Dieter Nuhr was mentor for the "ARD-Themenwoche" (a special TV format, covering a weekly particular topic) with an emphasis on the topic: living with death. To this TV format he contributed the television show "Nuhr am Leben" which was recorded in the St. Elisabeth church in Berlin Mitte and broadcast on ARD on 19 November 2012. In 2013, he took part in the "ARD-Themenwoche" again, when the topic "fortunately/I'm glad that..." was concerned. His broadcast "Nuhr im Glück" was recorded in the orangery of the tropical
Botanical Garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is ...
, Potsdam and was aired on 22 November 2013. The ARD-Themenwoche 2014 will be about tolerance and Nuhr will perform his stage program "Nuhr mit Respekt" (Only with respect) and will be broadcast from the
Jewish museum Berlin The Jewish Museum Berlin (''Jüdisches Museum Berlin'') was opened in 2001 and is the largest Jewish museum in Europe. On of floor space, the museum presents the history of the Jews in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present day, with new foc ...
. Nuhr can also be seen regularly on the TV show "Mario Barth deckt auf!" in which he and the German comedian Mario Barth show examples of projects which only wasted tax money. In 2014, Nuhr received the Jacob-Grimm-Award. The Jury praised Nuhrs way of performing and his intelligent form of cabaret. His stage programs were eloquent and his punch lines hit. Though the main aspect of his work was not the extraordinary quality of his speeches but also his ability to perform critique with and through language and the way Nuhr invites the audience to think about how language is able to influence our thoughts and emotions. Nuhr's stage program ''nuhr in Berlin'' (the title is a pun on ''nur'' which is German for ''only'') is the first German stand-up comedy which was created exclusively for
Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
. On 15 November 2016, it became available on Netflix in several countries (optionally with subtitles), including the United States and the United Kingdom. Nuhr was one of the first signers of the Open Letter to the German Position on Russo-Ukraining War on late April 2022, who demanded not to support Ukraine with arms in order to "prevent a third world war".


Islamic cabaret controversy

Dieter Nuhr is one of the few German cabaret artists who deals with the topic of radical sides of Islam in his programmes and books. In October 2014, a suspected Salafist pressed charges against Nuhr because he was allegedly insulting creeds and religious communities. Erhat Toka (board member of the former Muslimisch Demokratischen Union – MDU, now Bündnis für Innovation und Gerechtigkeit (BIG)) initiated the process and denoted Nuhr to be a hatemonger who agitates against Islam and invoked people to boycott Nuhr's event in
Osnabrück Osnabrück (; ; archaic English: ''Osnaburg'') is a city in Lower Saxony in western Germany. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population of 168 ...
. The Islamic scholar Bülent Ucar of the University of Osnabrück argued that Nuhr uses generalizations, feeds prejudice and brings himself up to tendentious interpretations of the
Koran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...
. The emeritus professor of theology Reinhold Mokrosch who is also speaker of the Round Table of the Religions could understand the criticism of Nuhr since he felt that it encouraged
Islamophobia Islamophobia is the irrational fear of, hostility towards, or hatred against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general. Islamophobia is primarily a form of religious or cultural bigotry; and people who harbour such sentiments often stereot ...
. Aiman Mazyek, chairman of the non-representative
Central Council of Muslims in Germany The Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD; ) is an Islamic organization in Germany. With 15,000 to 20,000 members, mainly German, German Arab, and German Turkish Muslims, it has less than half the size of the Islamrat für die Bundesrep ...
was also upset about Nuhr's utterances but advised to keep calm. Mazyek declared: "If Mr. Nuhr thinks he can interpret the Koran in a fundamentalist way for the sake of satire then he has to take responsibility for this. However, it is not worth suing him and thus giving him free advertising." Lawyer Klaus Staeck, recent president of the
Academy of Arts, Berlin The Academy of Arts () is a state arts institution in Berlin, Germany. The task of the Academy is to promote art, as well as to advise and support the states of Germany. The academy's predecessor organization was founded in 1696 by Elector F ...
, said at the time he did not expect the complaint against Nuhr would be successful, and believed Nuhr only exercised his freedom of opinion, which is taken seriously by German courts. Nuhr objected to the accusation that he would be stirring up hatred against Islam. He told '' Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung'' he would continue discussing the dangers of radical Islam. He is not interested in insulting Muslims, but still wants to deal critically with Islam, he told the ''
Welt am Sonntag ''Welt am Sonntag'' (German for ''World on Sunday'') is a German Sunday newspaper published in Germany. History and profile ''Welt am Sonntag'' was established in 1948. The paper is published by Axel Springer SE. Its head office is in Berlin. ...
''. The cabaret artist warned of not publicly criticizing Islam just because of fearing the possible reactions and to not leave the protest only to the right-wingers. Nuhr, on his part, criticized the report of the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, which related the term "hate preacher-image" to Nuhr in their online issue. The Tagesspiegel cited Nuhr's entry from his Facebook site: "Been accused as "hate preacher" by Islamists because I quoted the Quran correctly. Please come visit me in jail! Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung only asks for the opinion of the Islamists and shows understanding. The question is: Does a country, that has that kind of newspapers, even need Islamists?" Richard Herzinger commented that there were some concerns and that the complaint would especially harm the image of Muslims. On 5 November 2014, the Prosecution Office of Osnabrück announced that the proceedings against Nuhr would be closed. The prosecution justified this with the lack of "
xenophobic Xenophobia (from (), 'strange, foreign, or alien', and (), 'fear') is the fear or dislike of anything that is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression that is based on the perception that a conflict exists between an in-gr ...
sentiment" in the works of Dieter Nuhr as well as the circumstance, that it obviously is
satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...
.


Political statements

In 2020, Nuhr signed the "Appeal for Free Debate Spaces" („Appell für freie Debattenräume“) together with right-wing conservatives Peter Hahne,
Vera Lengsfeld Vera Lengsfeld (born 4 May 1952) is a German politician. She was a prominent civil rights activist in East Germany and after the German reunification she first represented the Alliance 90/The Greens and then the German Christian Democratic Uni ...
and others. The declaration was directed against a supposed "
cancel culture Cancel culture is a cultural phenomenon in which an individual thought to have acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner is ostracized, boycotted, shunned or fired, often aided by social media. This shunning may extend to social or professio ...
" in German society.


Awards

* 1998: Deutscher Kleinkunstpreis * 2000: Bayerischer Kabarettpreis (Bavarian Cabaret Awards) and Morenhovener Lupe * 2003: Deutscher Comedy-Preis: Bester Liveact (German Comedy-Prize: best Live Act) * 2008:
IQ Award The IQ Award is a prize donated by the high-IQ association Mensa International, Mensa to honor people and organisations who have made remarkable contributions to public welfare by an intelligent idea, scientific research about human intelligence ...
* 2009/10: Deutscher Comedy-Preis: Bester Komiker (German Comedy-Prize: best comedian)


Personal life

As of 2010, Nuhr lives in
Ratingen Ratingen (; ) is a town in the district of Mettmann in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It lies in the northwestern part of Berg about 12 km northeast of Düsseldorf. Administration With a communal reform of 1975 the independent municipalit ...
,
North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...
.


Productions


CD albums

Since "nur" means ''only'', ''simply'' or ''just'' in German, the titles of his stand-up programs and CDs often involve puns. *''Nuhr am Nörgeln'', ''Nuhr grousing'' or ''Just grousing'' (1994) *''Nuhr weiter so'', lit. ''Nuhr, go on'' or ''Just going on'' (1996) *''Nuhr nach vorn'', lit. ''Nuhr, go ahead'' or ''Just going ahead'' (1998) *''www.nuhr.de'' (2000) *''www.nuhr.de/2'' (2002) *''Ich bin's Nuhr'', lit. ''It's me, Nuhr'' or ''It's just me'' (2004) *''Nuhr die Wahrheit'', lit. ''Nuhr the truth'' or ''Only the truth'' (2007) *''Nuhr die Ruhe'', lit. ''Nuhr the calmness'' or ''Stay calm'' (2009)


DVDs

*''Quatsch Comedy Club 1&2'' *''Nuhr vom Feinsten'', lit. ''The Best of Nuhr'' or ''Only the best'' (2004) *''Ich bin's nuhr'', lit. ''It's me, Nuhr'' or ''It's just me'' (2006)


Books

*''Gibt es intelligentes Leben?'' lit. ''Does intelligent life exist ?'' *''Wer's glaubt, wird selig'' lit. ''Don't you believe it!''


Literature

*


References


External links


Official website

Nuhr in the WDR Comedy portal
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nuhr, Dieter 1960 births Living people People from Wesel German male comedians German satirists University of Duisburg-Essen alumni German critics of Islam ARD (broadcaster) people Writers from Düsseldorf Comedians from Düsseldorf