Düsseldorf: Toten Hosen singer Campino receives Heinrich Heine guest professorship

2024-03-12 10:52:29

Culture Punk Professor

Campino receives a visiting professorship at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf

Status: 12.03.2024 | Reading time: 2 minutes

Campino, singer of the Toten Hosen and now also a visiting professor

Source: dpa/Britta Pedersen

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Campino is a man of loud and clear words. Maybe that’s why he is now a lecturer at the University of Düsseldorf. The punker and singer of the Toten Hosen will, among other things, deal with “common poetry”. Tickets for the lectures will be raffled off.

Campino, singer of the Düsseldorf rock band “Die Toten Hosen”, becomes Heine Heine visiting professor in Düsseldorf. The musician will give two lectures in April in the largest lecture hall at Heinrich Heine University, the university announced on Monday in Düsseldorf. Campino is one of the best-known singers in the country, as well as one of “the most committed and political musicians ever,” emphasized Rector Anja Steinbeck. She did not provide any further justification for the appeal.

In the first event on April 2nd, Campino will give a “declaration of love to everyday poetry” under the title “Kästner, Kraftwerk, Cock Sparrer”. The reading and personal reflection of texts that inspired the musician himself will be musically accompanied by his bandmate Kuddel on the guitar, as the announcement continued.

The lecture on April 23rd is entitled “Everyone has something to say. The cacophony of our time.” Campino will talk about this with the cultural director of “Spiegel”, Philipp Oehmke.

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Tickets for both lectures will be raffled off on the university’s website. This is not Campino’s first appearance on campus. He made headlines there with the Toten Hosen decades ago when a concert by the Düsseldorf punk band in the university cafeteria got out of hand and a lot of things were broken.

Campino (l.) and Andreas ‘Kuddel’ von Holst from the “Hosen” played punk club concerts in London in 1990…

Quelle: picture alliance/Geisler-Fotopress/Rudi Keuntje

… in 2023, Campino was more civilized in a tailcoat when he was invited to dinner with the British royal couple at Bellevue Palace

Source: picture alliance/dpa/Jens Büttner

The musician explained that he was looking forward to the challenge of the visiting professorship. “It’s a shame that my parents can no longer see that I, although at an advanced age, still made it to university.”

Campino, whose real name is Andreas Frege, was born in Düsseldorf in 1962. In 1982 he founded the punk band Die Toten Hosen. Today it is one of the most successful German bands and is known for its social and political commitment.

The band has a large fan base in South America. Concerts like this one from 2017 in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires are not uncommon

Source: picture alliance/Georg Ismar/dpa

The Heinrich Heine Visiting Professorship is a gift to the university from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1988. It is awarded to strong-minded and committed individuals at the suggestion of the rector.

Before Campino, Helmut Schmidt, Juli Zeh, Wolf Biermann, Siegfried Lenz, Joschka Fischer, Antje Vollmer, Ulrich Wickert, Joachim Gauck and most recently Klaus-Maria Brandauer were Heine visiting professors. Campino was among the listeners during Brandauer’s guest lecture.