Whenever “Die Internationale” was intoned at a party conference in the 1970s and 1980s, Hans Rudolf Beierlein made a profit. Now the dazzling music manager has died at the age of 91.
The legend has long persisted that Hans R. Beierlein is said to have earned millions from the most widespread battle song of the socialist workers’ movement, “Die Internationale”. At the beginning of the 1970s, the music manager, who died on August 5, had started to acquire the rights for the Franco-Belgian composition, first for the Federal Republic of Germany, later also for the GDR and finally for the whole world.
He once revealed in an interview with the newspaper “Die Welt” that he had good business relations in the GDR. At times he had a permanent pass for the inner-German border. Margot Honecker arranged this. “In return, I brought her all the records of her favorite singer Johannes Heesters,” he said. For the workers’ anthem, however, he received annual payments from the GDR of “only” 20,000 Deutschmarks. The “Internationale” was one of the most important songs in the world for him. “Simply beautiful, not only the music, but above all the lyrics”.
The doer behind Udo Jürgens
Beierlein ultimately became very wealthy through other activities. He is best known as the maker behind pop legend Udo Jürgens. In 1963 he had discovered the then relatively unknown Austrian singer. Three years later, Jürgens won the Grand Prix Eurovision with the song “Merci Chérie” and became a star. At the end of the 1970s, the successful duo Jürgens and Beierlein broke up and the men argued in court. 17 years later they reconciled.
Beierlein had also promoted the careers of singer Stefanie Hertel and singer Stefan Mross. Hertel was always grateful to him for that. “I will never forget the first time I met you in person in 1990. That was the beginning of a long, great collaboration and friendship,” the singer recalled on Facebook. “You were mentor, critic and friend. Gourmet, charmer, curmudgeon, realist, inventor, doer,” wrote the singer.
Beierlein created the Grand Prix der Volksmusik in 1986, also traded football rights and introduced French stars like Charles Aznavour and Johnny Hallyday to Germany. In 2014, Beierlein stepped back and reportedly sold the rights to around 5,000 titles owned by his company Montana to the music company BMG.
Beierlein certainly had a dazzling reputation in the show business, to which he contributed as much as he could. He once said in the “FAZ” that he had slept with 5,000 women. With the exception of a brief episode in the early 1960s, he was never married. “I realized early on that marriage is not a way of life for me,” he said in an interview. But he could also be a man of more serious tones.
Beierlein made a documentary about the Nuremberg trials
In 1958 he made his only documentary, “Rolled Up Again: The Nuremberg Trial.” Right next to his school was the building of the Nuremberg Court, where the trials of high-ranking Nazis took place in 1945. This aroused his interest in Beierlein, who was born and grew up in Nuremberg on April 19, 1929. For his film he used original recordings from the French Army State Archives. The research in Paris led to a lifelong commitment to Franco-German friendship.
According to a published obituary, Beierlein died in his Munich apartment on August 5. At his side was Bizzi Nießlein, Beierlein’s adopted daughter and Montana managing director. She had Beierlein’s ashes buried quietly. (with dpa)