Biography

Horst Tomayer (born November 1, 1938, in Asch; died December 13, 2013, in Hamburg) was a German poet, columnist, and actor. After training as an insurance clerk, Horst Tomayer worked as—among other things—a journalist, radio contributor, and satirist. He became particularly well-known for his long-running column, *Tomayers ehrliches Tagebuch* (Tomayer’s Honest Diary), which appeared in the magazine *konkret* from 1982 until shortly before his death. During the 1970s and 1980s, he also garnered attention through satirical telephone stunts, in which he posed as a conservative persona to elicit provocative statements from prominent public figures. Tomayer authored numerous radio pieces—including contributions to the WDR program *Kritisches Tagebuch*—and performed as a spoken-word artist alongside Hermann L. Gremliza. In 1990, a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court attracted nationwide attention when it classified his parody *Deutschlandlied ’86* as protected satire. In addition to his journalistic and literary work, Tomayer also appeared as an actor in film and television productions. His credits included the *Otto* films; TV series such as *Kir Royal*, *Tierarzt Dr. Engel*, and *Der König von Bärenbach*; and the feature-film comedies *7 Zwerge – Männer allein im Wald* and *7 Zwerge – Der Wald ist nicht genug*. In 1994, he took on a more substantial film role in Hans-Christoph Blumenberg’s *Rotwang muß weg!*. Tomayer died in 2013 at the age of 75 due to complications from cancer.