On Wednesday Frank Elstner celebrated his 81st birthday with friends and family in a restaurant in Baden-Baden.
The show host legend was born in 1942 in Linz, Austria, which was then part of Nazi Germany. Elstner’s father Erich (1910-1972), an actor and operetta singer, had a guest performance in the then so-called “Führerstadt”.
In the Federal Archives in Berlin, BILD am SONNTAG found a letter that Elstner’s father wrote to Hitler nine days after his son’s birth. The historical document has been preserved as a microfilm.
The Federal Archives in Berlin-Lichterfelde
Erich Elstner typed on a typewriter: “My Führer, despite my best efforts, it was not granted to me, above all to my wife, to let our newly minted heir see the light of day on your birthday. Unfortunately, he came 7 hours early, on April 19, 1942 at 5:30 p.m..”
Frank Elstner’s father wrote this letter to Nazi dictator Hitler on April 28, 1942. BILD am SONNTAG discovered the historical document in the Federal Archives in Berlin
Frank Elstner was born with a malformation in his right eye. Due to the so-called microphthalmia, the eyeball was too small. His father wrote to Hitler: “He is a healthy, fit boy, but the Almighty has given him one big and one small eye. The doctors are puzzled. The left eye is quite normal and the right one is much smaller.”
The TV star has had a glass eye since he was 20 and is open about it. In 1942, his father hoped to save his son’s sight with an expensive operation. Erich Elstner hoped for help from Hitler of all people.
“All our efforts are directed towards getting the child’s left eye treated by a reputable specialist to try to compensate for what fate seems to deny him. Above all, he should also be able to become a soldier one day and not have to stand back, as is unfortunately the case with me and only because of poor and late medical treatment,” the letter says.
Erich Elstner also wrote elsewhere: “If you, my Führer, could pave the way for me, we would be infinitely grateful.”
Frank Elstner and his father
BILD am SONNTAG sent the one-page letter and other historical documents from the Federal Archives about his parents to Frank Elstner.
“I didn’t know my father’s letter to Hitler,” said the moderator to BILD am SONNTAG. But he recalls: “When I was about 13 years old, I overheard my parents arguing. My father said how worried he was about me and that after I was born he even wrote to Hitler about my eye surgery.”
As a child, Frank Elstner did not ask questions at the time. His parents died early. Mother Hilde Engel-Elstner, who was an actress and dancer, died at the age of only 56. Erich Elstner was 61 years old.
Frank Elstner (centre), whose real name is Timm, in the early post-war period with his older brother and mother Hilde
Frank Elstner: “I’m surprised that there are documents about my parents in the Federal Archives. Among other things, they contain information about my mother’s acting stations, which is new to me.”
Despite the letter to Hitler, the parents were apparently not ardent Nazis. Frank Elstner: “I am glad that the documents confirm that my parents were not members of the NSDAP or any other evil Nazi organization.”
Frank Elstner is at the “RTL Annual Review 2019! People, Images, Emotions” in the studio
After the war, Erich Elstner went through a denazification process. On August 16, 1948, a US military interrogator presented him with the Hitler letter, according to a handwritten note. “E apologizes for his plight at the time,” the American officer stated.
Frank Elstner on BILD am SONNTAG: “I explain my father’s submissive tone in the letter to Hitler by saying that shortly after my birth he was severely shocked by my eye problems and absolutely wanted to raise financial support for an operation. Then you don’t write in a letter, Hitler, you asshole.”
This article comes from BILD am SONNTAG. The ePaper of the entire issue is available here.
According to documents from the Federal Archives, Erich Elstner sent the letter to the “Reichskulturwart” and wrote: “I am enclosing the letter to the Führer with this letter and would ask you, dear Herr Reichskulturwart, if you think this is the right way, for my letter wanting to pass it on to the Fuhrer.”
Apparently the letter didn’t make it to Hitler’s desk. The attached application should not be sent to the Führer’s office,” says a surviving memorandum. Instead, 300 Reichsmarks were to be made available for Frank Elstner’s eye operation from the “Künstlerdank”, a kind of Nazi relief organization.
Frank Elstner moderated “Wetten, dass…?” before Thomas Gottschalk took over the show
But the Ministry of Propaganda turned it down: “E. is not known to have made any particular achievements in a political sense, which would make the named person particularly worthy of support from the artist’s thanks.”
Despite health restrictions, Erich Elstner was drafted into the Wehrmacht a few weeks after he wrote the letter.
Frank Elstner: “My father returned from being a prisoner of war in the winter of 1946/47. Suddenly an emaciated man with a terrible hydrocephalus rang our doorbell. I hadn’t seen my father for two years and didn’t recognize him.”
