Heiner Bomhard in “Bettwurst”: The anarchic power of the queen

Anyone who was not yet aware of the wonderful corners of Germany was taught otherwise by the early 1970s at the latest in Rosa von Praunheim’s cult film “Die Bettwurst”: “Bad Dürkheim, the Palatinate, that’s wonderful… the Burgheimer Wurstmarkt and that.” The man praising his homeland with all its advantages, lounging in a deck chair and speaking the broadest Mannheim dialect, is called Dietmar, as a character just like in real life. The real Dietmar Kracht, who died in 1976, was more what is called an escort today, definitely not a professional actor, just like his film partner Luzi Kran as, exactly, Luzi. But it is precisely this laymanship that gives the film its unsettling, anarchic power in the first place.