Most of you have probably heard of David Attenborough and have watched some of his fantastic films about animal and plant life on Earth.
But today I want to tell you about Bernhard Grzimek, with whose TV programmes I grew up.
“Bernhard Klemens Maria Grzimek (24 April 1909 – 13 March 1987) was a German zoo director, zoologist, book author, editor, and animal conservationist in postwar West Germany.” (Wikipedia)
In 1960 he received an Oscar for his film ‘Serengeti darf nicht sterben’ (Serengeti shall not die), the first ever German documentary to receive an Oscar!
But what I remember most was his TV show ‘Ein Platz für Tiere’ (A place for animals), which ran for 30 years every Tuesday at 8.15pm.
He started each show with the same words “Guten Abend, meine lieben Freunde” (Good evening, my dear friends). He also had a ‘guest’ in each show, which was recorded live. The guest was an exotic animal from his zoo, the Franfurt Zoo. So you can imagine that filming always was a surprise.
There are not many videos on YouTube, although there are DVDs and books you could buy. But I did find a few, starting with a short clip, how you pronounce his name.
Have a go yourself first and then check. How was your pronunciation?
The following video shows snippets from his shows and also explains – in German – a bit more about his work to save animals.
The next two videos also show extracts from his shows.
And here is a complete video from one of his programmes:
Did you know about these programmes or have you ever heard of Bernhard Grzimek?
And can you now pronounce his name? 😊
Thanks for sharing! Grzimek was way ahead of his time regarding animal protection.
P.S: Love the Tapirkind 🙂
He certainly was! I used to love watching his programmes and researching for this post brought back many childhood memories, but I only now realised how much of an animal conservationist he was!