Haderer - The second decade in the stern

Gerhard Haderer can celebrate two big anniversaries in 2011. On the one hand, the cartoonist turns 60 this year. On the other hand, he has been delivering great drawings for stern week after week for 20 years now. After Lappan Verlag published a large volume of Haderer's works from the first ten years in 2001, "Haderer - Das zweite Jahrzehnt im stern" will follow in 2011. Accompanying the large anniversary exhibition in the caricatura Museum Frankfurt, there are in the beautiful illustrated book on 400 pages all the drawings that Haderer has put on paper for the stern between July 2001 and May 2011. Haderer's hyper-realistic style is captivating, which, coupled with his enormous power of observation, leads to an unbelievably funny and at the same time almost painfully revealing view of everyday madness. Since week after week he chooses the very topics that have preoccupied the entire country, the book also forms an amusing overview of ten years of Germany's socio-political history. Whether the introduction of the euro and its enormous unpopularity with the citizens, the attacks of September 11, 2001, which Haderer already nine days later made the subject of his cartoon, the election campaign of 2002, in which also a younger electorate should be addressed, the extremely dry summer of 2003 or even the 130th anniversary of the garden gnome, the casting show mania or the World Cup in his own country, there is hardly a significant topic of the last ten years, which is not illuminated here in a humorous and biting way.

Although many politicians, from Stoiber to Merkel, Bush, Obama, Schröder or Westerwelle, are the focus of the drawings, the "normal citizen" also gets his fat off again and again. So the reader learns, for example, what the typical German holidaymaker looks like, how one should behave discreetly as a lottery millionaire, what war is fought in German gardens every autumn, what the appropriate Christmas gift for long-term couples looks like, or why winter comes as a complete surprise every year.

Whether politics or church, whether small or large embarrassments of social life, Haderer seems to know hardly any taboo - and that is also good. Because that way his comedy seems credible and hits exactly the right nerve. This may not always work for everyone, but it is almost impossible not to burst out laughing at least a few times while reading this volume. Finally, some good news: if you can't get enough, there's always the volume with the works from the first ten years of stern. Well over 1200 works on 800 pages in two volumes - you really can't get more Haderer!

400 pages

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp