2 Verstorbene - ein Nachruf

Judging it by the its start only, 2018 is already worse than 2017. On January 4 we had to learn from the press that Mag. Michael Truppe had died on December 26, 2017.

It's always shocking to us survivors when the great killer, that he had fought for some time and that tried me too, has won one more victory and takes so many young people from the face of this earth. Mag. Truppe was only 37 years old. That's the same age as my younger child. We often were not of the same opinion on the interpretation of media law and were also placed on opposite sides of some confrontations. But most of his arguments I could always respect and comprehend. Anyway, in these topics he was a formally educated expert while I am a self taught amateur.

© Katharina Stögmüller/RTR

He surely has, as his colleagues wrote, "enriched our lives with his keen expertise, his humanity and his fine sense of humor". And his extensive knowledge especially of European media regulation, not self evident in his country. I also highly esteemed the noble restraint he showed in his intercourse with people in the political, judicial and commercial fields he worked in. Even at the get-togethers where most others tend to drink and fraternize too much, he always kept his friendly calm, sobriety and a correct distance.

Requiesce in pace, Mag. Michael Truppe!

More tragedy

On Sunday, January 7, 2018 the great killer also took away Isabelle Geneviève Marie Anne "France" Gall. Since winning the Eurovision Grand Prix de la Chanson for Luxembourg with Poupée de cire, poupée de son, a Gainsbourg composition she was an international popstar in all of Western Europe and for a long time one of the foremost ambassadors for the budding French and German friendship. In her home country of France she was mostly known as a yé-yé singer.

Until his also untimely death she was married to, and had a productive and successful partnership with French singer-songwriter colleague Michel Berger (born Michel Jean Hamburger). The couple had two children, one of which, Pauline, died young and the other survives to this day and is now a complete orphan, having lost father, mother and sister.

Gall had to cope with untimely death quite often. In 1986, during a trip to Africa, co-worker Daniel Balavoine tragically perished in a helicopter crash. The song "Évidemment", written by Berger and sung by Gall, was a moving homage to their lost friend and appeared on Gall's album Babacar. That album also contains "Ella, elle l'a", Berger's tribute to black art in general, Ella Fitzgerald in particular and France Gall's most famous and maybe also most rememberable work.

In 1992 France Gall had to suffer Berger's death from a heart attack at the age of 44 years only. As if that were not enough she herself was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1993, from which she recuperated after successful treatment. Gall's elder daughter with Berger, had been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis soon after birth. Berger and Gall entered into a pact to alternate their professional projects to take care of their daughter, but Pauline died of it in 1997. After that Gall has made only occasional public appearances. And now she has gone from us due to an infection complication to an undisclosed type of cancer at 70, far too young these days to die.

May you sing with your family in the sweet hereafter, if there be one, Isabelle!