Konstantin Wecker: His new life - thanks to Annik
"That she has endured me, for that I am still grateful to her today"
The host makes a little strained impression, which is understandable. His living room with the big grand piano, on which he, as he later tells us, seldom comes to composing, because already after the first notes a sound from the children's rooms "Ruhe, Papa" has been taken by the ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN photographers plus assistants , Besides, he does not really want to be photographed, now he has to. Fortunately, with his wife Annik, who radiates the serenity of a Zen goddess in the midst of the hustle and bustle. They are posing outside in the garden, and there, their body in touch and stroking, he also suddenly looks very relaxed. A loving couple, that's the first impression. And an equally strong, which one did not expect. He vibrates, soothes her. He, the still-wild predator, her, his golden guardian angel. An interesting combination, without question.
The house in Nordschwabing, where Annik and Konstantin Wecker live with their sons Valentin, 12, and Tamino, 10, will probably never be found in a living magazine. But it is in this cozy way criss-cross decorated.
"We're going to the kitchen," says Annik. "We love it that way." The fact that one feels immediately comfortable here, although it is small and the kitchen chairs rather after herniated than feel comfortable seating, is due to the plethora of cookbooks, cake plates and other utensils, which point to a visibly sensual employment of the housewife.
Konstantin Wecker: Shit, you're already 50!
Annik Wecker is not only a wife and mother, unnoticed by the public, she has also been a professional baker for a few years, serving coffee shops and private customers and publishing the wonderful baking book "Annik's Divine Cakes". Every day she bakes three to five pies and cakes, mainly for the Munich "Café Ringelnatz", her white truffle tart with raspberries is cult there. In the house of alarm, meanwhile, there is a certain cake fatigue.
"Because it is impossible to keep the weight off this oversupply of delicacies," groans the host. What you do not really look at him though.
He looks healthy, slightly tanned, his hair short and gray, a man who looks after women. Still, even though he is 62 years old and has overslept the decade between 40 and 50, according to his own admission. "I was absolutely incompetent, and then I woke up at some point and thought: shit, you're already 50!"
She saw strength, he only felt weakness.
He looks thoughtful as he describes the years in which he was so addicted to cocaine, then craze addicting the drug that he had to suck on the pipe every ten minutes and his toenails were so long that they did not fit into any shoes. "I had kidney failure and was in absolute final physical condition," says Konstantin Wecker, "that she endured me at that time, but I'm still grateful to her today." - "I just loved it all," says Annik. So start her love, and that she has held for 14 years and feels so good, so right, that may be considered a small miracle. Wrong - as a giant.
It was in November 1995, when the then 21-year-old Annik Berlin, who listlessly studied communication sciences in Amsterdam, skipped the university and instead preferred a concert by Konstantin Wecker in Cloppenburg. She had already attended five concerts with her mother, both of them glowing fans. And so she sat, this time without a mum, in the front row, narrow, long hair, and sank into his songs. And in his eyes, which are as blue as hers. "He was just looking at me all the time," she smiles, and you realize she likes to tell this story. "I knew immediately that I wanted to meet her," he says, "so I asked my old friend Günther to intercept her after the concert."
Konstantin Wecker was in custody - and made her an application
She knew that he was taking hard drugs when she was waiting for him. She had read in 1992 in his autobiographical novel "Shapeless" that drugs in the art milieu were common. What she did not know and at first he desperately tried to hide from her was the miserableness of his addiction. "I was always sweating and totally neglected," he describes his condition from then on. "He could not fool me, I saw that he was smoking all the time, but I was and just totally in love with him," she describes her feelings.
She broke the school and moved to Grünwald.Three weeks later, when she - the life writes the most beautiful scripts - watching the TV movie "Kriminaltango" in which he played just a gangster boss, the police were at the door. He was proven to be able to buy 1.77 kilograms of cocaine, so much so that the prosecutor considered his own use impossible and him a dealer. In remand he made a cold withdrawal without medical assistance - and Annik a written marriage proposal. Shortly before Christmas he was released on bail of 150,000 euros. He had 1.5 million euros in debt. She married him in February 1996 anyway. There was no one who did not regard her as a stranger and him for an old sack that shamelessly exploited this bondage.
We just did not care about the talk
Of course, this collective rejection only made them more closely welded together. "We just did not care about the talk," says Annik Wecker. It helped that he had not done so before. He had always jumped into the face of life as a man and an artist without securing himself beforehand. As a young man in soft porn ("Yodeling itches the leather pants") has played, was childless for eight years with the actress Carline Seiser, who accompanied him in his wildest years. His late family happiness is therefore a gift he has never really earned. "Marrying, having children was almost a revolutionary act for me," he says, "but I'm very happy I made it."
It still flickers and flickers between the two. They are just coming back from a couple of childless days from Italy, and how they tell of how they look at it - it must have been very nice.
When Annik walks past him, Konstantin Wecker reaches out and caresses her, when aware of each other, with each look, every word, every gesture, they relate to each other. Unhappy couples are silent, happy talk, even between the alarm clock there is no radio silence. "Politics, philosophy, art, everything interests us," says Annik, "and when he's on the road, I email him articles that I find exciting." - "The torrent never stops," he agrees.
It's normal, he thinks. Too normal? "Are we stuffy?" He asks suddenly, when he tells how grateful he is, that she can stand him, raise the children with him, for a few seconds he looks worried. Annik says nothing, she just smiles, making it clear how unimportant an answer would be.
This is probably the secret of her love - that he is outward, but she is so strong inside. That they are both 100% behind the other. She keeps his back free when he works, he writes the foreword to her cookbook and mentions it on his website www.wecker.de.
And that both do not do things by halves. He does not in his concerts, in which he spent himself to total exhaustion. Or in his political engagement against war terror and neo-Nazis. She was in love with a man whom everyone had written off and who could become healthy and productive again through her and her loyalty.
It never bothered her that there were women before she entered his life, so many that he does not remember most, a "rustic" called him the "Playboy", referring among other things to his numerous erotic adventures in public toilets. But to really love and allow closeness, that was impossible for him before Annik. Although he wrote the most beautiful love poetry: "You lie so full of longing and confidence nestled in your arm, I hardly breathe, it's good to just look at you, to be just one with your dream."
"But my songs used to be smarter than me," he says honestly today, "I did not know love, I mistook it for a long time with hormone gush, I've always told myself to be free for my art."
And into this love-void came a woman who was full of love. And these were not shattered, dismembered and then poured into poetry like him, but she simply lived. Without questions, without doubt, with a certainty that overwhelmed him and made him defenseless. And so he just erased his emotional hard disk, "I shut myself down to zero," he says, "that was a tremendous liberation."
Both went so virgin in the relationship, everything was new, everything at the beginning. It did not matter that they separated 28 years. That she was a sheltered student from Bassum near Bremen and that he had lived the last decades as a "cocaine monster", as he says. Somehow, his debts and canceled concerts after his arrest also fit. Nothing was more, only love. They moved to Lower Saxony, because after a laundered in the press process chaos, a prison sentence of two and a half years hovered over him and the prison was milder there. Later, the sentence was suspended. Not the physical, but the mental withdrawal was difficult. Sometimes he thought of the crack whistle he was about to do when the police arrested him. But he stayed clean, also for the sake of his wife. Because she was the only one who saw strength, where he felt only weakness.
Konstantin Wecker has discovered the slowness through his children
Thanks to his horse-nature, he returned to the brute all-rounder, which bore him through his darkest years, shortly after his collapse. When he did not dare to leave the house without cracking, but still songs (600 are registered with the GEMA) and wrote poems, played in television films and politically meddling. Even half senseless, he still gave interviews that made sense. Melody scamp, once called him a friend. And meant it admiringly.
Of course, Annik, a broken student, with a life experience that fit into a thimble, was initially a bit helpless on the edge of his cosmos. She answered the phone, made coffee, tried to make herself useful. Not easy in a just collapsed artist existence whose finances, with chaotically describing, would be a euphemism.
She did not hesitate, she became pregnant. He was 50 and was very happy. Two years later, when Valentine's brother Tamino arrived, whom they named after the Prince from the Magic Flute, the ex-junkie and ex-women's zombie happily pushed the stroller through the Munich parks. "Through my children, I have discovered the slowness," he says, "a wonderful gift that I owe my wife." What kind of father is he? "Extremely good-natured, unfortunately too little consistent," she affectionately says. And you as a mother? "A little impatient, but very responsible," he praises her. Especially as far as her diet is concerned. "No flavorings, no glutamate, as much organic as possible," she says firmly. Wecker is reading a book about the benefits of linseed oil, "the absolute omega-3 bringer". Nevertheless, they are not pleasure lovers. Both of them smoke, drink wine in moderation, spend a lot of money on eating out. "Let it rip for 30 years and then play the saint would be more than ridiculous," says Wecker. Valentin enters the kitchen. He is the small male version of his blond, tender mother, but with dreadlocks and hair extensions. For 300 euros, as the parents report. 300 Euro? "He really wanted it," sighs the father, "and because he's small and shy, a cool look in class can not hurt him."
You enter a completely foreign universe
Alarm clock is already nostalgic when he thinks of the inevitable end of childhood. His wife is happy about new freedom. "Besides, I would still be young enough for a third child," she says. No problem, he says, "if she wants, immediately". Does he never think about his age? But he says, very often. Especially the Ars Moriendi, the art of dying that he finds so important. And that unfortunately was extinct in this society. What does she mean? "I can not imagine anything like that," she says, "but I'm just too young for that." Annik and Konstantin Wecker have managed to make the difficult transition from impetuous infatuation to adult love. She helped him with it. "You enter a completely alien universe," he states, "that's the charm and the power of love." - "Maybe I was always looking for the strong man," she says. They enjoy the proximity, but they also withstand the distance. Actually very good. He is on the road for more than half of the year, then he is the pampered star on the stage, where everything is taken off and she makes herself at home with the children. "The house gets smaller when he's gone," she says. "We only live in the kitchen and in my bedroom." Sometimes he is still difficult, the balancing act between rejoicing and everyday life. "Then I need more time to get used to my family again," he admits.
That he is more aware than you that time is unfortunately finally, of course, is the age difference. Her youngest brother is the same age as her son, her parents are younger than her husband. Therefore, Annik is happy about her own changes. The fact that she steps out of his shadow and pursues her own goals - another cookbook, about Tartes with Alfons Schuhbeck, and a children's cookbook are planned - initially made him insecure. "She has become a very strong, independent person," he says proudly, "that's painful for me because I'm attached to the old image of her, but at the same time it's healing, because her transformation also fuels my own."
As always, Annik Wecker sees things less complicated. "When I check in at a hotel now, I always add a baker when I'm at work," she laughs, "I think that looks great."
Yes, it hurts a bit, this new independence. But she gave him a new beginning 14 years ago, now it's her turn. And he is not finished yet.
"I was and just totally in love with him"
Annik alarm clock
Annik alarm clock, born 1974, grew up in Bassum near Bremen. Her parents own a printing house there. After graduation, she began studying communication science in Amsterdam, which she broke off in 1995, when she met her future husband. She is a passionate baker, her first cookbook "Annik's Divine Cakes" was released in 2008 and has already sold 20,000 copies. This month another band with many color photos will be released.In "Refined Tartes" she presents together with Alfons Schuhbeck sweet and salty tart recipes (192 p., 19.95 euros, both books Dorling Kindersley Verlag).
"She is a very strong personality."
Konstantin Wecker
Konstantin Wecker, b 1947 in Munich, is an only child. The mother housewife, the father painter and singer. Early on, he was considered a musical prodigy, who learned to play the piano at the age of five, playing the guitar with eight violins and at the age of fourteen. In 1969 he passed his high school diploma, in the 70s first appearances in Munich artist pubs. With the album "Enough is not enough" he makes the breakthrough, establishing himself as a prolific writer of poems, songs, film scores. Successful, acclaimed, he becomes first cocaine, then crack dependent. At the end of 1995, he was arrested for possessing cocaine and sentenced to two and a half years' imprisonment. For 14 years he has been clean, writes, composes and gives charity concerts against the war in Iraq. His last book is called "Stürmische Zeiten, meine Schatz", an anthology of the most beautiful love poems (Piper Verlag).
