For 80th birthday
Dagmar Frederic – pop star with a big flap and humor
Updated on April 15th, 2025 – 6:08 a.m.Reading time: 3 min.
“Everything is still real on me”: The “Valente of the East” remains unmistakable. How entertainer Dagmar Frederic celebrates her 80th with hits and self -irony.
There is hardly any space left on the walls, so many pictures of their appearances hang at Dagmar Frederic at home. On the recordings, the former ruling mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, and boxer Henry Mask smile next to her. Many show greats, including the young Florian Silbereisen, can be seen at home.
On April 15, the singer Dagmar Frederic, who became a star of entertainment music in the GDR, will be 80 years old. Her well -known hits include titles like “What do you think of the tango” and “Don’t let the roses fade”.
The entertainer is still an energy bundle. “There is no stress for me and we don’t like free days – three or four in a row.” 40 appearances are planned by the end of the year, says the singer, who sings at festivals, among other things. Stage appearances, for example in Dresden, Erfurt and on the Baltic Sea. Frederic lives in Berlin-Köpenick with her fifth husband Klaus Lenk.
And dealing with age? “Everything is still real on me,” she says with a laugh shortly before her birthday. She grabs the gray tips of the hair and the cheeks, then unabashed: “Before I pay a cosmetic surgeon, I prefer to send the money.”
The career of the quick-witted and elegant artist, who became an growth in Brandenburg as a child of the animal park leader and pharmacy helper, began in 1966 with a appearance in the legendary Berlin Friedrichstadtpalast. The former pop star Peter Wieland, who died in 2020, had discovered her for the show stage. Both married, came together.
For years Frederic also sang hit hits in duet with Siegfried Uhlenbrock (“You laughed”, 1968) and played musical rolls.
“Valente of the East” or simply “Daggi from Germany”?
On the GDR television, she moderated popular entertainment programs, including “a kettle of colorful” and “Serenade at candlelight”. Even after reunification, she recorded CDs, moderated TV shows on the MDR and the ARD, laughed at the cover of the magazine “Super Iilu”.
“Dagmar Frederic is one of the great women of the German entertainment scene. She was often referred to as the Caterina Valente East Germany,” says singer and moderator Wolfgang Lippert about her.
Frederic stands for her career in the GDR and appearances also in state files. But 35 years after the turn, she was today the “Daggi from Germany” instead of the “Valente of the East”.
Again and again the artist was confronted with the accusation of the proximity to the state in the GDR. “We lived here, we worked here, we stayed here (…),” says opera singer Jochen Kowalski on the MDR program “Legends – An evening for Dagmar Frederic” on the occasion of her 80th birthday. “The fact that she was particularly popular with Honecker, she can’t help it.”
After a appearance in 2014 in the wax figure cabinet Madame Tussauds, in which the entertainer salited in addition to the former GDR council chairman Erich Honecker, it was criticized. The artist had emphasized the pose as an observation. At the time in the GDR, she says, among other things,: “That was half of my life, and that’s where I stand by it.”
At home in Berlin-Köpenick, Frederic, who on stage, is still wearing high shoes and likes to wear sequins, is still usually barefoot. On the stairs to the colorful garden, she points to a few shoes – the only flat she has, says Frederic, who posed for fashion designer Harald Glööckler years ago in elegant robe and with great hat on the catwalk.
For the 80th birthday, which she now wants to celebrate with many guests from politics and show business, Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke also appreciates her career. “While appearances, entire families gathered in front of the television devices. One thing was clear: Dagmar Frederic is good,” emphasizes the SPD head of government. “The headlight, the show staircase, the stage, that was and that is still her world.”
Frederic continues to plan musical projects such as a stage program with her daughter Maxie, who already sang duette as a child. Her husband Klaus (84), with whom she has been married for around 23 years, is always at your side. “He is simply the balancing and the clever one. And I’m just the one stands up in the morning and already has the big flap.”
