Drs. P
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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We zijn hier aan de oever van een machtige rivier --"De veerpont" (1974) by Drs. P |
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Heinz Hermann Polzer (24 August 1919 – 13 June 2015), better known under his pseudonym Drs. P, was a Swiss singer-songwriter, poet, and prose writer in the Dutch language. Other pseudonyms were Geo Staad, Coos Neetebeem (a variant of the name of Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom) and drandus P. He is known for songs such as "De veerpont" (1974) and books such as Kaarten (1967).
Life and career
Heinz Hermann Polzer was born on 24 August 1919 in Thun in Switzerland. He had a Dutch mother and an Austrian father who was naturalized to become Dutch. However, born in Switzerland, Polzer had Swiss nationality, which he never changed. After his parents divorced and when he was 3 years old, he and his mother moved to the Netherlands, where he grew up. His mother tongue was Dutch. He achieved a master in economy at the Economische Hogeschool of Rotterdam (currently Erasmus University Rotterdam). Therefore, he could use the academic title of doctorandus (drs.).
In 1942, during the nazi occupation of the Netherlands, he wrote a children's story about Dolf & Ben (Hitler & Mussolini) who were punished by Uncle Sam. He was caught and put to jail in the Oranjehotel for four months, which was extended with two months after he drew a card game with Hitler and Mussolini as jokers. After his release from prison, he fled to Switzerland, where he served in the military from 1942 to 1944. In 1945, he went to Paris to serve in the Red Cross. After the German capitulation, he went back to the Netherlands.
In 1954, Polzer went to Indonesia, where he worked for an advertising company. He started to write songs. From 1965, he became generally known after a TV appearance in the show of Willem Duys. Duys called him Drs. P, which he continued to use as his pseudonym. He also wrote texts for cabarets by Hetty Blok, Gerard Cox, and Albert Mol.
In 1998, he gave his last concert. A book with the text of all his songs appeared on that day. During his lifetime he has written hundreds of songs, thousands of poems, and a lot of prose under the pseudonym Drs. P. "Veerpont", "Dodenrit" and "De Zusters Karamazov" (The Karamazov Sisters) are among his better known humoristic songs. Drs. P sung them with his characteristicly cracking voice. He wrote a collection of poems in double dactyl (Olleke bolleke in Dutch).
Other poetry forms he invented were the balladet and the triolet.
A recurring theme was vegetables. He wrote a song about broccoli, and about typical Dutch vegetables "Knolraap en lof, schorseneren en prei".
Drs. P. died at the age of 95 in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
See also
