Freddie’s Double Birthday Treat in Germany

Earlier this month, to mark the day that would have been                                                                 Freddie Mercury’s 78^th birthday, 5^th September 2024, there were a couple of notable commemorations in Germany. 

The first was available nationwide: for the first time in the country a stamp depicting Freddie has been issued, which is the second in the ‘Deutsche Post’ (German Post Office) series 'Legends of Rock/Pop Music‘ started last year - the Freddie stamp being number two.  He would definitely have approved of his only predecessor here: Jimi Hendrix.

Of course, Freddie himself was an avid stamp collector as a child and his entire album can be viewed here.

Freddie and Queen have appeared on stamps in other countries – naturally in their own, the UK – but an internet ‘Google’ reveals that, interestingly, countries in Africa, predominantly francophone ones, have largely led the field in this regard.

You can read more about the German stamp, created by Deutsche Post's designer Jan-Niklas Kröger, in the English language press release about it here.

One person who made sure he was displaying the new stamp on his hotel’s own postcard was Dietmar Holzapfel, the proprietor of the Deutsche Eiche in Munich, and this was where the other Freddie celebration took place on Thursday: the unveiling of a mosaic which is now displayed on the hotel’s façade.

As one of the gay venues Freddie frequented during his time in Munich, the Deutsche Eiche’s restaurant would provide him with the opportunity to enjoy a ‘late late’ breakfast of an afternoon, or one of his favourite main dishes; if dining later on, he would have the latter accompanied by a ‘Rüscherl’ (a drink that was popular at the time - basically a mixture of brandy and cola).

The mosaic, which bears Freddie’s name along with the years he spent in Munich, is black and white, but was designed by Italian-German mosaicist Franco Notonica with certain stones that shimmer in all the rainbow colours when reflecting sunlight, varying according to the angle of view and weather conditions.

Among those in attendance at the unveiling were a couple of the sponsors (alongside Holzapfel) of the artwork: Herbert Hauke, of Munich’s ‘City of Music’ fame, and Nicola Bardola, the author of a book about Freddie’s years in Munich. In a place of honour at the window above the mosaic as it was unveiled was Reinhold Mack, Queen’s producer at the city’s Musicland Studios at that time. Mack mentioned in an interview with the Germanvinyl magazine ‘Mint’ in May this year just how much Freddie was at ease in Munich (in translation): “He thought it was great that he could just simply go out here and nobody paid any particular attention to him”.

 Holzapfel commented that the mosaic was a memento designed for eternity: “A mosaic doesn’t crumble or fade”, he remarked. It was also noted among the coverage that, until now, there hasn’t been a reminder of Freddie of this nature in Munich which, like the statue in Montreux, can be a point of focus for fans.

                                                                                                         

 Source material for the above summary was taken from the following articles:

https://munichcityofmusic.de/mosaik-briefmarke-fuer-freddie-zum-geburtstag

https://www.br.de/nachrichten/kultur/queen-star-freddie-mercury-in-muenchen-geehrt-mosaik-am-hotel-deutsche-eiche,UNTwYtc

https://www.abendzeitung-muenchen.de/muenchen/denkmal-fuer-freddie-mercury-sein-mosaik-in-muenchen-ist-enthuellt-art-1004588

https://muenchen.t-online.de/region/muenchen/id_100483368/freddie-mercury-neues-denkmal-in-muenchen-enthuellt.html