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Austrian entertainer Udo Jürgens dead at 80

The 80-year-old Austrian entertainer Udo Jürgens died on Sunday from heart failure while walking in Switzerland.

Published: 21 December 2014 21:00 CET
Austrian entertainer Udo Jürgens dead at 80
Photo: DPA FILE

According to reports from Jürgen's Swiss management company, the entertainer died of heart failure on Sunday during a walk in Gottlieben, in western Switzerland.

Despite immediate attempts at resuscitation, Jürgens died in a nearby hospital in the town of Münsterlingen.  He was 80 years old.

The singer spoke to Germany's Bild.de magazine two weeks ago, explaining that he 'felt wonderful', and was looking forward to moving into a new home.

His last performance was on December 7th.

He was a composer and singer of popular music whose career spanned more than fifty years.

Jürgens, who was born in Klagenfurt, wrote more than 800 songs and sold over 100 million records.  In 2007 he obtained Swiss citizenship, while retaining his Austrian passport.

He won the Eurovision song contest in 1966 with "Merci cherie" which was a hit in several languages, including French, English, Dutch and Italian.

 

In his 2004 autobiography "Der Mann mit dem Fagott" ("The man with the bassoon"), Juergens wrote extensively about growing up a "good Hitler youth" as a little boy in Austria and later regretting the ignorance of his youth, according to the New York Times.

"We were all but castrated after the war," he said in a 2004 interview with the Swiss magazine Schweizer Illustrierter. "But Judaism must find a homeland in this country, it must return. That is my greatest dream. I'm attached to this culture with all my heart."

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NORWAY

Body found in Oslo flat nine years after death

A man lay dead in his flat for nine years before being discovered in December, police in Oslo have said.

Published: 9 April 2021 11:20 CEST
Body found in Oslo flat nine years after death
Photo by pichet wong from Pexels

The man, who was in his sixties, had been married more than once and also had children, national broadcaster NRK reports.

His name has been kept anonymous. According to neighbours he liked to keep to himself and when they didn’t see him, they thought he had moved or been taken to assisted living.

“Based on the details we have, it is obviously a person who has chosen to have little contact with others,” Grethe Lien Metild, chief of Oslo Police District, told NRK.

His body was discovered when a caretaker for the building he was living in requested police open the apartment so he could carry out his work.

“We have thought it about a lot, my colleagues and people who have worked with this for many years. This is a special case, and it makes us ask questions about how it could happen,” Metild said.

Police believe the man died in April 2011, based on a carton of milk and a letter that were found in his apartment. An autopsy has shown he died of natural causes.

READ ALSO: Immigrants in Norway more likely to be affected by loneliness

His pension was suspended in 2018 when the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) could not get in touch with him, but his bills were still paid out of his bank account and suspended pension fund.

Arne Krokan, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said the man’s death would have unlikely gone unnoticed for so long if he had died 30 years ago.

“In a way, it is the price we have paid to get digital services,” he said to NRK.

Last year 27 people were found in Oslo, Asker or Bærum seven days or more after dying. The year before the number was 32 people. Of these, one was dead for almost seven months before being discovered.

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