Jan Josef Liefers in mourning. Tobias Langhoff was just a skin-and-bones man.

Actor Tobias Langhoff died on Monday on his 60th birthday. His longtime friend, “Tatort” star Jan Josef Liefers, remembers his companion in an emotional obituary.

Writing an obituary for your best and oldest friend is one of the most difficult tasks in life. But Jan Josef Liefers has himself for the Berliner Zeitung» faced this challenge.

Because his friendship with Tobias Langhoff went deep: “We were so symbiotic that some were convinced we were a gay couple,” writes Liefers regarding their time together at the renowned Ernst Busch drama school in Berlin. In 1983 the duo started their three-year course and have been inseparable ever since.

Jan Josef Liefers writes regarding a friend with whom he spent many important moments in life, including the reunification of Germany in 1989: “We were together when the Wall fell and then we rode our bikes from Vancouver to Los Angeles. Two guys like us can easily go one hundred and twenty miles a day!».

Jan Josef Liefers was concerned

Liefers also describes how Langhoff, a reclusive person, devoted himself more and more to running, which he called “marathon man”.

In the beginning there was admiration for this athletic achievement by the sensitive man, later the passion for the sport drifted in an unhealthy direction: “I and others around you admired that. And at some point worry got mixed in, concern for the friend, whose body was getting smaller and smaller, but whose heart, love, affection, helpfulness remained the same, even grew.”

In the end, the “marathon man” was just a “skin-and-bones man”. One day before Tobias Langhoff’s 60th birthday, which was also the anniversary of his death, Jan Josef Liefers saw his companion and hugged him. And the otherwise ascetic Langhoff ate a Christmas biscuit – and grinned.

The next day, on the Monday of his birthday, Liefers wanted to visit his friend in his new home. Jan Josef Liefers and family sent him a birthday song – but the birthday greeting went unanswered.

Tobias Langhoff came from an acting dynasty

Langhoff was born in Berlin in 1962 and comes from a theatrical family. His father was the actor and director Thomas Langhoff (1938-2012), who was artistic director and director at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin from 1991 to 2001. His grandfather, the important actor and director Wolfgang Langhoff (1901-1966), directed the Deutsches Theater from 1946 to 1963.

Langhoff completed an apprenticeship at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts, together with Jan Josef Liefers (“Tatort”).

He has appeared in numerous films and series, such as “Tatort”, “Bad Banks” and most recently in “Babylon Berlin” and Edward Berger’s World War II drama “Nothing New in the West”. There Langhoff played the Prussian major general and military attaché Detlof Sigismund von Winterfeldt.

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