Paul Panzer

Few German comedians have built a persona as distinctive as Paul Panzer's. Behind the flowery shirts and lateral lisp stands Dieter Tappert, born in Düren in 1972 and based in Cologne since the mid-1990s. After training as a welder and studying music and media education, he joined the newly founded radio station 100'5 Das Hitradio in Eupen, Belgium, in 1998, where his prank calls first took off.

His prank calls, more than 800 of them, were broadcast by stations across Germany, and their formula is simple: a hapless caller is drawn deeper into Panzer's household chaos, with his wife Hilde and son Bolle barking from the background. Stand-up followed in 2005 with the solo show Heimatabend Deluxe, filmed at Frankfurt's Jahrhunderthalle in 2008 and released on DVD that October. He won the Deutscher Comedypreis as best newcomer in 2006 and played alongside Mario Barth in the 2009 film Männersache. Since December 2020 he has streamed live on Twitch, and his most recent album, Apaulkalypse, came out in 2025.