Robert Platzgummer is dead

On December 30, 2016, Robert Platzgummer passed away at the age of only 41 after a nearly two-year battle with cancer.

He still had many ideas and plans. He was widely known in the German comics scene - among other things as the creator of the Mingamangas:

"The kind of humor he spreads with his comic Mingamanga contains exactly the rebelliousness and irreverence that famous Munich humorists like Karl Valentin, Dieter Hildebrandt or Michael Mittermeier call their own."
(Quote Georg F. W. Tempel, Zack 128)

With endearing and insightful "irreverence" he also devoted himself to the comics in E-3 magazine.

Robert Platzgummer has been with us from the beginning, since 2001, initially illustrating "Das Letzte". On this page I tried to reproduce an anecdote from the SAP community as a humorous text, whereupon he drew a matching comic.

At first, it was self-invented characters who acted in his comics. Over time, Robert Platzgummer got to know and draw the SAP Executive Board.

Later came the legendary "Page 11," a self-contained comic about which many E-3 readers said that first they read this page by Robert Platzgummer and then only the editor-in-chief's editorial on page 3.

Due to his fantastic artistic skills, but also his dedication to accuracy and precision as well as his unsurpassable feeling for people and situations, he always drew Hasso Plattner, Dietmar Hopp, Henning Kagermann, Gerd Oswald, Shai Agassi, Léo Apotheker and of course Jim Hagemann Snabe and Bill McDermott as well as later Vishal Sikka and Bernd Leukert in a stylistically confident and perfect way.

Next to the omnipresent Hasso Plattner, Henning Kagermann was one of his favorite characters. Of course, Henning Kagermann was often far too gentle, disciplined and serious for a cartoonist and comic artist, similar to Gerd Oswald. After that, the impulsive Léo Apotheker was a stroke of luck, approached by Robert Platzgummer in a "rebellious and irreverent" manner.

This is how many legendary drawings were created.

And it got even better:

The SAP dual leadership with Jim Hagemann Snabe and Bill McDermott was ideally suited for the E-3 comic on "Page 11". In illustrated double conférences, Snabe and McDermott experienced numerous adventures.

Robert Platzgummer took his inspiration from literature and film, so that the dual leadership had to deal alternately with philosophers, Greek mythology and James Bond 007.

A highlight of his drawing work was another "SAP double act": Hasso Plattner and Vishal Sikka with their innovation Hana.

Vishal Sikka provided rebellious competition for the all-time star Léo Apotheker and, of course, Hasso Plattner in the Platzgummer comics. Armed with Hana, Sikka was omnipresent in the E-3 comics.

Anyone who knew Robert Platzgummer and knew how to read his numerous comics - not only the publications in E-3 magazine - knew that he was never hurtful, very sensitive and with endearing irreverence.

Unfortunately, this positive and constructive rebelliousness was later not shared by Hasso Plattner and Gerd Oswald and there was criticism of the comics with Vishal Sikka.

Robert Platzgummer always tried to get to the bottom of things, never becoming hurtful or spiteful. His models were real life, but also feature films and operas. Thus Giuseppe Verdi with his opera Nabucco had to be at his disposal. Robert Platzgummer naturally caricatured SAP's existing customers as a world-famous prisoners' chorus.

One could discuss with him not only literature, film and music, but also aptly Larry Ellison from Oracle and Hasso Plattner as a sailing ship captain, Shai Agassi as NetWeaver inventor, Gerd Oswald as SolMan, Abap, Java, R/3 and of course R/3 Enterprise, where the legendary DSAG founder Alfons Wahlers starred in numerous Platzgummer comics, and finally Hana with the two protagonists Vishal Sikka and Bernd Leukert.

His intellect, wit, good nature, SAP knowledge and superior drawing skills leave an empty and sad space that cannot be filled.

Attentive E-3 readers will not have failed to notice that "Page 11" has not been filled with comics by Robert Platzgummer for many months. The chemotherapy and radiation weakened him very much, so that only strength remained for the cartoon "Das Letzte".

The drawing in E-3 November 2016 was his last - here everyone gathered once again: Hasso Plattner, Henning Kagermann, Shai Agassi, Léo Apotheker, Jim Hagemann Snabe, Bill McDermott and Vishal Sikka.

Brigitte Enzinger and I would like to thank Robert Platzgummer for the unforgettable cooperation during the first fifteen years of E-3 Magazine. We know that many members of the SAP community join us in this thanks.

And in eternal memory of his great skill and knowledge, we will make all of his E-3 comics available for free download under a Creative Commons license on the E-3 homepage starting in May, so that his characters and ideas can live on on the bulletin boards and PowerPoint presentations of the SAP community.