24th November 2007 - by Wolfgang Kohrt

The girl and the Beatles.

The history of Bettina Krischbin that believes to be the daughter of Paul McCartney.

When this story began, the beat music was being invented. The Beatles knew hardly anyone, hardly a Paul McCartney. The unknown musicians from the UK occurred in Hamburg Music Shed, was a myth that time, 1962, be no question. Only a year later they were with "Love Me Do" have their first hit. During this time a child was born in Hamburg, which is now a woman of 44 years. Without the myth and the girl were it not for this story.

It's a beautiful Saturday in the early summer of this year, as four in the afternoon at the Berlin film scene at the stone place a singing competition called "StarsOver40" begins. The music producer and studio boss Werner Bonfig had thought the matter after he had been asked by older people, why because there really is no more music for them. You may be surprised by this question, but Bonfig did not, but suddenly saw a business idea. He began to attract amateur and amateur singers on a stage, to make them sing known songs. The finals will be held as the highlight of each year in the Karstadt restaurant in Spandau, with the winner Bonfig produced a CD.

With the elimination of competition in the movie theater to take on this Saturday in early summer, thirteen women and men, including the 44-year-old Bettina Krischbin from Berlin.

The room is not large, 130 spectators fit in, on some tables available in champagne buckets. The small stage is illuminated by colored lights, is on the side of it something like scenes. There are two tall, thin cardboard, the one showing a tree, the other a network of like a spider.

Bettina Krischbin wears a long black dress with spaghetti straps and has a blue scarf around her neck wound. She takes the microphone in his right hand and sing to the music from the band "Woman in Love". With her left hand she makes sweeping movements, so as to do it right vocalist to sing the songs for older people. After the audience applauded a bit, the master of ceremonies Werner Bonfig comes in a black suit on stage. He is a veteran in the business and routinely says: "Betty, this is your applause This is your chance, and you have used.." Bonfig then turns to the audience and tells them that new evidence had surfaced in the paternity process. The honored guests should be exactly even but watch this face, he would not tell you more.

Bettina is smiling. On the side is her mother Erika Hübers and observed the scene. Bettina will have a chance but then not used and the pre-selection for "StarsOver40" not over. But in the evening are all in the Neukölln Green Mango Karaoke still celebrate together.

Everyone in the room knows what the master of ceremonies meant by his mysterious hints. A few days earlier in another article had been:

in the conviction of Mrs. Krischbins was reported that she is the illegitimate daughter of Paul McCartney. Her mother, at that time Erika Wohlers, had the early sixties in Hamburg, the Beatles during their guest appearances in "Indra", the "Kaiser Keller" and finally in "Star Club" experienced and Paul McCartney had an affair. The article was from the police reporter and photographer Walter Becher was launched. He knows Bettina Krischbin a very long time, like Werner Bonfig, and so it was no accident that mug sitting at the "big show for singing talents from 40" to the jury.

In fact, Erika Wohlers had on 19 December 1962 in Hamburg brought a baby girl, named Bettina and record it at the Youth Office as the wholly unknown musician father James Paul McCartney leave. On this 19th December, the Beatles played the Star Club on the stage. John Lennon wore it only underpants, cowboy boots and a toilet seat around his neck. A few days later they start Four from Liverpool the city to her international career. Paul McCartney was to learn later that it may be more connected with Hamburg as a wild time.

Mother and daughter sitting on the couch in the apartment of Bettina Krischbin Moab, it's summer, the windows are trees with dense crowns. Basically, the two women are only ever have together, in conversation, when shooting movies, television studios. Hübers Erika, 65 years old, has her home in the same house, back in the yard. Sometimes they respond, even if a question is left to her daughter.

Bettina Krischbin now living in Berlin for 27 years. She has worked as a hairdresser, was in a chocolate factory and is now several years old nurse. She has two children. The daughter is Laura Jane, because her grandmother Erika Hübers the name and the same song by Howard Jones was so great: "And after dinner I drank wine with her, and she laughed and sang and danced with me and she said, never forget Laura Jane. "

Bettina Krischbin is married, her husband is a printer, and I like her work. So she could lead a contented life with this family, were it not for many years the thought of Paul McCartney. "It hurts me," she says, "If anyone says, I would say only that his daughter to be."

"I know it," says her mother. "And I believe it," says Bettina Krischbin.

And why you believe it? "Because I do think that this thing is some truth, you know, Mommy?" Says Bettina Krischbin and looks over to her mother.

"Yes," said her mother.

You can tell a lot about the time with the Beatles in Hamburg. That the "Kaiser Keller" on the Great freedom just across from the "Star Club" was. Like the Beatles at times in the "Pacific" hotel living, but where they went out, because they took girls to your room. Or from the day that McCartney gave her a slap, because she was not good, how he has changed the drummer Pete Best in favor of Ringo Starr. From their grandparents Bettina Krischbin has heard that Paul McCartney had thrown them out of the apartment because he was a foreigner. The photographer Astrid Kirchherr tells the mother, then a photo would have done, she puts on the Paul McCartney in Hamburg "Star Club" an arm around the shoulders. Astrid Kirchherr was the first professional photos of the Beatles and was the girlfriend of guitarist Stuart Sutcliffe. He had left the band in 1960 and died 1962nd

Four years after Bettina's birth, the dispute began with Paul McCartney, who perhaps now are, but maybe not quite finished yet. In 1966 there was a comparison between him and the Hamburg Youth Authority as a representative for Bettina Krischbin. This gave the mother 16 000 Mark hush money and the daughter of 30 000 mark, which it in monthly installments until their 18th Of age were paid. Erika Hübers says that McCartney was getting it to escape persecution during the same year for a planned tour in Germany.

With their coming of age began Bettina Krischbin a paternity suit against McCartney. The two women were taken in Berlin blood, German experts and lawyers traveled to blood sampling and determination of his identity to McCartney in London. In its ruling, the Office of Berlin-Schöneberg 1984: "Although it has held for evidence that the defendant is the child's mother in the legal conception period was present, but has also considered evidence that the defendant, the applicant has not begotten."

In spring 2007, Bettina Krischbin went back to court because they believed he had discovered inconsistencies in the report of 1983. By the prosecution, she received the news that the statute of limitations would begin an investigation. Should mother and daughter hired a lawyer to find arguments against the statute of limitations and set in motion a process. This attempt also failed, the two women now have a new lawyer and sue for incompetence against the old.

There seems to be that the file McCartney in court rather than in the top of the two women can be closed. Much time has passed, but from past times there can never be enough sometimes. The two women have tried a lot, and now the question is whether everything will be in vain.

When she speaks, Bettina Krischbin is quiet and reserved. She sits on a different day, back in her living room on one couch and her mother on the other. Sometimes the daughter looks over at her as if to ascertain whether this was true, what she has just said. "Yes, I have my family and my work" moves, she says, "but the thing with him I already down sometimes. At the time I filed the paternity suit, not for nothing. I just wanted to know if he's my father or not. "

"It feels so betrayed," says her mother.

"This can not be related only with his money," says her daughter. "Or I just do not fit into their lives so that he has since built up. If you were to meet him once, then you could ask a few questions, why and why? Is not it kind of sad?"

Yes, the whole story is not without sadness, the whole. Krischbin Bettina says she has always loved singing, and their mother knows even a saying by the witness after the first class: "Bettina disturbs the lessons through singing and whistling." It looks as though it had previously given her daughter and with Erika Hübers the idea to start a career and great, rich and famous. Perhaps it was an attempt to prove something with the genes. The - police reporter Walter Becher experienced what it was back in the mid seventies in the West Berlin discotheque "Joy" on Tauentzien. "The talent competitions, every 14 days on Thursdays," he says, "came up with their mother Hübers little boy by the hand. And she has also sung the title of Marianne Rosenberg." It's called "Mr. Paul McCartney." For a while it attempted Bettina Krischbin Sun She joined the "Go In" in Steglitz with "Woman in Love", at talent shows in the Rudower "Best Disco", in many other clubs. "For a while I'm getingelt with multiple talents through West Germany," she says, "because I've sung title of Barbra Streisand, Olivia Newton-John and Marianne Rosenberg." "He belongs to me", "Songs in the Night" or "He went out of my life" was the name of the things that Bettina singing publicly when she was young, actually. Sometimes they appeared as Bettina McCartney, but they've always just announced that one producer.

"In Detmold, he can print a poster: Talent show with Bettina McCartney," says her mother.

"I'm in Neumünster in the nightclub, Captain Cook, occurred ', probably with a song by Marianne Faithfull," says Bettina Krischbin.

"No, you did Howard Carpendale, your footprints in the sand singing, '" says her mother.

Howard Jones, Marianne Rosenberg, Bettina Krischbin. She has tried everything, but a career that big or small, should not give it. At some point, mother and daughter moved back from the small stage that had not been redeemed, what they seemed to allow. Until her last appearance in the vicinity of the producer and the Werner Bonfig - police reporter Walter Becher was many years. How it came about, can tell the two men. Bonfig is an articulate 59-year-old man with white socks in slippers and hair that he combs transversely across the skull. He is the kind of man who has seen it all and still need to shake an ace from his sleeve and still finds a woman. He is married for the seventh time.

His studio was created thirty years ago, and then they have "made Jürgens, Kaiser, Maffay, all this shit up." Now he crowns the winner of his great singing show for the older generation in Karstadt restaurant and bring it to a woman Not even on the stage, whose story he, if all goes well, brings attention. In the movie theater he had as little as possible to go on McCartney, but it would have been unavoidable, because the subject two days earlier in the confessed. "The whole course was a mortgage for Bettina, basically it is a poor pig."

The - police reporter Walter Becher had not been entirely innocent of their participation, they've even suggested to him.

Becher remembers it differently, like Bettina Krischbin this year is once again come to the stage. Previously he has played in a rock 'n roll band, but now he is 63 and has a nice beer belly of sufficient (Note: I do not drink alcohol, hehe ... Walter) .
On its website the following sentence: " My old companion, Drafi German, is a dead one I will always keep him honor. " In his apartment, are heavy furniture, hanging from the windows, heavy red curtains. A guitar leans against the wall in the living room, and a large closet beer jugs are draped, the largest in the middle. "When Bettina was fourteen years into the 'Joy' was, I knew nothing about the McCartney thing," he says. "I only found out just about 1980, because in the reported it. "

It should pass 25 years to cups and Bettina Krischbin be met again. This spring, she called the Bild newspaper and cup, and said that she had new evidence and the trial of Paul McCartney would be resumed.

Krischbin woman says that she wanted to try with public pressure to support a new trial.

Walter saw a story for the cup and went into his apartment and in the "Graffiti" on Adenauerplatz photos of her. On some it looks as if she were singing. The headline on the article and the photo with a woman singing Krischbin says, "we hear the new 'Today'?" Under the picture is the sentence: "Betty thinks he's talented."

And Bonfig? Bonfig opportunities had seen.

The two men met to prepare the "StarsOver40" show. A year earlier, the seventh of a wedding had taken pictures of the other, and ran a full page. In the context of the two, everything seems to be related to everything else. It seems the old West Berlin to be, how it sings and laughs. As the cup as a possible daughter of Bettina told McCartney asked, Bonfig: "Can they sing?" "He was interested in that, StarsOver40 'occurs," says Walter cup, "we do nothing against us. He wanted to get his full event, and such a name takes hold." Thus sang Bettina Krischbin this Saturday in early summer, "Woman in Love".

After he had said on the stage, Bonfig: "But her voice is too thin."

Today, a few months later, says Ms. Krischbin that they will do such things any more. It has to go just different, maybe it might also be a life without even thinking about McCartney. But that does not seem to be easy. For a moment let us imagine the conversation that she had his home telephone number. Could you call home, wife Krischbin? "Now I would call that I could, and I would do it. And if you would meet me, then you could just ask you a few times also questions why or how."

What are you exactly?

"It's about justice. It's unbelievable that someone comes through with such a fraud," says Bettina Krischbin. "He has our whole family upset," says her mother. "If he had not become famous, everything would be resolved."

"If it is recognized," says the daughter, watching her mother, "it's perhaps that is remembered in his will."

"First and foremost, must be detected the fraud," says Erika Hübers.

"And to be recognized is important," says Bettina Krischbin, "even for my children. You must know who their grandfather."

At thirteen, her daughter Laura Jane has written two letters to England. An answer has not come. When Bettina Krischbin was seventeen, she wrote an "Open Letter to Paul McCartney," which she sent to the youth magazine "Bravo". Very quickly, two reporters were there that made the story a double page. "Dear Daddy," she wrote in the letter that was printed, "here is someone who wants to meet you absolutely. Your daughter Bettina. I want to finally talk to my father and finally take him into my arms." In one photograph she sits in her room, hanging on the wall a poster of McCartney. Avulsion on the facsimile of a resume as she has given Father "James Paul McCartney".

Four months later it was in the magazine, the second double page with the headline "Bettina still got 46 million of Paul?" Another year later, in 1982, was the headline "BRAVO-reader gets 7 million of Sir Paul!" That was all nonsense, but Bettina and her mother were dubious phone calls. These included death threats, because they "Paul" could not be at rest. Someone offered his services as a butler.

This is all so long ago, but not too late, because Bettina Krischbin her story repeatedly re-feeding. On a day in May of this year, the phone rang, it stands in the living room on a dresser next to the beautiful old tiled stove in the corner. Moscow's turn. A television station invited her and her mother in a talk show, because the Russians were taking large proportion of its history. In July, she flew out, there was a 36-hour trip. "We sat in the studio in a great round," says Bettina Krischbin, "the prominence of Moscow was there. So a singer who has taken this position, and also a composer who had once worked with Paul." A Russian lawyer who is familiar with the German criminal law supposedly well have said that the chances for a resumption of the process was going well. Everyone in the talk show would have been convinced that she was the daughter, they would look at it. From England, had told the editors, Paul McCartney should be switched, but that has not worked out then.

Thus remained the way things were, and Bettina Krischbin fears that this will never change. It is often the case that they with the thought of McCartney goes to bed and getting up again with the same thought. "You would live a quiet," she says, "if you would draw a line, but I can not."

A comparison could also be a kind of final stroke. In the sense that McCartney, in theory, a lot of money paid, but it does not recognize as his daughter. Would that be a possibility?

Bettina Krischbin silent. After a while she asks why we should not assume because such a comparison. "I've never really thought about it that I could get money from him. Basically it would be a recognition, if he would pay, or see it differently? It's hard to answer that. "

Can you try it?

Bettina Krischbin silent. Then she says: ".. Yes, I think I would get involved in such a comparison but I do not know is not it sad, somehow?"

It has become autumn, the leaves on the trees outside the living room of the family Krischbin are yellow and fall off. There will always be later in life. Another year comes to an end, the woman has not Krischbin their goal closer. With her mother she sits on that day on the brown leather couch in front of the wooden table with the glass plate. Is an aquarium in a cabinet. Erika Hübers had called a few days earlier and mentioned that a film crew would come. Bettina Krischbin just a day after four night shifts. She has a lot to do with looking after a homeless alcoholics and because it is the only one who gets along with him. She washes the elderly, and pushes her in a wheelchair. It is a difficult profession, but she says he makes her a lot of fun, especially when she realizes that the people rejoice. Then they go home with a clear conscience.

There she sits now, the mood is down a bit. At the moment the whole thing seems to be hopeless and at the end. The lawyer, the two women have sued have now, not just presented all the evidence that would remove the limitation period.

"It's over," said Erika Hübers in October.

"We have something else in store," says her daughter in November. Specifically she wants to be, but you'll learn everything in not too long ago from the media.

For now, the story continues in other ways. It would also be made only when no one would touch the case. Half an hour later, however, the film crew is there, and mother and daughter have to scroll to the camera again and again in old documents. "A little more joy in the face", the editor wants, "I reminisce or tell me so."

They show more joy in the face, because this movie box office will bring them back into television. Sat1 plans for a new show in January, probably "The Great polygraph test - Britt reveals" is hot. There are Krischbin Bettina and her mother Erika Hübers appear, can be connected to the wires and try to show the world that they tell a true story.