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Auf Wiedersehen, Pet

English television programme

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 8, 2026
Entity authorityQ3234742 ↗
Source-derived summary

Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (German pronunciation: [ʔaʊf ˈviːdɐˌzeːən ˈpɛt]) is a British comedy drama television programme about seven British construction workers who leave the United Kingdom to search for employment overseas. In the first series, the men live and work on a building site in Düsseldorf. The series was created by Franc Roddam after an idea from Mick Connell, a bricklayer from Stockton-on-Tees, and mostly written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who also wrote The Likely Lads, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? and Porridge. It starred Tim Healy, Kevin Whately, Jimmy Nail, Timothy Spall, Christopher Fairbank, Pat Roach and Gary Holton, with Noel Clarke replacing Holton for series three and four and the two-part finale. The series were broadcast on ITV in 1983–1984 and 1986. After a sixteen-year gap, two series and a Christmas special were shown on BBC One in 2002 and 2004.

In 2000, series 1, set in Germany, was ranked number 46 on the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes in a list compiled by the British Film Institute. In 2015, the 1980s series was voted ITV's Favourite TV Programme of all Time in a Radio Times readers' poll in order to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the station. The show was the subject of the first episode of the BBC documentary series Drama Connections in 2005.

Editorial summary

“Auf Wiedersehen, Pet” enters the record as english television programme. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Wiedersehen, English and television can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1983, 1984, 1986, 2002—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Wiedersehen, English and television.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Auf Wiedersehen, Pet” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Wiedersehen, English and television provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3234742. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1983, 1984, 1986 and 2002.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Auf Wiedersehen, Pet primary sources, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet archive and Wiedersehen research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.