The Hoff's 'crazy night' in Germany

David Hasselhoff is still much-loved in Germany.. Photo / National Geographic Channels

It's 25 years since David Hasselhoff became the soundtrack to the fall of the Berlin Wall. He sings again, to Russell Baillie.

David Hasselhoff is singing just for me. In a German accent. Down the line from his backyard in California.

This isn't just one of those odd moments you might expect from The Hoff, a man who abides and somehow endures as a pop standing joke. No, this is history retold.

For he is fair melting the phone line with the chorus for Looking for Freedom, the song that was his No 1 hit in West Germany, Sweden and Austria - and eventually a phone jingle in Norway - as the Berlin Wall began to crumble in 1989.

He sang it, standing in the bucket of a digger, on New Year's Eve of that year near the wall's ruins.

There is video evidence. He was wearing a leather jacket festooned with big flashing lights. He was a beacon of ... well, something, maybe there's a German word for it, for the thousands who heard him.

But right now he's got an audience of one and he's bellowing the hearty tune that's still a concert staple for him when he tours those aforementioned countries that still love him so.

He says he sang it just the other day at an Austrian festival where he had to go on after heavy metal stalwarts Iron Maiden.

"I said 'how do I follow Iron Maiden?' So I said 'bring out the jacket. We are either going to get killed or booed or shit thrown on stage or we are going to be heroes ... I put that jacket on and said "please God make these batteries work ... and I hit the button and I went 'Yeah! F***ing yeah! I've been looking for freedom ...", he sings yet again. "It was just a crazy night."

There is a good reason our short interview with Herr Hasselhoff has turned into a telekaraoke session.

He's the star of Hasselhoff vs the Berlin Wall, a National Geographic documentary marking the 25th anniversary of the wall's fall.

Yes, it is an unashamed vehicle for the Knight Rider and Baywatch guy to remind everyone he was there and he's still so famous in Germany.

But despite its reliance on scenes of The Hoff signing autographs on the streets of Berlin, it's also a fascinating study of those in East Germany who couldn't wait for reunification and took their chances flying over the wall, tunnelling under it or throwing themselves upon it, often with fatal consequences.

The Hoff fronts the doco and gets to go "Wow!" quite a lot as escapees tell their story. The video footage of a night-time escape across the border by microlight is lump-in-the-throat stuff. But soon, we are brought back to earth by The Hoff going "Wow!" once more.

Watch a clip from National Geographic's Hasselhoff vs the Berlin Wall:

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Hasselhoff has other reasons to front the doco.

He supported a campaign to have a final stretch of the wall preserved as reminder.

"I sang the song Looking for Freedom about bringing down the wall and then I went back and sang the song to keep the wall up."

Yes he likes the song, which is a "schlager": a Euro easy-listening lager-quaffing kind of tune, one that induces mass feelgood swaying in those countries where it's an anthem.

The song was originally released in 1978 by German singer Marc Seaberg and produced by its writer Jack White (not that one) who also produced the Hasselhoff version, which took off.

No, his German surname didn't help, he thinks. "It was the song and Knight Rider and the fact that I was probably the first entertainer of American descent that jumped out into the audience and grabbed the people."

As our short perplexing chat and sing-along comes to an end, The Hoff mentions he wants to be buried in that flashing jacket.

Fans could bring batteries to his grave, suggests TimeOut.

Herr Hoff chuckles once more and flicks the switch on his German accent: "Ve hav come all ze vay from Berlin and ve hav batteries!"

What: Hasselhoff vs the Berlin Wall
Where: National Geographic
When: Sunday November 9, 7.30pm

- TimeOut