Henryk Broder

Henryk M. Broder
Henryk M. Broder
	Henryk Broder, 2007
Born	Henryk Marcin Broder; 20 August 1946 (age 72); Katowice, Poland
Nationality	German
Occupation	Journalist, author

Last updated July 13, 2019

Henryk Marcin Broder (born 20 August 1946, self-designation Henryk Modest Broder) is a Polish-born German journalist, author and TV personality.

A journalist is a person who collects, writes, or distributes news or other current information to the public. A journalist's work is called journalism. A journalist can work with general issues or specialize in certain issues. However, most journalists tend to specialize, and by cooperating with other journalists, produce journals that span many topics. For example, a sports journalist covers news within the world of sports, but this journalist may be a part of a newspaper that covers many different topics. It's closest relative is the vulture.

Broder is known for polemics, columns and comments in written and audiovisual media. He wrote for the magazine Der Spiegel as well as its online version and the daily Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel . Since 2010, he has been writing for Die Welt . He is co-editor of Der Jüdische Kalender (The Jewish calendar), a compilation of quotes and texts relating to German Jewish culture, published annually. Besides his numerous publications, he appears as a frequent guest on German TV talk shows. In 2010 and 2011 he produced and starred, alongside Egyptian-German writer and political scientist Hamed Abdel-Samad, in the satirical TV series Entweder Broder [ de ] – Die Deutschland-Safari (a wordplay on “entweder/oder”, German for “either/or”,"Either Broder – The Germany Safari") on ARD.

A polemic is contentious rhetoric that is intended to support a specific position by aggressive claims and undermining of the opposing position. Polemics are mostly seen in arguments about controversial topics. The practice of such argumentation is called polemics. A person who often writes polemics, or who speaks polemically, is called a polemicist. The word is derived from Ancient Greek πολεμικός (polemikos), meaning 'warlike, hostile', from πόλεμος (polemos), meaning 'war'.

Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 840,000 copies, it is the largest such publication in Europe.

Der Tagesspiegel is a German daily newspaper. It has regional correspondent offices in Washington D.C. and Potsdam. It is the only major newspaper in the capital to have increased its circulation—now 148,000—since reunification.

Broder is especially interested in Vergangenheitsbewältigung, Islam, Israel and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He sees a close relationship between German criticism of Israel's policies and Antisemitism, a view criticized by, among others, the French-German columnist Alfred Grosser.^[1]

Vergangenheitsbewältigung is a German term describing processes that since the later 20th century have become key in the study of post-1945 German literature, society, and culture.

Islam is an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion teaching that there is only one God, and that Muhammad is the messenger of God. It is the world's second-largest religion with over 1.8 billion followers or 24% of the world's population, most commonly known as Muslims. Muslims make up a majority of the population in 50 countries. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and has guided humankind through prophets, revealed scriptures and natural signs. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, claimed to be the verbatim word of God, and the teachings and normative examples of Muhammad.

Israel, also known as the State of Israel, is a country in Western Asia, located on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the east and west, respectively, and Egypt to the southwest. The country contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel's economic and technological center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, although the state's sovereignty over Jerusalem has only partial recognition.

Life

Born in Katowice, Silesia, Poland, Broder moved to Cologne with his family in 1958. Both of his parents were survivors of Nazi concentration camps. In Cologne, he studied economics, law and psychology but failed to graduate. Together with fellow student and nascent writer Fred Viebahn [ de ], whom he had known since high school times, he founded and edited two short-lived radically liberal quarterlies ("PoPoPo" and "Bubu/Eiapopeyea"). In the late 1960s he took over the St. Pauli-Nachrichten [ de ] together with the journalist Michel Roger Lang, a then highly successful tabloid newspaper in Hamburg, along with Günter Wallraff, Stefan Aust and the photographer Günter Zint [ de ], in order to agitate the working class of the city with a combination of leftist articles, nude photography and lonely hearts ads.

Katowice is a city in southern Poland, with a city-proper population of 294,510 making it the eleventh-largest city in Poland and is the center of the Katowice metropolitan area, which has approximately 2 million people.

Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is about 40,000 km² (15,444 sq mi), and its population about 8,000,000. Silesia is located along the Oder River. It consists of Lower Silesia and Upper Silesia.

Cologne is the largest city of Germany's most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the fourth most populous city in Germany after Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich. With slightly over a million inhabitants within its urban area, Cologne is the largest city on the Rhine and also the most populous city both of the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, which is Germany's largest and one of Europe's major metropolitan areas, and of the Rhineland. Centred on the left bank of the Rhine, Cologne is about 45 kilometres (28 mi) southeast of North Rhine-Westphalia's capital of Düsseldorf and 25 kilometres (16 mi) northwest of Bonn. It is the largest city in the Central Franconian and Ripuarian dialect areas.

In the 1970s, he wrote for the satirical magazine Pardon . From 1979 to 1981 he published, together with fellow journalist Peter Finkelgruen [ de ], the periodical "Freie Jüdische Stimme" ("Free Jewish Voice"). In 1981, he left Germany to work in Israel for a while, but continued to write for high-level periodicals as Die Zeit , Profil , Die Weltwoche , and Süddeutsche Zeitung . In the 1980s he also hosted the television talk-show Leute, along with Elke Heidenreich, which ran on Sender Freies Berlin; one of their guests was African-American poet Rita Dove, who had just won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize and is married to Fred Viebahn, Broder's old friend from Cologne.

Satire Genre of arts and literature in the form of humor or ridicule

Satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.

pardon was a German satirical magazine, which appeared biweekly from 1962 to 1982. It was published to criticise the conservative situation of the Adenauer era.

Die Zeit is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles.

Broder wrote a series of books which dealt with the relationship between Germans and Jews, respectively the growing German Jewish community. Together with Eike Geisel, Broder published essays, books and a documentary about the Jüdischer Kulturbund (Jewish Cultural Union), a previously unknown chapter of Jewish German cultural life during the Third Reich. He wrote books about foreign policy with special regard to Israel, Islam and the growing German Jewish community.

Eike Geisel was a German journalist known in Germany and Israel for his critical essays on German and Jewish history and on Zionism.

Ever since Operation Entebbe, Broder grew more and more critical of the German approach towards Israel and what Broder sees as appeasement towards Islamic threats. In Broder's opinion, Anti-Zionism is in essence anti-Semitic.^[2]

Broder's trademark is his polemical, blunt and quick-witted style. He publishes hate mail and heated exchanges between him and critics on his website. The result of some of Broder's polemics were a series of lawsuits, some won and some lost by him. Many of Broder's writings for outlets such as spiegel.de and welt.de are archived at the Achse des Guten blog which he, together with two other prominent German journalists, operates as a collaborative platform for the unfettered expression of about two dozen of his colleagues.

Broder is married to a publisher, and they have a grown daughter. He lives in Berlin.

Awards

Broder receiving the 2007 Ludwig-Borne-Preis Boerne-preis-2007-ffm010.jpg — Broder receiving the 2007 Ludwig-Börne-Preis

1986 Preis des 5. International Publizistikwettbewerbs Klagenfurt
2005 Schubart-Literaturpreis
2007 Goldener Prometheus [ de ] for Broder's online journalism, especially the way he treated the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
2007 Ludwig-Börne-Preis

Works

Wer hat Angst vor Pornographie? Ein Porno-Report, Melzer, Darmstadt 1970
As co-author: Die Schere im Kopf. Über Zensur und Selbstzensur, Köln 1976
Danke schön. Bis hierher und nicht weiter. Mit Beiträgen von Detlef Hartmann, Ulrich Klug, Uwe Maeffert, Ulrich Vultejus, Konkret Literatur-Verlag, Hamburg 1980
Der Ewige Antisemit. Über Sinn und Funktion eines beständigen Gefühls, 1986
Fremd im eigenen Land. Juden in der Bundesrepublik, 1987
Ich liebe Karstadt und andere Lobreden, 1987
with Geisel, Eike: Premiere und Pogrom. Der Jüdische Kulturbund 1933–1941. Texte und Bilder, Siedler, Berlin 1992 ISBN 3-88680-343-0
Erbarmen mit den Deutschen, 1993
Schöne Bescherung! Unterwegs im Neuen Deutschland, 1994
Volk und Wahn, Goldmann, München 1996
Die Juden von Mea Shearim, 1997
Die Irren von Zion, Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 1998
Jedem das Seine, Ölbaum Verlag 1999
www.deutsche-leidkultur.de, Ölbaum Verlag 1999
Kein Krieg, nirgends: Die Deutschen und der Terror, Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2002
A Jew in the New Germany, University of Illinois Press, Champaign, 2003
Hurra, wir kapitulieren – Von der Lust am Einknicken, wjs Verlag, 2006
Kritik der reinen Toleranz, wjs Verlag, Berlin 2008
Vergesst Auschwitz! Der deutsche Erinnerungswahn und die Endlösung der Israel-Frage, Albrecht Knaus Verlag, Munich 2012

Audio

Ach So! Gad Granach und Henryk Broder on Tour, CD, Ölbaum-Verlag, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-927217-40-9

Related Research Articles

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Secondary antisemitism is a distinct kind of antisemitism which is said to have appeared after the end of World War II. Secondary antisemitism is often explained as being caused by the Holocaust. One frequently quoted formulation of the concept, first published in Henryk M. Broder's 1986 book Der Ewige Antisemit, stems from the Israeli psychiatrist Zvi Rex, who once remarked: "The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz." The term itself was coined by Peter Schönbach, a Frankfurt School co-worker of Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, based on their Critical Theory.

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References

↑ Grosser, Alfred (1 September 2008). "Verschleierung als Methode". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German).
↑ Wir sind alle traumatisiert (We all are traumatised): "Der Antizionismus ist für Nichtjuden wie für Juden nur eine Ausrede, ihren Antisemitismus sozusagen in einer politisch aseptischen Form präsentieren zu können. Kein Mensch geht hin und sagt: Ich bin Antisemit. Es gibt keinen Antizionismus, der seinen Ursprung nicht im Antisemitismus hätte ...Dass in einer aufgeklärten Diskussion alle Positionen vertreten werden können, ist selbstverständlich. Kritik an Israel ist vollkommen selbstverständlich." (Antizionism is for Jews and non-Jews just a pretext to present antisemitism in a political aseptical version. Nobody just comes around saying "I am an antisemite." There is no Antizionism which doesn't have its origin in antisemitism [...] It's a matter of course that in an enlightened argument any position can be held. Criticism of Israel is a matter of course.)

External links

Henryk Broder's official homepage, ‹See Tfd› (in German)
Henryk Broder's page at Die Achse des Guten
Henryk Broder unofficial Facebook fan page
Review: The last days of Europe, a lecture in Maastricht by Henryk Broder, 28 February 2007
Broder's speech at the 2007 Ludwig-Börne-Preis ‹See Tfd› (in German)

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[1] Grosser, Alfred (1 September 2008). "Verschleierung als Methode". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German).

[2] Wir sind alle traumatisiert (We all are traumatised): "Der Antizionismus ist für Nichtjuden wie für Juden nur eine Ausrede, ihren Antisemitismus sozusagen in einer politisch aseptischen Form präsentieren zu können. Kein Mensch geht hin und sagt: Ich bin Antisemit. Es gibt keinen Antizionismus, der seinen Ursprung nicht im Antisemitismus hätte ...Dass in einer aufgeklärten Diskussion alle Positionen vertreten werden können, ist selbstverständlich. Kritik an Israel ist vollkommen selbstverständlich." (Antizionism is for Jews and non-Jews just a pretext to present antisemitism in a political aseptical version. Nobody just comes around saying "I am an antisemite." There is no Antizionism which doesn't have its origin in antisemitism [...] It's a matter of course that in an enlightened argument any position can be held. Criticism of Israel is a matter of course.)