Daniel Koerfer

Daniel Koerfer (born June 3, 1955 in Bern ) is a German contemporary historian and manager .

Life

Daniel Koerfer was born in 1955 in Bern as the son of the industrialist Jacques Koerfer . His siblings include the film director Thomas Koerfer and the publisher Adrian Koerfer . Hellmut Becker , a lawyer and later education politician, was a fatherly friend. Daniel Koerfer attended the Odenwald School until 1974 , and did his doctorate in 1986 under Arnulf Baring on the internal relationship between Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard with the study Battle for the Chancellery . Together with Arnulf Baring, Koerfer is the author of the ZDF documentary We're just getting started - a balance sheet of the social-liberal coalition. Until 1991 he was a university assistant at the Free University of Berlin . Since 1992 he has been managing director of "Koerfer'schen Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH" based in Cologne , where the family's assets are administered. This was founded at the beginning of the 20th century by the Cologne architect and developer of residential and commercial buildings Jacob Koerfer . He is also deputy chairman of the Dr. Jacques Koerfer Foundation for the promotion of young scientists in Berlin . At the Free University of Berlin, he teaches as an honorary professor for contemporary history and modern history at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute . Koerfer writes articles for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit , the FAZ and other national newspapers. He is also the scientific curator of the permanent exhibition opened in 2018 in the house where Ludwig Erhard was born and the new museum building for the Ludwig Erhard Center in Fürth .

On behalf of Bernd Schiphorst , President of the Hertha BSC football club , Koerfer investigated the behavior of today's Berlin Bundesliga club during National Socialism and in the immediate post-war period from 2006–2008. Among other things, he found out that Hermann Horwitz, the club's Jewish team doctor until 1935, had been deported to Auschwitz in spring 1943 and murdered there - a “stumbling block” in Berlin-Wilmersdorf has been commemorating this since April 23, 2013 . The study was published in 2009 under the title Hertha under the swastika. A Berlin football club in the Third Reich .

Koerfer is a grandson of the German diplomat Gerhart Feine , a close confidante of Gustav Stresemann , who with the Swiss Chargé d'Affaires Carl Lutz saved several thousand Jews in Budapest in 1944 from deportation by the special detachment of Adolf Eichmann . In 1990 , State Secretary Weizsäcker , Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs , presented an essay on Feines Superior under National Socialism . After publication, Koerfer reviewed Hans-Jürgen Döscher's study of rope associations. The repressed past of the Foreign Office in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit . Shortly after the publication of The Office and the Past: German Diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic of Germany, he was one of its sharpest critics. He accused the book of a one-sided and shortened, even falsifying presentation. In autumn 2010 he justified this criticism in a detailed conversation with Frank Schirrmacher , the publisher of the FAZ . In his book Diplomatic Hunt , published in 2013 , he dealt critically with Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and the “ Independent Commission of Historians - Foreign Office ” appointed by him . In the historical journal , Hans-Jürgen Döscher judges that Koerfer's criticism of the work of the historians' commission is exaggerated and shaped by personal invectives (“Fischer's compliant historians”). In addition, he is "not familiar with the newer research literature", which represents a significant discrepancy to his "claim to interpretive sovereignty".

On February 10, 2015, Daniel Koerfer was awarded by the Erwin Wickert Foundation on the 100th birthday of the founder of the Orient and Occident Prize of this foundation for his complete scientific work.

Koerfer is a member of the Ernst Reuter Society and the Historical Commission in Berlin .

Works

Fonts:

• The FDP in the identity crisis. The years 1966–1969 as reflected in the magazine “liberal”. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-12-934370-9 .
• Fight for the Chancellery. Erhard and Adenauer. DVA, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-421-06372-9 (dissertation 1986); Scientific Book Society 1988, Taschenbuch Ullstein, Berlin 1998.
• Ernst von Weizsäcker in the Third Reich. A German officer and diplomat between involvement and self-deception. In: Uwe Backes , Eckhard Jesse (Hrsg.): The shadows of the past: Impetus for historicizing National Socialism. Propylaeen, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1990, pp. 375-402.
• Il Padrino. In: Gerold Becker , Jürgen Zimmer (ed.): Lust and burden of enlightenment. A book for Hellmut Becker's 80th birthday. Beltz, Weinheim 1993, ISBN 3-407-83130-7 .
• Hertha under the swastika. A Berlin football club in the Third Reich. The workshop, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-89533-644-7 .
• Together with Peter Gillies and Udo Wengst : Ludwig Erhard . Edited by the Ernst Freiberger Foundation , Be.bra Wissenschaft, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-937233-65-9 .
• Together with Alfred Grosser : Diplomatic Hunt - Joschka Fischer, his Independent Commission and The Office . Strauss Edition in Strauss-Medien.de, Potsdam 2013, ISBN 978-3-943713-15-2 .

TV movie:

• With Arnulf Baring: We are just getting started - a balance sheet of the social-liberal coalition . ZDF documentary 1983.

Web links

• Literature by and about Daniel Koerfer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Daniel Koerfer in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• Short biography and reviews of works by Daniel Koerfer at perlentaucher.de
• Daniel Koerfer on the website of the Friedrich Meinecke Institute (FU Berlin)
• Philip Plickert: Historian with a high-rise . In: FAZ , May 23, 2011

Individual evidence

1. ↑ website of Koerfer'schen Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH
2. ↑ Information from the German Information Center for Cultural Promotion, Federal Association of German Foundations : Dr. Jacques Koerfer Foundation: Promotion of science and research, in particular the financial promotion and support of young international scholars in the fields of architecture, art history and modern history / contemporary history . Jacques Koerfer (1902–1990), industrialist.
3. ^ Sven Goldmann: Hertha under the swastika. Former team doctor Horwitz gets stumbling block. . In: Der Tagesspiegel , April 23, 2013.
4. ↑ ^{a b} The Foreign Office and the Third Reich. Is it too easy for “The Office”? Interview with Frank Schirrmacher . In: faz.net . November 29, 2010.
5. ^ Sources including Alexander Grossmann: Only the conscience ... Carl Lutz and his Budapest action . Verlag Im Waldgut, Wald 1986, pp. 57, 62–74; Theo Tschuy: Carl Lutz and the Jews of Budapest . Zurich 1995, pp. 134, 140-149, 154, 207.
6. ^ Daniel Koerfer: Hans-Jürgen Döscher "Seilschaften" . In: Die Zeit , November 24, 2005.
7. ↑ Thomas Schmid : Joschka Fischer's revenge on the Foreign Office. In: The world . November 19, 2013. Retrieved November 26, 2013.
8. ^ A report as a lesson in opportunism . In: faz.net of December 22, 2013.
9. ^ Hans-Jürgen Döscher: Daniel Koerfer, diplomatic hunt. Joschka Fischer, his Independent Commission of Historians and the Office. In: Historical magazine. Vol. 300 (2015), p. 262 f.
10. ^ Erwin-Wickert-Stiftung , accessed on November 9, 2016.