Giangiacomo Feltrinelli

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Giangiacomo Feltrinelli 1970
Villa Feltrinelli in Gargnano
1972: Feltrinelli with Sibilla Melega at a demonstration against US interventionism

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (born June 19, 1926 in Milan , † March 14, 1972 in Segrate ), called Osvaldo or Fra Feltrinelli , was an Italian publisher , communist politician and left-wing extremist activist . He was the founder of the Feltrinelli publishing house , which is also known in Italy for its bookshops .

Life

Childhood and youth

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli grew up in one of the richest families in Italy. The Feltrinelli family, who came from Gargnano on Lake Garda , had initially become wealthy in the timber trade and acquired forests in Carinthia and shares in several European railway companies. Later, the Banco Feltrinelli , the textile manufacturer Cotonificio Feltrinelli and other family-owned companies were added. The father Carlo Feltrinelli was liberal-minded and president of various companies, including from 1928 Credito Italiano and Edison . He, who was exactly twice his wife's age, died of a heart attack in 1935, at the age of 54 , after he was forced to resign from all mandates because of illegal financial involvement abroad. Rumors spoke of a suicide. The mother and sole heiress Gianna Elisa Feltrinelli-Gianzana married Luigi Barzini junior , the editor of the Corriere della Sera, in Amalfi in 1940 and enjoyed traveling with him, although she had lost an eye in a hunting accident in 1928. Giangiacomo Feltrinelli had a younger sister, Antonella, and two stepsisters, Giovanna Ludovica and the future model Benedetta . The parents had lived on a large scale; with hunting parties and luxurious receptions with noble guests and fascist notables , they hardly had time for their children. Upbringing was the job of German governesses and tutors , and they were strictly isolated from other peers. Giangiacomo Feltrinelli was only able to attend a public school for three months in 1937; the Giuseppe Parini high school in Milan. During the Second World War, the family left the Villa Feltrinelli in Gargnano, which then became the residence of Benito Mussolini , and moved to the newly built Villa Giannalisas near Porto Santo Stefano on Monte Argentario . The youth was locked up there and often scolded and punished for trivial matters. Giangiacomo Feltrinelli first made contact with the construction workers working on the property. The fact that his stepfather had the servants' windows largely walled up to prevent them from enjoying the beautiful view, and that he had coins thrown into the crowd of needy children at the wedding with his mother, sharpened his eye for social inequality . In 1944 he graduated from the elite school of San Giovanni in Laterano. In 1944/45 he took part in the liberation struggle against the German occupation and the Benito Mussolini regime by offering himself armed with a pistol to accompany a group of refugees. He then became a volunteer in the Legnano Combat Corps, which was assigned to the 5th US Army . In March 1945 he joined the Communist Party of Italy (PCI), which made it clear, however, that they would never allow Feltrinelli to gain a prominent position in the party because of his upper-class origins, but that he should be monarchist in circles for the PCI scout out the Italian upper class. However, he was discovered as an informant and had to leave for Lisbon until the political situation to the detriment of the monarchy had cleared up . On July 3, 1947, he married comrade Bianca Dalle Nogare. Giangiacomo Feltrinelli was expelled from the board of Banco Feltrinelli at the instigation of his mother, but she did not succeed in disinheriting her son.

World publishing success with the Feltrinelli publishing house (1954–1969)

Feltrinelli broke off an engineering degree in Rome and worked in publishing. In 1954 he founded the Feltrinelli publishing house in Milan . Within a very short time the publisher had enormous success. Welterfolge were Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak and The Leopard ( Il Gattopardo ) by Giuseppe di Lampedusa . By the also left-wing Luciano Bianciardi , with whom he was friends, he not only published numerous sensational translations (including Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn ), he also published an autobiography and several novels by the Tuscan author. In addition to German classics, he also published numerous young German-speaking authors. In the summer of 1958 he met the German photographer Inge Schönthal in Hamburg . He married her third marriage in 1960 and had a son with her. She worked hard in his publishing house and soon became vice-president of the publishing house. In the late 1960s, Feltrinelli divorced Schönthal and married Sibilla Melega in 1969, with whom he lived until his death. Inge Feltrinelli continued to work at the publishing house and continued as president after his death in 1972.

Feltrinelli showed great interest in the Cuban revolution under Fidel Castro . He traveled several times to Cuba, where he also met Ernesto Che Guevara . After Guevara's death, he published his Bolivian diary, which he and his wife Sibilla Feltrinelli smuggled and published from South America after meeting Che Guevara. Feltrinelli also brought a photo of Che Guevara from Cuba, which the Cuban photographer Alberto Korda had taken of the guerrilla . Originally a group picture, Feltrinelli enlarged the section showing Che Guevara's portrait. The picture Guerrillero Heroico is considered to be the most reproduced picture of all. It appeared on posters, T-shirts, etc. and became a symbol of the 1968 movement . Korda did not see a cent of the income, it remained with Feltrinelli.

In addition to revolutionary movements in various Latin American countries, the publisher was also interested in the student revolt in Germany. He partially financed the Vietnam Congress (on February 17 and 18, 1968 in Berlin ). He was personally friends with student leader Rudi Dutschke , whom he invited to a convalescent stay after he was seriously injured in an assassination attempt on April 11, 1968.

In the political underground (1969–1972)

At the end of the 1960s, Feltrinelli's political views became increasingly radical. He pleaded for the abolition of capitalism and was in contact with various extremist groups that were developing in Italy after the hot autumn of 1969. These included Potere operaio , Lotta Continua and also the Red Brigades . Because Feltrinelli feared a coup from the right after attacks by the extreme right (see Anni di piombo ) in Italy, he finally founded his own group, the GAP (Gruppo d'Azione Partigiana) . If necessary, it should also use violent means to achieve its political goals. At the end of 1969 the publisher went underground. Among other things, he procured the pistol with which the German Monika Ertl shot the Bolivian consul Roberto Quintanilla in Hamburg on April 1, 1971 . Quintanilla had been a leader in the police operation to track down and kill Che Guevara.

After various smaller actions by the GAP, Feltrinelli wanted to blow up a high-voltage pylon near Milan on March 14, 1972. According to the police's investigation, however, the explosive charge went off prematurely. He was fatally injured. The examining magistrate Guido Viola wrote in 1975 at the end of his investigation report: "Many have said since the beginning of the investigations that Feltrinelli was murdered ... But in our opinion Feltrinelli remains the victim of an accidental accident". More recently, however, evidence that has come to light reinforces the doubts about the accident theory, such as the injuries to Feltrinelli's corpse, which - according to a report that was suppressed at the time - indicate an "attack from behind" and not a self-inflicted, accidentally triggered bomb explosion too early . Public prosecutor Guido Viola no longer wants to rule out the possibility of secret services being involved in Feltrinelli's death.

reception

In 2013, Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals and US producer Boom Bip released the concept album Praxis Makes Perfect, which was inspired by the publisher's life, as an electro-pop project Neon Neon ; The book Senior Service by Carlo Feltrinelli is named as the source in the supplement .

literature

Movie

  • Giangiacomo Feltrinelli - publisher and revolutionary. Documentary, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, 2005, 78 min., Script and director: Alessandro Rossetto, production: Dschoint Ventschr , Eskimosa, Pandora Filmproduktion, arte , TSR , first broadcast: December 26, 2006 on arte, synopsis from ARD with Photos.

Web links

Commons : Giangiacomo Feltrinelli  - collection of images, videos and audio files

proof

  1. ^ Sibylle Gut, Francesca Tommasi, In: Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. Publisher. A man in revolt; Chronicle of life and work . In: You. The magazine for culture . No. 724 . Tages-Anzeiger, Zurich March 2002, p. 78 ff .
  2. ↑ Petra Reski: The Feltrinellis - What would Italy be without the legendary publishing family? [...] In: The magazine . No. 3/2017 . Tamedia, Zurich January 2017, p. 26-35 .
  3. ↑ Antonio Gnoli: 'Giangi' Feltrinelli io non ti perdono In: la Repubblica , November 16 1991st
  4. ^ A b Indro Montanelli and Mario Cervi: L'Italia degli anni di piombo . Rizzoli, Milan 1991.
  5. ↑ Mario G. Losano: The golden tree of theory. In: Die Zeit , March 4, 1966.
  6. ^ Jobst C. Knigge: Feltrinelli - His way into terrorism. Humboldt University, Berlin 2010, p. 26 ff. (PDF) .
  7. ↑ So the illustration in Gianni Flamini: Il partito del golpe. La strategia della tensione e del terrore dal primo centrosinistra organico al sequestro Moro 1971/1973. Volume 3/1, Bologna 1983, reproduced by Jobst C. Knigge : Feltrinelli - His path to terrorism. Humboldt University, Berlin 2010, p. 138 (digitized version) .
  8. ↑ Henning Klüver: Murder on behalf of the state? On the death of the publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 12, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Feltrinelli, Giangiacomo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Feltrinelli, Fra
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian publisher
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Milan
DATE OF DEATH March 14, 1972
Place of death Segrate