Alfred Neven DuMont (publisher, 1927)

Alfred Neven DuMont, 2012

Alfred Franz August Neven DuMont (born March 29, 1927 in Cologne ; † May 30, 2015 in Rösrath - Forsbach ) was a German publisher .

biography

Neven DuMont was the son of newspaper publisher Kurt Neven DuMont and his wife Gabriele, née von Lenbach, daughter of the painter Franz von Lenbach . He had three siblings, the two sisters Silvia and Majella and a brother named Reinhold , who was the publisher of Kiepenheuer & Witsch for many years . In the summer of 1941, the mother and the children left the bombed Cologne to seek refuge in Munich, the residence of Lenbach's grandparents. The father, who was indispensable in his company, stayed in Cologne, the mother commuted back and forth between the two cities.

Alfred Neven DuMont studied philosophy , history and literature in Munich as well as journalism at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Chicago and joined the publishing house M. DuMont Schauberg in 1953 . At the time, his father Kurt and his second uncle August Neven DuMont were working for the company.

Alfred Neven DuMont gradually took over the position of his father and from the early 1960s, together with his partner Dieter Schütte (son-in-law of August Neven DuMont), transformed the publishing house into the media company Gruppe M. DuMont Schauberg (MDS).

From 1957 to 1966 he was the editor of the cultural magazine magnum .

In 1964 he founded the Express and has been its sole publisher since 1967. In addition, he was also the sole editor of the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger since 1967 . From 1980 to 1984 he was President of the Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers and from 1990 to 1998 President of the Cologne Chamber of Commerce and Industry . The Kölnische Rundschau has been published by DuMont-Verlag since January 1st, 1999 .

Memorial service for Alfred Neven DuMont in Cologne Cathedral

Neven DuMont was also active beyond the borders of North Rhine-Westphalia . Since 1991 he has been the editor of the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung and since 2001 he has been honorary professor for media policy and media economics at the Institute for Media and Communication Studies at the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg .

Since 1990 Neven DuMont has been chairman of the supervisory board of the M. DuMont Schauberg group .

In 2006 the publishing house took over the majority (51 percent) in the publishing house of the Frankfurter Rundschau . He was editor there until October 31 ; from November 1, 2009 to November 2010, his son Konstantin held this position.

Grave in the Melaten cemetery in Cologne

Neven DuMont died in the family on May 30, 2015. The public memorial service took place on June 9, 2015 in Cologne Cathedral . He was buried in the grave of his son Markus in the Melaten cemetery in Cologne (hall 69).

Private

Neven DuMont was an art collector and particularly collected works by Wassily Kandinsky . In 1955 he acted as Prince Carnival ("Alfred I.") in the Cologne triumvirate . Under the pseudonym Franz Nedum he wrote his first novel Abel's dream in 1994 ; this "fell through" with the critics and the public. In 2009 and 2011 he published two more novels under his real name.

Neven DuMont was born with Hedwig . Princess of Auersperg married; with her he had three children, son Markus Neven DuMont (1967–1995), daughter Isabella Neven DuMont (* 1968) and son Konstantin Neven DuMont (* 1969). His son Markus later called himself Spiridon Neven DuMont and was active as a painter in the last years of his life. The Spiridon-Neven-DuMont-Prize donated by the couple Neven DuMont for the promotion of young artists of the Art Academy for Media Cologne (KHM) is dedicated to him.

Honors

• 1986: Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia awarded.
• 1988: Large Cross of Merit with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 2001: Honorary citizen of the city of Cologne .

Works

• Franz Nedum: Abel's dream, novel of a youth . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle 1994, ISBN 3-354-00859-8 .
• Alfred Neven DuMont: Journey to Lena . DuMont, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-8321-6129-3 .
• Alfred Neven DuMont: Father's Return . Novel. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-455-40348-0 .
• Alfred Neven DuMont (Ed.): Born 1926/27 - Memories of the years under the swastika . DuMont, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-8321-8059-1 .
• Joachim Frank (Author), Alfred Neven DuMont (Ed.): How do we cure the Church? To be Catholic in the 21st century. DuMont, Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-8321-9739-1 (first published in 2015 as a paperback).
• Alfred Neven DuMont: Three mothers . Novel. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-455-40421-0 .
• Alfred Neven DuMont: My life. The years 1927 to 1968 . DuMont, Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-8321-9808-4 .

literature

• Hans Leyendecker : Where he was there was only him. An obituary for Alfred Neven DuMont, the gentleman among German publishers. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 1, 2015, p. 25. Online version

Web links

Commons : Alfred Neven DuMont  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by Alfred Neven DuMont in the catalog of the German National Library
• Website of the publisher M. DuMont Schauberg (MDS), Cologne on dumont.de
• Alfred Neven DuMont biography at whoswho.de
• Business minds on wiwo.de
• Our country is becoming too opportunistic ( Memento December 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). Interview with Alfred Neven Dumont, by Wolfram Weimer and Constantin Magnis, Cicero, January 2009.
• Interview (2003): "My priority was never earning money first"

• WDR 5 (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) ZeitZeichen: Alfred Neven DuMont, publisher (birthday 29.03.1927)

Individual evidence

1. ^ FR October 29, 2009 Page 1: New publisher
2. ↑ Horizon: Konstantin Neven DuMont is no longer the editor of the “FR”
3. ↑ http://www.ksta.de/koeln/mediengruppe-m--dumont-schauberg-wir-trauern-um-verleger-alfred-neven-dumont,15187530,30829532.html. In: www.ksta.de. Retrieved May 31, 2015 . 
4. ↑ Focus online: Breast Phenomena and Male Attributes , February 25, 1995.
5. ↑ taz Cologne: From honorary fire master to honorary citizen , May 31, 2001.
6. ↑ Merit holders since 1986. State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on June 10, 2020 . 
7. ^ Photo of the award certificate in the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne
8. ^ Professor Alfred Neven DuMont. City of Cologne, accessed on June 10, 2020 .