Armin Wertz

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Armin Wertz (born August 31, 1945 in Friedrichshafen ; † February 28, 2020 in Fourmies , France) was a German author and journalist .

Life

Wertz studied economics at the Free University of Berlin . From 1976 to 1979 he worked in the newsroom at Stern . Between 1980 and 1982 he worked as a freelancer in Mexico and Central America . From 1983 to 1985 he worked as an editor in the international department of Spiegel . From 1986 on, he reported for three years as a foreign correspondent for Spiegel and then for two years for Frankfurter Rundschau from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean . In 1991 he moved to Jerusalem as a correspondent on behalf of the Frankfurter Rundschau and the Tages-Anzeiger (Zurich). In 1995, after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin , he left the post and returned to Mexico for 18 months. In 1997 he toured East and South Africa before going to Southeast Asia as a freelance journalist in March 1998 for the next 16 years .

In addition to the sheets mentioned, he published articles in taz , in Stern, in Die Zeit , in Tagesspiegel , Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , Der Freitag , Standard , Titanic, El Mundo (Medellín), mare , Lettre International , Die Aktion, Far Eastern Economic Review (Hong Kong), TEMPO English (Jakarta) and shot the documentary films with TV cameraman Fritz Stachorowski (SWF) for ARD: 'The hungriest is the best - Boxing in Mexico', 'The light and the shadow' about the Mexican film cameraman Gabriel Figueroa and 'Memories of John Wayne'.

Journalists assaulted in El Salvador in 1982

On the afternoon of March 17, 1982 Wertz drove a team from the Dutch TV station IKON (Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Hans ter Laag, Joop Willemsen) in El Salvador to a previously agreed meeting point with the guerrillas ( Frente Popular de Liberación , FPL) in the northern province of Chalatenango not far from the town of Santa Rita. At 5 p.m. he dropped the journalists who set off with a guerrilla escort of four while Wertz drove back to San Salvador. The leader of the escort had agreed with Wertz that he should pick up the colleagues on March 21 at 8:00 a.m. at the same place. On the morning of the next day, news spread that the journalists and their local companions had been shot dead in an army ambush . Wertz learned from colleagues that soldiers had ransacked his accommodation in his absence. After a warning from the US Embassy in San Salvador that they had information that a death squad was on him, Wertz flew to Managua. In March 1993 the "Comision de la Verdad para El Savador" of the United Nations published an investigation report. In it, the UN Truth-Finding Commission confirmed that the four Dutch journalists “were ambushed by the commander of the IV Infantry Brigade, Colonel Mario A. Reyes Mena, with the knowledge of other officers of the El Paraíso barracks on the basis of information about the presence of the journalists had been planned, were killed. ”The ambush was“ a patrol of the Atonal battalion under the command of Sergeant Mario Canizales Espinoza. ”

Arrest and Detention

In 2013 he traveled from Indonesia to Syria , from where he wanted to report for German media as well as the Straits Times, which is published in Singapore , and the Indonesian weekly “TEMPO English”. In May 2013 he was placed under house arrest in a hotel in Aleppo and transferred to police custody a few days later. Two weeks later he was taken to the underground security police prison in Aleppo, where he was held in solitary confinement in a dark cell for most of the time. He was accused of having entered the country without a visa and taking photos without permission. Wertz denied having photographed. The negotiations for his release turned out to be difficult because the German embassy in Damascus was already closed. After five months, Wertz was released with the help of the German government.

Works

  • The damn press. Betzel, Nienburg 2003
  • Tears in the holy land. Glaré, Frankfurt am Main 2003
  • They are many, they are one. An introduction to the history of Indonesia's Glaré, Frankfurt am Main 2009
  • The rulers of the world: US military and intelligence operations. Westend, Frankfurt am Main 2015

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary notice in Tagesspiegel of March 8, 2020
  2. ↑ Author biography at journal21 .ch, accessed on June 23, 2015.
  3. ^ Armin Wertz, "The Last Journey of the Four Dutch Journalists", Stuttgarter Zeitung, March 24, 1982
  4. ^ "Informe de la Comision de la Verdad para El Salvador - Anexos-Tomo I", United Nations, New York, March 15, 1993, pp. 69-75
  5. ↑ “I was singing aloud”, Der Tagesspiegel, October 8, 2013.
  6. ↑ Charlotte Parnack, “There was nothing more”, Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 12, 2013.
  7. ^ War reporter: German journalist detained in Syria released again . Spiegel Online from October 6, 2013, accessed on June 23, 2015.
  8. ^ Message from Reporters Without Borders , October 7, 2013, accessed June 23, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Wertz, Armin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German author and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH August 31, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Friedrichshafen
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 2020
Place of death Fourmies , France