Benno Kroll

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Benno Kroll (* 1929 in Berlin ; † November 2004 there ) was a German journalist .

Life

Benno Kroll was born out of wedlock in Berlin in 1929 . His father Chang Kuo-wei, who had come to Berlin to study from the village of Shi Long An in central China, went back to China to take up a high position there; the mother stayed behind in Berlin. She married the Prussian government councilor Heinrich Kroll, who adopted the child as a son. Benno Kroll grew up in Werder (Havel) without knowing his real family history. It was only in 1950 - when he was 21 years old - that he learned from his mother that his father was Chinese. In 1964, Kroll met his father - who was meanwhile finance minister under Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan . Almost 40 years later, he wrote the family story The Changs, about his origins and the history of his Chinese family.

Kroll studied political science and then went into industry, where he made a career in a steel company. In 1968 the break with bourgeois existence followed; Kroll went to Formentera for two years and started writing. He himself referred to this phase in retrospect as his hippie time. His talent was discovered by Henri Nannen in 1970 , and Kroll began working as a journalist relatively late - at the age of 40.

Kroll has worked as a reporter for stern and GEO and has published as a freelance writer in, among others , Die Zeit , Brigitte and Cosmopolitan . For his work Charlys loyal killer in GEO on illegal dog fights in the USA he was awarded the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize in 1979 .

Kroll last lived in Berlin, where he died in November 2004.

Works

  • The Changs clan - the story of a German and his Chinese family. Droemer, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-426-77808-4 .
  • Memories of a Lover - Chronicle of a Beloved Life. Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-89136-529-2 .
  • The calculation in love - women and men after the sexual revolution. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-426-84001-4 .
  • Night asylum - a lesson on criminalistics and politics. Gruner and Jahr, Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-442-11526-4 .

References and footnotes

  1. ↑ Benno Kroll: The Clan of Changs - the story of a German and his Chinese family. Droemer, Munich 2003.
  2. ↑ Caroline Deuss: Benno Kroll - a hamburger from China . In: Hamburger Abendblatt from May 3, 2003, online at http://www.abendblatt.de/daten/2003/05/03/155991.html
  3. ↑ Benno Kroll: Charly's loyal killer . In: Geo No. 8, August 1979, pp. 14-26.
  4. ↑ Egon Erwin Kisch Prize: An overview of all winners , online at http://www.stern.de/unterhaltung/buecher/509895.html

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kroll, Benno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist
DATE OF BIRTH 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH November 2004
Place of death Berlin