Bernd Ruland

Bernd Ruland (born January 21, 1914 in Düsseldorf , † January 9, 1976 in Basel ) was a German journalist and writer .

Life

Ruland attended the humanistic grammar school in Neuss and Monschau in the Eifel from 1924 to 1930. He left high school and completed a two-year internship at the Reichsbahn repair shop in Jülich because he wanted to become an engineer. He gave up this goal because he had now recognized his calling to journalism. As a 16-year-old he had already made a name for himself as a journalist. His talent lay in the features section, to which he remained attached throughout his life. It was his technical chats, his experience reports from the field of the internship, the Catholic youth movement, short stories and sketches, but also his book reviews and theater reviews, which were published in the Jülich Kreisblatt and other Catholic newspapers in the administrative district of Aachen, but also in the Cologne and Koblenzer Volkszeitung as published in the Rhein- und Wiedzeitung.

From 1932 to 1934 he attended the humanistic grammar school in Linz am Rhein, where he did his A-levels. His plan to start studying at Cologne University came to nothing. Despite good grades, his university entrance qualification was revoked because of "political unreliability". The reason for this was his long-standing involvement in the Catholic youth movement, his exposed membership in the Windhorst Association as secretary, press attendant and organizer of events.

Since studying was impossible, Ruland decided to go to sea. He succeeded in hiring in Hamburg as a “washer” on the world liner Resolute . The journey began in late December 1934 and lasted one hundred and thirty-six days.

In the meantime, the higher education entrance qualification had been revoked in Germany, so that Ruland could begin his studies in newspaper and theater studies as well as history at the University of Cologne. However, he soon made the experience that he was not a university student and had little inclination towards scientific work. He finally dropped out after three semesters and now devoted himself entirely to practical journalism.

Professional stations until 1944

After returning from his world tour, Ruland immediately began to evaluate his travel experiences and impressions as a journalist and writer. In loose succession he published travel reports, entertaining reports or chats packaged in the form of letters, which appeared in several newspapers or were distributed via professional feature services. At the same time he started to write a book about his world tour. It was published in July 1937 by Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag in Leipzig under the title Young man on a long journey / As a dishwasher around the world . It quickly turned out to be a great success. It was discussed in numerous newspapers as well as on the radio and was enthusiastically received by the critics. They praised the book as the best entertainment and extolled its unconventional, cheeky and brash style. Numerous newspapers reprinted the book, even the La Plata Post in Buenos Aires.

From June 1, 1936, Ruland was editor-in-chief for technology, agriculture and reporting in the editorial team of the Sunday newspaper Die Braune Post , which was published by Völkischer Verlag in Düsseldorf. The Braune Post was launched by the National Socialists as a rival to the Die Grüne Post published by Ullstein Verlag in Berlin and was intended to eradicate the Ullstein paper. The Green Post was regarded as the “mother” of all entertaining weekly magazines.

As early as April 1934, the Green Post was temporarily banned because of an editorial by the editor-in-chief. On June 10, 1934, the forced sale of Ullstein AG to Cautio GmbH , a rescue company of the NSDAP, was carried out. The publisher was renamed Deutscher Verlag. In 1937 the Brown Post was taken over . The Braune Post was later fully integrated into the Green Post . This development meant that Ruland moved to Berlin in 1937.

From July 1, 1937 to March 31, 1939, Ruland was responsible for the entire entertainment section of the Green Post at Deutsche Verlag . In addition, he worked temporarily in 1938 as a "vacation and illness representative" for the BZ am Mittag and was taken over as entertainment and local editor from May 1, 1939.

During the entire Second World War , Ruland worked as a soldier in Berlin in the communications center (telephone and telex service) of the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW) in Bendlerstrasse. Between 1940 and 1943 he published travel reports, glosses, novellas and short stories on a regular basis in the BZ am Mittag .

In March 1945, Ruland's office was relocated to Bad Berka in Thuringia. Since there were no longer any orderly command structures at that time, the group began to disband and disband on April 4th. In this way, Ruland got to his wife and son, who had found accommodation in Fischbachau in Upper Bavaria .

Professional stations from 1945

From August 1945 to October 1946, Ruland worked as a freelance journalist in the American zone, among others for Die Neue Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung , Schwäbische Landzeitung, and Oberbayrisches Volksblatt. Since he was never a member of the NSDAP, he was one of the first German journalists ever to be allowed to return to their profession after the war.

From November 1946 he was part of the editorial team of the newspaper Die Welt in Essen. He canceled his contract with the world on September 30, 1948. The next stations were the weekly Herz-Dame, one of whose founders he was one of the founders, and an interlude in Hamburg from November 1, 1950 to December 31, 1951 as editor of the newly founded , conservative family magazines Das Neue Blatt. He had thus returned to the publishing company of the world, because Das Neue Blatt was the publisher's third newspaper founded after Welt am Sonntag.

On April 1, 1952, Ruland took on a new area of ​​responsibility: as editor of the magazine Lies mit !, which was published in Cologne by the publisher Gustav Blankenagel, whose publisher also published the Neue Illustrierte, which was part of the major and successful in the Federal Gazette Forest. On March 31, 1955, Ruland left the contractual relationship.

On January 2, 1956, he took on a new job at Burda Verlag in Offenburg . The Offenburg printer Franz Burda began his publishing career by publishing the magazine Ufer as a French commissioned production after the Second World War, which he renamed Bunte Illustrierte in 1954 . It appeared every fortnight and was to be changed over to a weekly publication in 1957. When Ruland found out about the change in the publication of the Bunter, he applied to Dr. Franz Burda personally. Both quickly came to an agreement. In the summer of 1956, Ruland was appointed editor-in-chief of Bunte Illustrierte.

On January 30, 1958, Ruland left Burda-Verlag. On February 1, 1958, he joined the editorial team of the Neue Illustrierte in Cologne. A good year later, Ruland returned to Burda in Offenburg. The contract with Burda stipulated that Ruland should work as a freelancer for Burda Druck und Verlag from a point in time of his own choosing.

But then Burda thought better of it. He was of the opinion that Ruland was more important as a responsible text editor than in the function of a freelance writer. On August 15, 1959, Ruland rejoined the publishing house as one of the three pillars of the editorial team. Shortly afterwards he became the sole editor responsible for text and images for a good six months. At first there was no longer an editor-in-chief. From autumn 1960, Burda described itself as the publisher and responsible. Ruland was now run under the name "Consulting editorial staff". In 1963 the new position of “contract authors” was created and filled by Ruland and two other journalists. From 1969 Burda signed personally as “publisher and editor-in-chief”.

As a contract author, Ruland was able to devote himself entirely to writing without worrying about editorial tasks. The topics that he and Burda agreed on were diverse and very often associated with long and exotic journeys. Serial factual reports on historical and contemporary events soon became Ruland's trademarks, such as his historical consequences about Germany's relations with Russia and China. He wrote about space travel and espionage as well as the lives of celebrities, and wrote a biography of the space pioneer Wernher von Braun as well as the American socialite and gossip journalist Elsa Maxwell . Reports also fell within his area of ​​responsibility.

His travel volume was naturally very extensive. He made several trips around the world and numerous trips to all continents. A visit to Fidel Castro in Cuba, which also included a lengthy interview with Maximo Lider, was one of the highlights of his career.

From 1970, a variety of health problems occurred at Ruland, which meant that he had to continuously reduce his workload. On a Christmas cruise in 1971/1972 he suffered a heart attack, which the ship's doctor did not recognize, but only diagnosed after his return.

On his 60th birthday in 1974, Ruland had signed a contract with Burda regarding his resignation and his financial pension. Two years later, on January 9, 1976, Ruland suffered a heart attack on his way back from a research appointment while changing trains at Basel train station, which he did not survive.

Works (selection)

• Young man on a long journey: around the world as a dishwasher. Goldmann-Verlag, 1937.
• German Embassy Moscow: 50 years of fate between East and West. Hestia Publishing House, 1964.
• Wernher von Braun: My life for space travel. Burda-Verlag, 1965.
• CD: affairs and careers in the diplomatic empire. Hestia Publishing House, 1966.
• Orient Express: The fate of German history in the Balkans. Hestia publishing house, 1967.
• Mystery until Judgment Day: Weird Cases, Strange Encounters, Unsolved Puzzles. Hestia-Verlag 1968.
• War on quiet feet: Spies in Germany. Goverts-Verlag, 1971, ISBN 3-7740-0390-4 .
• That was Berlin: memories of the Reich capital. Hestia-Verlag, 1972, ISBN 3-7770-0082-5 .
• German Embassy Beijing: The Century of German-Chinese Destiny. Hestia-Verlag, 1973, ISBN 3-7770-0115-5 .

literature

• Who is who? 18th edition. 1974/75, p. 882.