Dietrich Oppenberg

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Plastic on Dietrich-Oppenberg-Platz in Essen

Dietrich Oppenberg (born July 29, 1917 in Essen ; † March 24, 2000 there ) was a German publisher and founder of the regional newspaper Neue Ruhr Zeitung .

Life

After graduating from secondary school in 1933, he completed a three-year apprenticeship in a law firm in Essen, although his main interest was politics from the start. He joined the then banned SAPD youth organization Socialist Youth Association of Germany (SJVD) and as a result was sentenced in 1936 to a prison term of two years and nine months for illegal political activity; he was accused of preparing for high treason . In addition, he was under Gestapo supervision until 1945 . Nevertheless, it was the nationalist Theodor Reismann-Grone , of all people, who was Alfred Hugenberg's comrade and later mayor of Essen, who made it possible for him to stay afloat in his publishing house at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Zeitung with various activities over the war years up to 1945.

After he was entrusted with the commercial management of the Sachsenstrasse printing house in April 1945, the British occupation authorities gave him the licenses for the Rhein-Echo (Düsseldorf) and the Neue Ruhr Zeitung (Essen) a year later Merger with the WAZ media group in 1975 remained. He hired Erich Brost , who founded the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung in 1948 , as the first editor-in-chief of the Neue Ruhr Zeitung.

Also from 1946 Dietrich Oppenberg played a key role in the development of the press pension scheme , which he co-founded , where he acted as chairman of the board of directors from 1951. At the same time, he was also chairman of the board of the Rheinisch-Westfälischer Zeitungsverleger association . In addition, he became a member of the German Press Council in 1956 , and he was elected to be its spokesman several times up to 1972, as well as numerous other offices in the field of publishing and press. Between 1982 and 1997 he was the publisher of the publishing group Econ , Claassen , Marion von Schröder (at that time still in Düsseldorf, now merged with Ullstein book publishers , Berlin).

Foundations and media awards

Since 1991, the Dietrich Oppenberg Foundation has been awarding the Albert Renger Patzsch Prize, a European photo book prize endowed with 25,000 euros, together with the photographic collection at Museum Folkwang . There is also the Dietrich Oppenberg Media Prize (endowed with up to € 5,000) from the Reading Foundation for young journalists and the Media Prize from the NRZ Press House Foundation .

Awards

Due to his services to the German publishing industry, Oppenberg was awarded the Great Federal Cross of Merit on July 8, 1977 by Federal President Walter Scheel . On September 18, 1986 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia . In 1992 he received the Prof. Dr. hc from the Ruhr University Bochum for his work in the field of journalism and communication studies. The Dietrich Oppenberg Academy for hospice education and culture with its headquarters in Essen-Steele was named after him, as was Dietrich-Oppenberg-Platz in the center of Essen , where the publishing house of the Neue Ruhr Zeitung is also located.

literature

  • Dietrich Oppenberg (Ed.): Handbuch Deutsche Presse 1947 - Reprint of the newspaper section , Econ Verlag, Düsseldorf 1996. ISBN 3-430-17288-8
  • Dietrich Oppenberg: Journalism in Transition. Reports and Analyzes of the press system in d. Federal Republic of Germany , Bochum 1987, ISBN 3-88339-598-6
  • Hero child: Dietrich Oppenberg. For his seventieth birthday , Essen 1987 (Festschrift of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Verlagsgesellschaft)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Merit holders since 1986. State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on March 11, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Oppenberg, Dietrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publisher
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH March 24, 2000
Place of death eat