Erik Durschmied

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Erik Durschmied (* 1930 in Vienna ) is an internationally known Austrian war correspondent and writer.

Life

In 1952 he emigrated from Austria to Canada , where he studied at McGill University in Montreal and then worked as a reporter and cameraman. He started his career as a TV reporter from international crisis areas by reaching the headquarters of the Cuban rebel army led by Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra in 1958, spending several weeks there with the guerrilla fighters and being the first television reporter to have English-language interview recordings filming with Castro and smuggling them out of the country. When the revolutionary took power in Cuba at the beginning of 1959, Durschmied rose to fame with his exclusive material.

In the following decades he reported for the BBC and CBS from the war and conflict areas of the world, u. a. Iran, Iraq, Northern Ireland, Chile, Cuba and Afghanistan. In 1964 he was a cameraman on the first North American film team allowed to shoot in the People's Republic of China. The documentary "The Seven Hundred Million" was created for the Canadian television CBC. The Vietnam War report he filmed "Hill 943" was created in 1968 for CBS. He spent almost ten years in Vietnam.

In 1986 he went to Hollywood as a television producer. He has been an Austrian citizen again since 1999. He lives with his family in France.

His books, published in English and German and translated into several languages, mostly deal with central events in world history.

Hinge factor

His book titles hinge factor (O: Hinge Factor ) comes from the English word Hinge to German hinge or axis of rotation , and synonymised fishing or turning points for unforeseen events, decisively influence the military action as the tide of battle. These are, for example, gross mistakes by the opponent, unforeseen heroic deeds or just plain incompetence on the part of some military. The weather has also played a decisive role in battles such as the Battle of Lake Trasimeno .

Bibliography (selection)

  • Hinge factor. How coincidence and stupidity write world history . From the American by Gertraud Broucek and Sabine Broehl, Böhlau, Vienna 1998, ISBN 978-3-205-99159-5 .
  • The Weather Factor: How Nature Has Changed History (2001), German edition: When the Romans stood in the rain. The influence of the weather on the course of history , Bergisch Gladbach: Bastei Lübbe 2002, ISBN 978-3404605040
  • Shooting Wars. My Life as a War Cameraman, From Cuba to Iraq , New York 1991, German edition: Shooting Wars: My life as a war reporter between Cuba and Irak , Vienna: Böhlau 2004, ISBN 978-3205771500
  • Witches, death and the work of the devil. Hunting witches over the centuries , Bergisch Gladbach: Bastei Lübbe 2004, ISBN 978-3404605361
  • The fall of great dynasties. Bourbons, Romanows, Tennos, Habsburger, Pahlewis, Hohenzollern , Vienna: Böhlau 2000, ISBN 978-3205991595
  • Blood of Revolution. From The Reign Of Terror To The Rise Of Khomeini , New York: Arcade 2002, ISBN 978-1559706568
  • Unsung Heroes: The Twentieth Century's Forgotten History-makers , London: Hodder & Stoughton 2003, ISBN 978-0340825198
  • Beware the Dragon: China - 1,000 Years of Bloodshed , Andre Deutsch 2008, ISBN 978-0233002316
  • Dance of Death at Col di Lana , Bozen: Athesia-Tappeiner 2017, ISBN 978-8868392680

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Finding Fidel: The Journey of Erik Durschmied (information on the documentary film) on 3sat.de, accessed on January 10, 2012
  2. ^ Finding Fidel: The Journey of Erik Durschmied, Critical Evaluation of Documentation
  3. ^ Robert Schediwy: What Decides Wars? - Erik C. Durschmied on turning points in world history ( memento of November 4, 2005 in the Internet Archive ), Wiener Zeitung , July 9, 1999.
personal data
SURNAME Durschmied, Erik
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian war correspondent and writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna