Eike Geisel

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Eike Geisel (born June 1, 1945 in Stuttgart , † August 6, 1997 in Berlin ) was a German journalist and essayist . He became known in Germany and Israel as one of the first to research everyday Jewish life in major German cities (especially Berlin) before 1933 in the 1970s and 1980s. In addition, he dealt critically with Jewish history and Zionism (especially with the work of the philosopher and political scientist Hannah Arendt), but above all with the way German society deals with these issues. He was a sharp critic of both his contemporaries of the so-called " 68 movement " and the middle-class mainstream of the Kohl era since 1982.

Controversial essays and cultural-historical works and translations

Grave site, Stubenrauchstrasse 43–45, in Berlin-Friedenau

His essayistic works and polemics caused some great controversy. His review of the book Eye for Eye became particularly well known . Victim of the Holocaust as perpetrator of John Sack in the Frankfurter Rundschau (the taz had rejected the article) as "anti-Semitic raw food". Piper Verlag withdrew the German translation in the spring of 1995 due to the controversy that had sparked. In Israel he published an interview with the Israeli historian Tom Segev about the founding generation of the state of Israel in the Haaretz magazine, among other things , because of critical statements about Ben Gurion which was very controversial .

Eike Geisel also worked as a translator for Hannah Arendt and made her essays on Zionism , Palestine and Germany accessible to the German public. Together with Henryk M. Broder , he drew attention to a previously neglected chapter of cultural policy during the Nazi era with publications and a documentary about the Jewish cultural association . A book project about Jewish revenge and failed plans to attack SS prisoners of war and Nazi functionaries of a Jewish resistance group named after Herbert Baum in the immediate post-war period remained unfinished.

Geisel died of a stroke at the age of 52 and was buried in the Stubenrauchstrasse municipal cemetery in Berlin-Friedenau (Dept. 35-25).

Style and publications

Under the ironic motto “Some of my best friends are German”, Eike Geisel was seen as an extremely eloquent and irreconcilable opponent of anti-Semitic tendencies, especially a political left that defined itself as progressive , such as a German-Jewish one Reconciliation, which he called " fraternization kitsch " and the secret renationalization of memory.

Reviewers spoke of gifted wickedness and polemics between all chairs, which can be seen in book titles such as “The Banality of the Good”, “Triumph of Good Will” and bon motes such as “Recompense for the Germans”, “Remembrance as the highest form of forgetting” or one Slashing the initiative to build the Holocaust memorial would be recognizable as a “monument to the extermination profiteers” and “national cozy corner”.

In this context, he polemicized against a German self-discovery in the “biotope with dead Jews” to which “that unbearable mixture of youthful encounter kitsch and constant occupational therapy, from affected Christians, enthusiastic Israel tourists, patient professional Jews, self-confessed Germans, zealous hobby Jews and meticulous everyday historians” .

Geisel insisted on the irreconcilability of perpetrator and victim, between whom there could have been no understanding after the 'complete senselessness', as Hannah Arendt once called the system of the concentration camps .

From 1981 he published a total of 28 articles in the magazine concrete .

Works

  • with Hanna Levy-Hass : Maybe it was all just the beginning. Diary from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. 1944-1945. Red Book, 1979.
  • with Günter Kunert : In the Scheunenviertel. Images, texts and documents. Settlers, 1986.
  • Load balancing, rescheduling. The reparation of the Germans. Essays, polemics, keywords. 1984, ISBN 3-923118-70-8 .
  • as translator, arr., co-ed .: Nathan Weinstock, Das Ende Israels? Middle East Conflict and History of Zionism. Einl. EG and Mario Offenberg. Line. Politics, Vol. 61. Wagenbach, Berlin 1975. ISBN 3-8031-1061-0 (in particular about the Matzpen group )
  • Ed. With Klaus Bittermann : Hannah Arendt , essays and comments 2. The crisis of Zionism. Edition Tiamat, 1989.
  • as translator: Israel, Palestine and anti-Semitism - essays - edited by EG and Klaus Bittermann - from the American by EG (= Wagenbach paperback 196), 1991, ISBN 978-3803121967 .
  • with Henryk M. Broder : Premiere and Pogrom. The Jewish Cultural Association 1933–1941. Siedler, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-88680-343-0 .
  • ET among the Germans or National Socialism with a human face. In: Initiative Socialist Forum (Hrsg.): Schindlerdeutsche: A cinema dream from the Third Reich. ça-ira, Freiburg i. Br. 1994, ISBN 3-924627-40-1 ( online , PDF file; 131 kB).
  • The banality of the good. German wanderings of souls. Edition Tiamat, 1997.
  • Triumph of goodwill. Posthumous, published by Klaus Bittermann. ibid. 2002.
  • The reparation of the Germans: essays and polemics. ibid. 2015.
  • The synchronization of memory. Comments at the moment. ibid. 2019.

Movie

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kleinau and: DIED: Died Eike Geisel . In: Der Spiegel . No. 33 , 1997 ( online ).
  2. ↑ In memory of Eike Geisel: Truth against the kitsch of reconciliation.
  3. ^ Klaus Bittermann : Afterword. In: Eike Geisel: Triumph of good will. Pp. 197-202.
  4. ↑ In memoriam Eike Geisel. August 6, 2007
  5. ↑ See: specifically Issue 2 2016, p. 50.
  6. ↑ Nathan Weinstock: The Confession of a Former Anti-Zionist. On hagalil.com, 2006. The complete 1st chapter. (Pp. 27-202) of the 1975 book is online

Web links

Commons : Eike Geisel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Hostage, Eike
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist, book author
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH August 6, 1997
Place of death Berlin