Erich Brost

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Memorial stone in Gdansk

Erich Brost (born October 29, 1903 in Elbing ; † October 8, 1995 in Essen ) was a German publisher and journalist.

Life

Erich Brost, son of a machine fitter, grew up in Danzig and completed an apprenticeship as a bookseller with the Danziger Volksstimme . He became politically active in the labor movement at an early age and met Erich Ollenhauer , who later became chairman of the SPD , at a young age . From 1935 to 1939 he represented the SPD in the People's Day , the parliament of the Free City of Danzig . Until 1936 he worked as an editor for the daily newspaper Danziger Volksstimme . In 1936 he married his childhood sweetheart Margarete Ortmann (1904–1966) from Danzig and emigrated with her in 1939. He then worked as a journalist in England , Scandinavia and Poland . In June 1945 Erich Brost came to the Ruhr area as one of the first Germans to emigrate . He had previously worked for the BBC in London . At the beginning of June 1945 he returned to Germany and worked on behalf of the British occupying forces for the Kölnischer Kurier and the Ruhr Zeitung in Essen. Then he was commissioned to set up the German News Service , from which the German Press Agency (dpa) later emerged. He was also involved in the reconstruction of Radio Hamburg, which later became NDR . In 1946 his son Martin was born. Dietrich Oppenberg hired Brost as the first editor-in-chief of the Neue Ruhr Zeitung (NRZ). In February 1947 Brost became a representative of the SPD executive committee at the Allied Control Council in Berlin.

In November 1947 Brost got the offer to become a licensee for one of the planned independent daily newspapers in the British Zone. The first edition of the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ) appeared on April 3, 1948 . Brost involved Jakob Funke , the former local manager of the Neue Ruhr Zeitung (NRZ), as an equal partner in the new company and gave him 50 percent of the corporate rights in the new publisher. Brost was editor-in-chief of WAZ until 1970, Funke was partner, publisher and publishing director of WAZ until his death in 1975. Margarete Brost, Erich Brost's first wife, died of cancer in 1966. His second wife was his long-time secretary and right-hand man Anneliese Brost, née Brinkmann , in 1975 . The WAZ took over the Westfalenpost in Hagen in 1973 , took a majority stake in the Westfälische Rundschau in Dortmund in 1975 and in 1976 in the Neue Ruhr Zeitung (NRZ) in Essen . The publishers formed the WAZ newspaper group in 1976, cooperated in the commercial and technical areas, but remained editorially independent. The lawyer Günther Grotkamp became the authorized representative of the Funke-Familien-Gesellschaft in 1971 and after the death of Jakob Funke acted as managing director of the newspaper group WAZ from 1975 .

From 1978 Erich Schumann succeeded the founder Erich Brost as managing director and managing partner of the WAZ media group in Essen. In 1985 Erich and Anneliese Brost adopted Erich Schumann after Erich Brost's biological son Martin was paid off. Schumann expanded the WAZ Group together with Günther Grotkamp into an international media company in the 1980s and 1990s. Together with the former Chancellery Minister Bodo Hombach , he represented the interests of the Brost family within the WAZ. Erich Brost's widow, Anneliese Brost, owns 30 percent of the company shares, Erich Schumann over 20 percent until his death in January 2007. Erich Brost remained editor of the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung until his death in 1995.

In 1991, Erich Brost founded the Erich Brost Institute for Journalism in Europe , a non-profit GmbH for the promotion of science based in Dortmund. Anneliese Brost and her adoptive son Erich Schumann continued to run this funding institution after his death and donated the Erich Brost House , an institute building for the Center for Advanced Study in International Journalism that worked in Dortmund until autumn 2006. In December 2004 they donated their shares in the non-profit GmbH and thus the foundation and the Erich Brost House Science Center to the then University of Dortmund . Associated with the funding activities of journalism at the (since November 2007: Technical) University of Dortmund was the establishment of an endowed professorship (C 4) for international journalism with a focus on Europe for a period of five years, which was filled for the first time in winter 1998/99. This was the first university professorship with the task of international journalism in Germany. A follow-up appointment by the university did not take place until the winter semester 2007/2008 without giving reasons.

The Erich Brost University Lecturership at the Institute of European and Comparative Law at Oxford University , donated by Anneliese Brost and Erich Schumann, is dedicated to his memory and in memory of his years in exile in London during the National Socialist dictatorship . On the roof of the former coal washing plant of the Zeche Zollverein World Heritage Site , a pavilion is named after Erich Brost and offers a view of Essen and the surrounding area from a height of 38 meters.

publication

  • Erich Brost: Against the brown terror. Edited by Marek Andrzejewski, Dietz, Bonn 2004, ISBN 9783801203405 .

Erich Brost Danzig Prize

Shortly before his death, Erich Brost donated the Erich Brost Danzig Prize , endowed every two years with 20,000 euros , which promotes German-Polish understanding.

So far, the following winners have been awarded the Erich Brost Prize:

Honors

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Erwin Dickhoff: Essen heads . Ed .: City of Essen - Historical Association for City and Monastery of Essen. Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8375-1231-1 .
  2. Announcement of awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Federal Gazette . Vol. 31, No. 45, March 6, 1979.
  3. Merit holders since 1986. State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on March 11, 2017 .