Friedrich Nowottny

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Friedrich Nowottny at the German Television Prize 2012
Friedrich Nowottny (2008)

Friedrich Nowottny (born May 16, 1929 in Hindenburg , Upper Silesia ) is a former German journalist and former director of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (WDR).

Life

After his time in the Hitler Youth as a young officer candidate, Nowottny was drafted into the same Volkssturm unit with his father, who had fallen in April 1945, shortly before Easter 1945 . Despite the unit being enclosed in a boiler, Nowottny was able to penetrate the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to Bavaria. There he was picked up by the field police and taken to Braunau am Inn , where he ended up in another Volkssturm unit. On May 2, American troops occupied Braunau and took Nowottny prisoner. He became an interpreter for the city commandant of Braunau am Inn and found his mother and sister again. Then the family moved to Bielefeld in October 1945. They did not find out about their father's death until 1946.

After graduating from school, Friedrich Nowottny worked for the British occupying power in Bielefeld from 1946 to 1948 as a conscript in a pioneer depot and at the post office as a foreign language interpreter with examination. He began his journalistic career in 1948 as a freelancer and local reporter for the daily newspaper Freie Presse in Bielefeld. Before he started a traineeship with this newspaper in 1953 , he was temporarily employed in the head office of the Deutsche Eisenbahn-Versicherungskasse in Bielefeld. After completing his internship, he was taken on as an editor and in 1959 became head of department .

In 1962 Nowottny switched to the Saarländischer Rundfunk and became head of the television department for economics and social affairs. The television program " The Market - Economy for Everyone " made him known to the television audience. In 1965 he already took over the position of deputy editor-in-chief .

On April 1, 1967, Nowottny moved to the WDR's Bonn office as deputy studio manager , which he headed from February 1, 1973. For the ARD he moderated a total of 571 times the program Report from Bonn until June 7, 1985 , which under him became an institution . He was also a commentator and chief correspondent for ARD. Because of his ironic reporting and quick-wittedness, especially in interviews with politicians , he was one of the most popular television journalists and helped political journalism to become more popular. An interview with Willy Brandt with long questions and short yes / no answers is considered legendary . The frequently used introductory sentence "Do you know, Mr. Nowottny ..." by Karl Schiller , Federal Minister of Economics , when answering interview questions also became famous . He is also considered to be responsible for Herbert Wehner talking to the ARD journalists again after Wehner was annoyed with Ernst Dieter Lueg and no longer wanted to talk to ARD.

Friedrich Nowottny (1985)

He turned down an offer from Helmut Kohl to hold the office of government spokesman. On June 14, 1985 Nowottny rose to the position of artistic director of the WDR. One of the greatest successes of his work as artistic director is the introduction of the WDR full program in 1994. During his tenure, the start of the weekly soap " Lindenstrasse ", the introduction of the ARD breakfast television and the radio programs Eins Live and WDR Radio 5 also fell . In 1991 and 1992 Nowottny led the ARD as chairman. During his tenure, he managed the inclusion of the East German broadcasters in ARD and the merger of Deutschlandfunk and RIAS Berlin to form DeutschlandRadio . Nowottny handed over the position of WDR director to Fritz Pleitgen on June 30, 1995 and retired.

He was later z. B. worked as a commentator on the 2002 federal elections for RTL aktuell and the 2005 federal elections for Phoenix . In 2007 he made his debut as a talk show host when he took over maternity leave for Sandra Maischberger .

He is working as a freelance journalist again, giving lectures, writing for a newspaper column in the Kölner Express and regularly commenting on political events on Nordwestradio . He is a member of the twelve-person board of trustees of the Heinz Kühn Foundation , which awards grants to young journalists.

Nowottny has been married to his wife Gisela Gück since 1956. They have two daughters together. The couple lives in Bonn , after having lived in Buschhoven for almost 50 years .

Social Commitment

Trivia

Awards

Fonts

  • Information and responsibility . Talks, Speeches, Writings 1985–1995. Temmen, Bremen 1995, ISBN 3-86108-270-5 .

swell

  1. ↑ a b "We didn't even know what war was" in: deutschlandfunk.de from August 26, 2010, accessed on May 3, 2019
  2. ↑ "I tried to suppress it" in: deutschlandfunk.de of April 27, 2005, accessed on May 3, 2019
  3. ↑ explicitly "no studio", so named in: WDR Print, May 2019 edition, p. 2
  4. ↑ a b c WDR Print, May 2019 edition, p. 2 and p. 3
  5. ↑ focus.de, March 13, 2007
  6. ^ Mister Bonn - Celebrity birthday of May 16, 2019: Friedrich Nowottny. t-online.de , May 16, 2019, accessed on May 16, 2019 .
  7. ↑ biography in LeMO; House of History, accessed May 16, 2019
  8. ^ Friedrich Nowottny - "Mister Bonn" lived in Swisttal for 47 years. General-Anzeiger Bonn , May 5, 2019, accessed on May 16, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Children's hospice Bethel - Friedrich Nowottny
  10. ↑ Crime scene: Kressin and the man with the yellow suitcase ( Memento from November 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ Merit holders since 1986. State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on March 11, 2017 .

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Nowottny  - Collection of Images
personal data
SURNAME Nowottny, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and director
DATE OF BIRTH May 16, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Hindenburg , Upper Silesia