Fritz Eberhard

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Fritz Eberhard (born October 2, 1896 in Dresden as Adolf Arthur Egon Hellmuth Freiherr von Rauschenplat ; † March 30, 1982 in Berlin ) was a German journalist , social democratic politician and an ISK member of anti-fascist resistance fighters . Eberhard was director of the Süddeutscher Rundfunk from 1949 to 1958 .

Life

Hellmuth von Rauschenplat

Rauschenplat came from a noble family that was recorded in the Hildesheim monastery in the Middle Ages . In 1914 he began studying political science in Frankfurt am Main , Heidelberg and Tübingen , which he - interrupted by participating in the war for three years from 1915–1918 - completed his doctorate in 1920 . During this time he developed into a supporter of the philosophical ideas of Robert Wilbrandt and Leonard Nelson and in 1921 joined the International Youth Association (IJB), from which the International Socialist Combat League (ISK) emerged in 1926 . In 1922 he also joined the SPD (from which he was expelled in 1925) and the Young Socialists . At the same time he taught economics from 1923 to 1931 at the ISK school in the Walkemühle Landerziehungsheim near Melsungen . In 1932/33 he was responsible for economic policy issues in the editorial team of the ISK daily newspaper , Der Funke .

Resistance and Exile

In 1933, after the NSDAP came to power , Rauschenplat had to go into hiding because of an arrest warrant and here also took on his later name Fritz Eberhard , which he officially bore from 1947. From 1934 he was the Reichsleiter of the illegal ISK structures in Germany. He also took part in a leading position in building the Independent Socialist Union (USG). At the same time, Eberhard worked closely with the railroad resistance groups around Hans Jahn organized in the ITF . He also kept in contact with the exile leadership of the ISK around Willi Eichler in London. At the same time, until it was banned in 1937, he wrote articles for the Stuttgart Sunday newspaper under a pseudonym . At the end of November 1937, after the ISK underground structures were broken up by the Gestapo , Eberhard was able to flee to London via Zurich and Paris. There he came into conflict with Eichler because of his support for direct actions against Nazi Germany and, together with Hilde Meisel and Hans Lehnert, separated from the ISK in 1939. In the years that followed, Eberhard worked closely with Waldemar von Knoeringen and Richard Löwenthal , for example at the broadcaster of the European Revolution and worked as a journalist for various newspapers. He was also involved in the German Educational Reconstruction Committee (GER) and in the national group of German trade unionists in Great Britain .

Return to Germany

In April 1945 Eberhard was able to return to Germany with the help of the OSS , in October of the same year he rejoined the SPD, for which he was elected to the state parliament of Württemberg-Baden in 1946. At the same time he took part in the reconstruction of a democratic broadcasting system. In 1948/49 he was a member of the Parliamentary Council , where he played a leading role in anchoring the right to conscientious objection in the Basic Law . From 1949 to 1958, Eberhard was director of the Süddeutscher Rundfunk and from 1961 to 1968 he was director and honorary professor at the Institute for Journalism at the Free University of Berlin . In 1979 Eberhard was awarded the Carl von Ossietzky Medal together with Axel Eggebrecht . In 1981 he received a special honor from the Adolf Grimme Prize . In September 1956 Fritz Eberhard had already been awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by Federal President Theodor Heuss .

Awarded the Carl von Ossietzky Medal in 1979

Fritz Eberhard was buried in the forest cemetery in Zehlendorf .

Development of a television department at SDR

The first television department of the SDR was created under Fritz Eberhard . In 1952, Eberhard commissioned the then 31-year-old freelance SDR radio operator Helmut Jedele to prepare for his own television productions. As director, Eberhard strove to learn from the existing film industry and from the technical problems of the NWDR , which had already started broadcasting on television. In addition, he pursued the ambitious goals of his own style, which should also be reflected in a choice of topics related to the broadcast area of ​​the SDR.

In order to implement the first television productions, Eberhard put together a group of young editors who had previously worked in radio. This team broke new ground on television right from the start: In the summer of 1953, the television film “Man recovering” was shot on a trial basis on Lake Constance. The script came from Peter Adler and Martin Walser . This television production caused outrage among the Hamburg editors of the NWDR because the work was shot on film. Up until now, the television pioneers in Germany had mainly taken the route of live broadcasting, which they viewed as their own style as distinct from the cinema. However, the SDR television editorial team, which was currently being set up, was convinced that viewers would draw comparisons with the familiar cinema film - and they were committed to increasing the quality of sound and image in television programs. As artistic director, Eberhard himself regularly took part in the meetings of the television team and took part in the discussions.

From the first group of young television editors, a permanent department developed in the SDR, which from 1954 regularly contributed productions to the joint television programs of the German broadcasters. In the beginning it was mainly daily news items that were delivered to Hamburg, which the NWDR broadcast from there. In the fall of 1954, the SDR was finally able to broadcast television programs itself. Another milestone in early television under Eberhard is the start of the documentary film series “ Signs of the Times” in 1957.

In addition to setting up a television department, Eberhard worked as director of the SDR for the development of VHF radio. In addition, he introduced regular audience surveys in order to better align the broadcaster's program with the audience.

Works

Items:

in the Sozialistische Warte : Between 1934 and 1939 he published 71 articles under the name Fritz Kempf or with the abbreviation "FK"

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johannes Schnitter: Fritz Eberhard, in: Hoffmann / Seidel / Baratella (eds.): History of the Free University of Berlin, ISBN 978-3-86596-205-8 , pp. 187 ff
  2. ↑ Bernd Sösemann: Fritz Eberhard, 2001 p. 73
  3. ^ The winners of the Adolf Grimme Prize 1981 in the archive of the Grimme Institute ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Bernd Sösemann: Fritz Eberhard: Retrospectives on biography and work . Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 978-3-515-07881-8 , pp. 80 ( preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ Kay Hoffmann: Signs of the times. On the history of the Stuttgart school . 1st edition. TR-Verlagsunion GmbH, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-8058-3149-8 , p. 20 .
  6. ↑ Kay Hoffmann: Signs of the times. On the history of the Stuttgart school . 1st edition. TR-Verlagsunion GmbH, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-8058-3149-8 , p. 21-22 .
  7. ↑ Kay Hoffmann: Signs of the times. On the history of the Stuttgart school . 1st edition. TR-Verlagsunion GmbH, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-8058-3149-8 , p. 23-30 .
  8. ^ Rauschenplat, Adolf Arthur Egon Hellmuth Freiherr (since 1947 Fritz Eberhard; pseudonym among others Fritz Eberhard, Fritz Werkmann, Fritz Kempf, Hans Schneider, von Brockhus, Mutmacher). Retrieved February 27, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Eberhard, Fritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rauschenplat, Helmut von (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdL
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1982
Place of death Berlin