Günther Gillessen

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Günther Gillessen (born October 23, 1928 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) is a German historian , publicist , former newspaper editor and emeritus professor of press journalism .

Life

After graduating from high school, Gillessen completed an internship at the Badische Zeitung . He studied history and public law at the universities of Freiburg , Lexington / Kentucky and Oxford . In 1955 he obtained Hugo Preuss with his dissertation , which he had written with Clemens Bauer . Studies on the history of ideas and the constitution of the Weimar Republic the doctor of philosophy at the University of Freiburg, 1958 with a thesis on Lord Palmerston's Germany policy the doctor of philosophy at the University of Oxford (Dr. phil.). From 1958 he worked as the political editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) , mainly in the field of foreign and security policy.

In 1986, Gillessen published Auf Lost Posten on the Frankfurter Zeitung in the Third Reich. The book was critically reviewed by Martin Broszat , Esther-Beate Körber , Bernd Sösemann and Hermann Rudolph . Sösemann noted a lack of source criticism, forced justification efforts, thematic-conceptual narrowness and a lack of nuance, through which the debate was more emotionalized and facts were recorded rather than clarified.

During the historians' dispute, Gillessen's reception of the work of Viktor Suvorov , a proponent of the preventive war thesis , caused a sensation. On August 20, 1986, Gillessen published an editorial in the FAZ entitled The War of the Dictators. Did Stalin want to attack the German Reich in the summer of 1941? , in which he said that the thesis of a Soviet intent to attack in 1941 had "gained plausibility" through Suwurov's statements and could save the Germans from a "special peace debt" against the Soviet Union in the future. According to Gerd R. Ueberschär , Gillessen's article shows "the dubious tendency and conscious intention to reinterpret the historical burden of Hitler's 'Operation Barbarossa ' for political reasons in order to ultimately free oneself completely."

In the course of his work at the FAZ , Gillessen wrote an article on the controversial exhibition “War of Extermination. Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941 to 1944 "(the so-called Wehrmachtsausstellung ) by Hannes Heer and Jan Philipp Reemtsma ( FAZ of February 6, 1996), which had set itself the goal of dispelling the myth of the" clean Wehrmacht ". Gillessen did not deny the involvement of parts of the Eastern Army in the mass crimes against the Russian civilian population, especially against Jews, mainly committed by SS units behind the front. However, he criticized the sensational presentation of the exhibition and named as examples what he considered to be the inadequate evidence and evidential value of the photos, the lack of names, places, times, the mix-up of uniforms, one-sided interpretations of images and other interpretations up to the attempt to incriminate officers of the conspiracy of July 20, 1944 with crimes of the SS, of which they received official knowledge, although it was precisely these crimes that made them decide to resist. Gillessen was one of the first to criticize what he considered to be the scientific worthlessness of this exhibition, the shortcomings of which finally prompted Reemtsma to temporarily close the exhibition and reopen it after it had been revised.

From 1978 to 1994 Gillessen held a newly created professorship for press journalism at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz , where he was head of the journalism seminar. In 1994 he left the editorial staff of the FAZ for reasons of age.

Honors

Fonts (selection)

  • Lord Palmerston and the unification of Germany. English politics from the Paulskirche to the Dresden Conferences (1848–1851) (= historical studies . H. 384). Matthiesen, Lübeck a. a. 1961.
  • Seven arguments for Europe. Plea for the European federal state . Europa-Union-Verlag, Bonn 1976.
  • Racial state, corporate state, state of God? South Africa's attempt to emigrate from history . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-12-910230-2 .
  • At a losing point. The Frankfurter Zeitung in the Third Reich . Siedler, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-88680-223-X .
  • Hugo Preuss. Studies on the history of ideas and the constitution of the Weimar Republic (= writings on the history of the constitution . Vol. 60). Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-428-10019-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Günther Gillessen: In a lost position. The Frankfurter Zeitung in the Third Reich . Siedler, Berlin, 2nd, revised. Edition 1987, ISBN 3-88680-223-X .
  2. ↑ Bernd Sösemann: Journalism under the grip of dictatorship. The "Frankfurter Zeitung" in the National Socialist press policy . In: Christoph Studt (Ed.): “Servant of the State” or “Resistance Between the Lines”? The role of the press in the “Third Reich”. LIT, Münster 2007, p. 11.
  3. ↑ Gerd R. Ueberschär: "Historikerstreit" and "Preventive War Thesis" . In: Tribüne 103 (1987), p. 113.
  4. ↑ On the difficulty of ending a war - reactions to the exhibition "War of Extermination - Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941 to 1944". In: Journal of History. 1997, issue 12.
personal data
SURNAME Gillessen, Günther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian, publicist, former editor and retired professor of press journalism
DATE OF BIRTH October 23, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Freiburg in Breisgau