Günther Nenning

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Günther Nenning (born December 23, 1921 in Vienna ; † May 14, 2006 in Waidring , Tyrol ) was an Austrian journalist , author, political activist and religious scholar.

Life

After graduating from the Stubenbastei grammar school , Nenning did five years of military service in World War II from 1940. After the end of the war he was captured by the Red Army and then taken prisoner by the US. He was soon released on condition that he did not leave the American occupation zone .

He studied linguistics and religious studies in Graz and obtained his doctorate in 1949. phil. and in 1959 Dr. rer. pole. (Instead of “Doktor Doktor Nenning”, Bruno Kreisky quipped when he had him as an opponent, “Günther Günther Nenning”).

Günther Nenning died on the night of May 14, 2006 in his adopted home Tyrol of old age and the long-term consequences of a fall. He was buried in Mödling .

journalism

During his studies he began his journalistic career, first as a journalist and later as deputy editor-in-chief of the Graz socialist daily newspaper Neue Zeit . In 1958 he moved to Vienna as an editor for the cultural magazine FORVM . In 1959 he became its co-editor.

“The conservative Torberg said to himself that an Austrian magazine needs reds; and that was i. "

- Listening portrait , ~ 2:00

In 1965 he took over its management and replaced Friedrich Torberg as owner and editor-in-chief. At the request of his predecessor, he changed the title of the magazine to NEW FORVM . When he published text excerpts from the Marquis de Sade in this magazine , the Ministry of the Interior, based on the so-called Dirt and Trash Act, imposed restrictions on the magazine's circulation, against which Nenning appealed to the Constitutional Court . The latter saw censorship- like measures in these restrictions and therefore lifted them.

In 1970 Nenning sold the publishing house of the magazine to an "Association of Editors and Employees of the New FORVM", whose chairmen were first Trautl Brandstaller , then Lutz Holzinger and finally Adalbert Krims , to whom he received free of charge, but revocable - with the condition that he became the managing director of the The publisher and managing editor-in-chief of the paper remained - the use of the title allowed. 1971–1973 he was authorized to receive a “ referendum for the dissolution of the Austrian Armed Forces ”, which was based on an idea by Wilfried Daim , was published exclusively by FORVM, did not get beyond the introductory phase, but as a catch-up to the 1968 movement, which was relatively weak in Austria applies. In 1973 he founded a youth magazine Neue Freie Presse , which he had to discontinue in 1975 due to legal and financial problems. Since the early 1970s he has been a columnist for Profiles and Kronen Zeitung, among others .

In FORVM appeared under Nennings line, among many other items of Elias Canetti , Simone de Beauvoir and Herbert Marcuse . At that time, Günther Nenning worked in the editorial team with Trautl Brandstaller , Ilse Maria Aschner , Adalbert Krims , Lutz Holzinger , Wilhelm Zobl , Paul Kruntorad , Heidi Pataki , Friedrich Geyrhofer , Michael Siegert and Gerhard Oberschlick , who acquired the magazine in 1986 and worked as a Print version, continued as a rudimentary online version from 2000.

After joining the socialist parliamentary group of the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB), he was elected chairman of the journalists' union section and vice-president of the art, media and liberal professions trade union (KMFB) in 1960. Due to allegations that he was planning to found his own media union, he was expelled from the ÖGB in 1985. Nenning himself suspected, however, that the real reason for his exclusion was his commitment to the construction of the Danube power plant in Hainburg and the occupation of the Au there. Hundreds of journalists resigned from the ÖGB in protest. In 1990 he was fully rehabilitated. In 2000 Nenning was honored for his 50 years membership.

In 1977 Nenning founded the Austrian Journalists Club (ÖJC) together with Wolf in der Maur .

politics

Nenning called himself "red-green-light black". In 1964 he took part in the protests for an Austrian media reform, in the early 1970s in the protests against the Vietnam War and in 1978 in the protests against the planned Zwentendorf nuclear power plant . In May 1969 he founded the Austrian-Cuban Society and was its first president from 1969 to 1975.

In 1984 he took on a leading role in the protests against the planned Danube power plant near Hainburg and in the occupation of the Hainburger Au . In the run-up to the event, Nenning was one of the participants in the animals' press conference and appeared as the “red owl deer”, wearing deer antlers on his head. The nickname "Auhirsch" was also later retained in Nenning. Nenning was one of the mentors of the Austrian Greens in their founding phase. His preparatory actions for the founding of the Green Party and ecologically motivated criticism of socialist members of the National Council led to his exclusion from the Socialist Party of Austria in 1985 . Nenning joined the Swiss Social Democrats just a month later .

He campaigned for women's rights and described himself as a "staunch feminist ". Nenning also referred to himself as a national Austrian and cultural German , as well as, similarly, the Austrians as " cultural German and Austrian national by history and language ".

The last phase of his political life belonged to the Austrian tabloid Kronen Zeitung , in which he took a government-critical, ecological and national-populist line. Furthermore, he increasingly oriented himself in the direction of monarchism (in this regard he spoke of himself as a “pink monarchist”) and opposition to the EU.

In 2003 Günther Nenning was invited to open the 6th European Symposium Kaisersteinbruch with a speech. "I congratulate Kaisersteinbruch on the energy with which it managed its rise ... Just as we are all Europeans, we are also 'Kaisersteinbrucher', we are at the same time petty bourgeois in our individual communities ..."

Books and television

Günther Nenning was a prolific author, as early as 1973 he published an extensive biography about Carl Grünberg . He has also directed two television films and a documentary for Austrian television . In the Vienna Volkstheater he also appeared on stage as Emperor Franz Joseph . Among other programs moderated Nenning the ORF program Club 2 , whose predecessor broadcast forum discussions and the ARD -Talkshow 3 to 9 at Radio Bremen . For this show, in which Nenning acted as host and presenter at the beginning of the 1980s, he received the " Saure Gurke " in 1984 , because he sat the convinced women's rights activist Gerlinde Schilcher and the pimp Karl-Heinz Germersdorf in a studio and they sat down during the doggedly yelled at the entire show. Schilcher even spilled wine over Germersdorf's shirt after being insulted and left the studio cursing loudly.

When the ORF rejected his proposal for a Club 2 broadcast with the chairman of the right-wing extremist party Die Republikaner , Franz Schönhuber , a former SS man , Nenning himself organized a replacement Club 2 for Spiegel TV on March 24, 1988 , whose management was then with Stefan Aust , on the Lake Constance ship Vorarlberg . The day before, as so often in his familiar kind of provocative statements, Nenning said at the editorial breakfast: “Nation is good, socialism is good. Then why should National Socialism be bad? ”He later used this idea several times in more elaborate versions, e. B .: “If someone says that the nation is good, socialism is good, how good must National Socialism first be - then the first thing he gets is a democratic-non-violent discussion slap in order to make it clear that I am an anti-fascist . And next I say: if you say two times two is four, you are saying something right. "

For the anniversary year of the Republic of Austria in 2005 , he published a 21-volume compilation with texts by Austrian authors since 1945 under the title Land Survey , formerly “Austrokoffer”. During the planning phase there were disputes with around 50 Austrian authors who, for various reasons, did not want to make their texts available for the "suitcase". "Worse than not being printed is being published by Nenning," said Michael Scharang .

In accordance with Nenning's wish during his lifetime, his private library, the result of his lifelong book collection, found its home after his death in May 2006 through a donation to the municipality of Waidring in Tyrol. Nenning's diverse interests and professional activities are also clearly reflected in the holdings of his now publicly accessible private library, which is around 260 linear meters in size and contains more than 12,000 media from a wide variety of subject areas.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Dichand : Günther Nennig † . Obituary in the Kronen-Zeitung on hetzendorf-pro.at, May 17, 2006, accessed on May 14, 2016 (jpg; 407 kB).
  2. ↑ Finding of the VfGH December 16, 1971, VfSlg 6615 and 6626
  3. ↑ Erich Félix Mautner: First against Brecht, then against the army. Torberg, Nenning, Oberschlick - and almost an eulogy . In: Augustin. The first Austrian tabloid No. 259, Vienna, September 23 - October 6, 2009, p. 14.
  4. ^ Anton Pelinka: The student movement of the sixties in Austria . In: Forum Politische Bildung (Hrsg.): Turning points and continuities . Studien-Verlag, Innsbruck / Vienna, 1998, ISBN 3-7065-1282-3 , pp. 148–157. Online source of this text see web links.
  5. ^ Günther Nenning: Boundless German. 1991, p. 30
  6. ↑ Günther Nenning: Is there Rothschild there? In: Die Zeit , No. 50/1988.
  7. ↑ Documented in: Helmuth Furch , Historisches Lexikon Kaisersteinbruch. Volume 2 I – Z, Index Nenning Günther, Museum and Culture Association Kaisersteinbruch , Bruckneudorf-Kaisersteinbruch 2004.
  8. ^ Historical lexicon Kaisersteinbruch. Volume 2 I-Z. PDF.
  9. ↑ The Thai girl scandal - What does the German man want . Recording of the broadcast published on Youtube, accessed on May 14, 2016.
  10. ↑ Klaus Kufner: From old men & brown manure. In: online- http://forvm.contextxxi.org , accessed on October 16, 2018.
  11. ^ Günther Nenning: The nation is coming again. Dignity, horror and validity of a European concept. Edition Interfrom, Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-7201-5231-6 , p. 151; also Günther Nenning in conversation: Grenzlos Deutsch , in: Stefan Ulbrich (Ed .; Text design: Harald Vilimsky): Thoughts on Greater Germany , Vilsbiburg (Arun Verlag) 1990. ISBN 3-927940-01-1 ; Complete list of uses and analysis of the same: Gerhard Oberschlick: Nah und fern Günther Nenning in: Helmut Reinalter (Ed.): Günther Nenning. Journalist, writer, political lateral thinker and religious socialist, Vienna (Löcker, edition pen volume 125) 2019, page 41ff.
  12. ↑ Nenning Private Library, accessed on February 3, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Nenning, Günther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian journalist, author and political activist
DATE OF BIRTH December 23, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 2006
Place of death Waidring , Tyrol