Gero Gemballa

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Gero Gemballa at the 1996 toura d'or award ceremony

Gero Gemballa (born August 5, 1961 in Saarbrücken ; † February 22, 2002 in Stavelot , Belgium ) was a German journalist and author .

Life

Gemballa attended the Ludwigsgymnasium in Saarbrücken, then studied communication sciences , sociology , politics and philosophy in Munich and Cologne . At the same time, he trained as a qualified journalist at the German School of Journalism in Munich from 1983 to 1987, as well as a college stay and guest semester in the USA.

Gemballa was at times considered a "star journalist". His outstanding work includes, above all, TV documentaries about the Chilean Colonia Dignidad , in which he uncovered a criminal, international network of economic and secret service interests and proved that opponents of Augusto Pinochet were also liquidated there. These findings inspired u. a. Filmmaker Florian Gallenberger 2015 on his feature film Colonia Dignidad - There is no turning back . The chief detective and one of the most famous German experts on serial murders, Stephan Harbort , said he was encouraged to write about his work through an interview with Gemballa.

Gemballa's TV documentary about the Contergan scandal caused a stir . Under the title The Triple Scandal. Thirty years after Contergan , Gemballa also published a book on this (Cologne 1993), which, however, received some critical reviews because it was marked by the “unmistakable endeavor to recreate scandal”. In addition, Gemballa researched the German secret services and participated in the ARD report series Unter deutscher Dächern u. a. with the contributions money does not matter about the myth of Deutsche Bank (1989) and Die Anstalt. File inspection in Germany's pension authority (1990). Gemballa was featured in the ARD programs Kulturweltspiegel and Kulturreport . He also devoted himself to social issues such as illiteracy in the United States and the lives of people with disabilities. He achieved varying degrees of success with his documentaries on corruption ( Germany corrupt , 1994), the cult of fitness ( Aufgegeilt and unsatisfied , 1995), the self- image of men ( Herzliches Beileid , 1996) and alcoholism ( Prost Germany , 1996). In 2000, Gemballa researched the story of the impostor Hermann "Ben" Gartz, who worked in Italy with his FinFirst group, under the title Phantom der Mafia - Germany's most successful fraudster . Gemballa's clients were mainly Radio Bremen and WDR .

One of his closest collaborators was the cameraman Volker Noack . Gemballa's production company was called Pictures and Words GmbH , later Ideenhandel AG .

Gemballa died of a heart attack at the age of 40. Speculations that he was the victim of a nerve gas attack by Colonia Dignidad have never been proven. His ashes were in on 8 March 2002 North seebestattet .

Prices

  • Gemballa received the Toura d'or Prize in 1996 in the film competition “Sustainable Tourism” for the film Controversy over Paradise - Bali in a Double View .
  • In 1998 he received this award for the documentary Amantani - Island of Stars about an island in Lake Titicaca .
  • In addition, in 1989 Gemballa received the special award for journalism named after Philipp Jakob Siebenpfeiffer , who promoted freedom of the press and promoted “democratic awareness”.
  • In 1990 he was awarded the Gold Grimme Prize for his film The Village of Dignity on Colonia Dignidad .

Publications

  • with Winfried Schwamborn : I always think of a second life. Images of people from this country. Reports. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1986. ISBN 3-7609-0980-9
  • "Colonia Dignidad". A German camp in Chile. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1988. ISBN 3-499-12415-7
  • Secretly dangerous. Services in Germany. PapyRossa, Cologne 1990. ISBN 3-89438-008-X
  • The triple scandal. Thirty years after Contergan. A documentation. Luchterhand, Hamburg 1993. ISBN 3-630-86803-7
  • Colonia Dignidad. A reporter on the trail of a German scandal. Campus, Frankfurt / New York 1998. ISBN 3-593-35922-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of February 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from December 9, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ dpa: Chile: human bones discovered near Colonia Dignidad. In: Zeit Online. February 26, 2014, accessed July 4, 2017 .
  4. ↑ http://www.dw.com/de/colonia-dignidad-kolonie-ohne-w%C3%BCrde/a-18705644
  5. ↑ http://www.kriminalia.de/2011/09/geisterspiegel-de-im-rechner-mit-stephan-harbort/
  6. ^ Niklas Lenhard-Schramm: The state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Contergan scandal. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016, ISBN 978-3-647-30178-5 , p. 44 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  7. ↑ http://www.presseportal.de/pm/6511/133389
  8. ↑ http://bilderundworte.tv/de/ueber-  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / bilderundworte.tv  
  9. ↑ Bunkered Secrets. In: sueddeutsche.de. May 17, 2010, accessed August 3, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from June 9, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Gemballa, Gero
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and author
DATE OF BIRTH 5th August 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Saarbrücken
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 2002
Place of death Stavelot