Gert Kalow

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The bridge towers and the gate of the old bridge in Heidelberg. The publicist Gert Kalow lived in the former rooms of the guards at the city gate

Gert Kalow (born August 20, 1921 in Cottbus ; † August 11, 1991 in Heidelberg ) was a German writer and publicist .

Life

After graduating from high school in 1939, Kalow first had to do labor service before he was called up for military service in the Wehrmacht . After returning from captivity , he studied philosophy , sociology , music and literature , first in Jena , then in Hamburg and Heidelberg , where he received his doctorate.

From 1950 Kalow worked as a freelance journalist and writer. He wrote radio plays, features, radio essays and was involved in documentaries. Kalow was among the journalists who in the post-war period the cinema very critical of. In his contribution Cinema as the Fall of Man in 1952, he asked: "When does someone get up and tear us back from this hellhole of massification, destruction, de-realization, these robot factories, these gas chambers of the soul?"

1954 brought him to the Ulm School of Design as a lecturer and head of the “Information” department; In 1960/61 he was chairman of the rectorate board there. In 1963 he went to the Hessischer Rundfunk as an editor ; from 1964 until his retirement in 1986 he headed the influential radio evening studio on this station.

From 1974 he was also a lecturer at the Offenbach University of Design , which appointed him honorary professor in 1977 . His best-known book is titled Hitler, the German Trauma (1967/1974).

Grave of Gert Kalow in the Heidelberg mountain cemetery

Kalow lived in Heidelberg for many years. He had taken up residence in the bridge towers of the Old Bridge in Heidelberg . Here he regularly received guests for the literary and political discourse.

Kalow found his final resting place in the Heidelberg Bergfriedhof . His grave is in the Abbot. D.

Works (selection)

  • Cinema as the Fall of Man , in: The new order 6 (1952), pp. 273–274
  • Poetry is message. Oral tradition in prehistory and present. Munich; Zurich: Piper, 1975. ISBN 3-492-02146-8 .
  • Hitler, the German trauma. Piper, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-492-00414-8 .

literature

  • Jürgen Kniep: “No youth approval!”. Film censorship in West Germany 1949-1990. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0638-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quote from Jürgen Kniep: No youth release! , P. 26
  2. ^ Heidelberg City Archives
  3. ^ Gert Kalow: Living in the old bridge gate. In: Helmut Prückner (Ed.) The old bridge in Heidelberg . Heidelberg. Braus, 1988. pp. 161-164.
  4. ↑ Landscape and Forestry Office, Heidelberg Cemetery Office Steigerweg 25
personal data
SURNAME Kalow, Gert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH cottbus
DATE OF DEATH August 11, 1991
Place of death Heidelberg