Gert Weber (journalist)

Gert Weber (born July 1, 1927 in Freinsheim ; † July 6, 2010 there ) was a German master tailor and Karstadt department head, who became known through journalistic work and voluntary work to promote literature . He made a name for himself above all through the establishment of the Freinsheim city ​​library and the initiation of the Hermann Sinsheimer Prize and the Hermann Sinsheimer plaque . The 4th edition of the plaque was awarded to him on March 5, 2006 for his life's work.

family

Weber was the son of Kurt Weber and his wife Katharina geb. Seilheimer. The father was in the front Palatine community (since 1979 city) Freinsheim fruit merchant, his mother a housewife. Gert Weber had been married to Marianne Steitz from the West Palatinate community of Alsenbrück-Langmeil since December 31, 1953 , with whom he had two daughters.

education and profession

Weber completed the elementary school in Freinsheim and the commercial school in Ludwigshafen am Rhein . A year before the end of the Second World War , he was drafted into the Navy at the age of 17 . In 1945 he came into Danish captivity from which he was released in the late year. In Freinsheim he did an apprenticeship at the Waßner tailor shop, which he completed in 1950 and supplemented with a tailoring course in Munich . He then passed the master craftsman's examination in tailoring in Kaiserslautern .

Until 1957 Weber worked as a cutter at the Keller tailor shop in Eisenberg ; then he opened a women's and men's tailoring in Freinsheim, which he ran until 1973. In that year he switched to Karstadt in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse as a studio manager for home textiles . In 1976, he was given responsibility for twelve Karstadt branches in the region as department head for home textiles and tailoring. In 1992 he retired.

Volunteering

Weber came into contact with literature at an early age because his father was the chairman of the Gutenberg Book Guild. Around 1960 Weber became a correspondent for the Rheinpfalz , the largest regional daily newspaper, in which he reported on local events for almost 40 years. He gave lectures and courses on literature and writers at adult education centers . On November 24, 1973, he opened the Freinsheim City Library with an initial collection of 90 volumes. He headed it until 2004, during which time he expanded the collection to almost 10,000 books.

The acquaintance with Christobel Sinsheimer, the widow of the Jewish writer Hermann Sinsheimer , who emigrated from Freinsheim to London , led Weber to deal intensively with his work and in 1986, together with Rolf Paulus, published an annotated selection from Sinsheimer's complete works, which has now become the standard work on Sinsheimer applies. As early as 1983 he had managed to get the city of Freinsheim to announce the Hermann Sinsheimer Prize , which has been awarded in the odd years since then. In 2000, the city awarded the Hermann Sinsheimer plaque for the even years .

Works

• Gert Weber, Rolf Paulus (Ed.): Writer and theater critic between home and exile - Sinsheimer, Hermann . Selection from the complete works. Pfälzische Verlagsanstalt, Landau (Pfalz) 1986, ISBN 3-87629-099-6 .
  • therein u. a. Gert Weber: Hermann Sinsheimer - German and Jew . S. 151-169 .

Honors

• 1999: Badge of Honor of the Freinsheim Association
• 2001: City wall ring of the Freinsheim Foundation (highest award of the city)
• 2005: The stone book , memorial by Kurt Hertz in front of the Freinsheim public library, light sandstone , inscriptions

(left) "The city library was founded in 1973 by Gert Weber and managed until 2004"

(right) "Books are the memory of mankind"

• 2006: Hermann Sinsheimer plaque in recognition of his life's work

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Official Journal of the Freinsheim Association : Hermann Sinsheimer Plaque 2006 . No. 9 , March 2, 2006.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Hans-Helmut Görtz: Literature was his life . In: Bad Dürkheim district (Hrsg.): Heimatjahrbuch 2011 . Verlag Englram Partner, Haßloch 2010, ISBN 978-3-926775-63-4 .