Gisela Bonn

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Gisela Bonn ( pseudonym ), also: Gisela Döhrn (born September 22, 1909 in Elberfeld , † October 11, 1996 in Stuttgart ) was a German journalist .

Life

Gisela Döhrn was the daughter of the teacher Heinz Döhrn. After graduating from high school, she studied music and theater studies, German literature, art history and French philology in Cologne, Rostock and Vienna from 1929, where she received her doctorate in 1936 on folk song arrangements with Johannes Brahms . Even as a student, she wrote newspaper articles for the Elberfelder Anzeiger . In 1934 she tried her hand at Franz Osten as a screenwriter in short comedy films.

On December 28, 1936 she married Hermann Pörzgen , journalist and foreign correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung , and went to Moscow with him in July 1937, also as a foreign correspondent . Döhrn wrote for the Munich Latest News , the Leipzig Latest News , the Hamburg Foreign Journal and the Essen National Newspaper . After the outbreak of war in 1941 both were interned together with the German embassy staff and then exchanged at the Soviet-Turkish border. Furthermore, under the name Gisela Döhrn, she wrote two reports about her stay in Moscow in 1941/42 - Pörzgen had already published a travelogue about Russia in 1936. Your report on Russia Das war Moscow was placed on the list of literature to be sorted out in the Soviet Zone in 1946 . When Pörzgen was sent by the Foreign Office to the Consulate General in the Spanish-occupied Tangier at the beginning of 1942 , Döhrn reported again for the same newspapers and also for the NSDAP press . In Giselher Wirsing's The XX. In the 19th century she published a report on The Decomposition of the French Colonial Empire in 1942 .

After the war she was divorced from Pörzgen, who remained in Soviet captivity until 1955, married Giselher Wirsing and published, from now on under the pseudonym Gisela Bonn, in 1947 initially two volumes of poetry Summer of a young woman and beloved small world and the novella Benita Benarte .

She has now become a productive country book author on regions in the Third World, which she also traveled to: Egypt and Sudan, a biography about Léopold Sédar Senghor , a book on Africa. Then she shifted her interest entirely to Asia, became chief editor of the quarterly magazine "IndoAsia" and wrote a travel guide to India as well as several country books with savoy cabbage, which had meanwhile become chief editor of the magazine Christ und Welt , and finally a biography of Jawaharlal Nehru . In between, in 1968 she followed the zeitgeist and published a book about the Californian hippies and flower children . In addition to the publication of books, Bonn was also the author and director of over 20 television documentaries, in the same subject areas as her writings.

Awards

Bonn has received numerous awards: in 1969 she received the Senegalese National Order , in 1972 the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class and in 1989 the Great Federal Cross of Merit , the Egyptian Ordre Al-Kamal in 1975, in 1978 the Gold Medal of Merit of the State of Baden-Württemberg and in 1986 the title of professor there, In 1990 the Padma Shri Award from India and in 1994 the Margret Boveri Prize for scientific journalism.

In 1996 the “Indian Council of Cultural Relations” donated a Gisela Bonn Prize for special achievements in the field of German-Indian relations, which is awarded annually.

Fonts (selection)

as Gisela Bonn

  • Angkor: Tolerance in Stone , 1996
  • Nehru: Approaches to a Statesman and Philosopher , 1992
  • Bhutan: Art and Culture in the Realm of the Dragons , 1988
  • The Indian Challenge: An Encounter with India , 1985
  • Nepal , 1983
  • Khajuraho Temple of Love, Temple of the Gods. In: Indo-Asia, 18th century Tübingen 1976
  • Africa - dark drum , 1970
  • India and the subcontinent , 1974
  • Africa - dark drum , 1970
  • Léopold Sédar Senghor. Pioneer of the culture universelle 1968
  • Among the hippies , 1968
  • Africa leaves the bush. Continent of Contrasts 1965
  • The double face of Sudan , 1961
  • New light from India 1958
  • New World on the Atlas; what's going on in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia , 1955
  • New World on the Nile; Diary pages from a trip to Egypt and Sudan , 1953
  • Morocco: Look behind the veil , Hamburg 1950
  • Benita Benarte. Story , C. Weller, Konstanz 1947
  • Beloved little world. Verses and rhymes , C. Weller, Konstanz 1947
  • Summer of a Young Woman , C. Weller, Konstanz 1947

as Gisela Döhrn

  • Between Vichy and Casablanca. The decomposition of the French colonial empire , in: The XX. Century, 4 (1942)
  • The disenchanted Kremlin. A political diary from the Soviet Union , Willmy, Nuremberg 1942
  • Fairness: Zážitky německého diplomata , Praha: Orbis, 1942 (cz)
  • That was Moscow: four years as a reporter in the Soviet Union , Berlin: Limbach 1941 (with 130 amateur photos by the author)
  • To a beloved soldier. New Verses , Berlin: V. Hugo, 1941
  • A little blue sky. Rhymes and poems , Berlin: Hugo, 1939

literature

  • Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 3: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: L – R. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-71842-6 . Lemma: Pörzgen, Hermann
  • Matthias Heeke, Travel to the Soviets: Foreign Tourism in Russia 1921-1941 , with a bio-bibliographical appendix to 96 German travel authors, Münster 2003 ISBN 3-8258-5692-5 (Diss. Münster 1999)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ German administration for popular education in the Soviet occupation zone, list of the literature to be sorted out Berlin: Zentralverlag, 1946 # 2309
personal data
SURNAME Bonn, Gisela
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Döhrn, Gisela (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist
DATE OF BIRTH September 22, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Elberfeld
DATE OF DEATH October 11, 1996
Place of death Stuttgart