Hans Leyendecker

Hans Leyendecker 2014

Hans Leyendecker (born May 12, 1949 in Brühl , Rhineland ) is a German journalist . He is considered one of the most prominent investigative journalists and has uncovered many political affairs in Germany and abroad since 1982 , but is also criticized for his incorrect contribution to the GSG 9 mission in Bad Kleinen .

Life

After graduating from high school, he did an internship at the Stader Tageblatt , where he was allowed to write leading articles as a trainee . He then worked as a freelance journalist in Eichstätt, Bavaria . After studying history , he was a local editor , news editor and reporter for the Westfälische Rundschau in Dortmund . In 1979 he switched to the news magazine Der Spiegel , initially as a state correspondent for North Rhine-Westphalia in Düsseldorf . In 1994 he became one of the office managers of Spiegel in Bonn and in 1995 a columnist and department head for special tasks in Hamburg .

In 1982 he covered the cover story Where did the Flick Millions go? the party donation scandal surrounding Hans Friderichs and Otto Graf Lambsdorff , the so-called Flick affair . He specialized in domestic politics and secret services , uncovered plutonium smuggling at the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), the dream ship affair involving Lothar Späth and the tax affair involving Peter Graf .

In July 1997, after a dispute with Spiegel editor-in-chief Stefan Aust , he switched to the Süddeutsche Zeitung as chief political editor . He became head of the newspaper's investigative department. At the end of 1999 he published the CDU donation affair surrounding Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl and attempts at bribery by the arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber . Since 2000 he has dealt, among other things, with the extra income of politicians, the soccer betting scandal , the visa affair in the Foreign Office , misinformation of the US government before the Iraq war , the VW corruption affair and the Libya affair .

Leyendecker is on the Advisory Board of Transparency International . In 2001 he was a founding member of the journalists' association Netzwerk Recherche and has been its second chairman ever since.

In August 2009, his research contributed to the fact that the machinations of Doris Heinze , the head of the NDR television game at the time, were exposed. In the course of the script affair it became clear that Heinze had established a system of self-favoring over several years with the help of invented author identities.

In 2011, Leyendecker revealed that the head of the Gauselmann Group had secretly paid party donations for around 20 years.

In the fall of 2015, Leyendecker made his thoughts public about retiring in an interview. For 2016 he announced his resignation as head of the SZ investigative department. Nicolas Richter succeeded him in September 2016 .

In May 2017 it was announced that the former Catholic Leyendecker will be President of the 37th German Evangelical Church Congress in Dortmund in 2019 . He takes the place of Frank-Walter Steinmeier , who is no longer available for the honorary office after his election as Federal President.

Leyendecker is married and has five children. He lives and works in Leichlingen in the Bergisches Land .

Attitudes to socio-political issues

Assessment by Wikileaks

In November 2010, Leyendecker said in an interview with the Swiss radio station DRS that he initially thought WikiLeaks was a blessing. However, it later became clear that WikiLeaks was not investigative journalism because sources were not checked and also not adequately protected. Leyendecker said literally: “I think WikiLeaks is a bastard today.” On Deutschlandradio Kultur, he explained that source protection for “investigative journalists” also means protecting informants from their own vanity.

Blog review

In 2007, Leyendecker sparked discussions about weblogs when he described his perception that bloggers "[are] people who are partly anti-democratic, [...] partly unqualified". He further criticized: “A large part of the things I read is evil, is cynical, is contemptuous, is against everyone”, and he called for further observation of weblogs: “Now you will have to wait and see [...] that you do what the newspaper cannot do, what the radio cannot do, whether you can do it ”. As a positive example of a blog, he cited the picture blog , which was "more meritorious than hardly anything", and wished for his newspaper: "A South German blog would be wonderful."

"Spiegel" cover story on the GSG 9 access in Bad Kleinen

On June 27, 1993, the anti-terrorist unit GSG 9 carried out an operation at Bad-Kleinen train station , the aim of which was to arrest leading members of the RAF . During the attack, the RAF terrorist Birgit Hogefeld was arrested and her colleague Wolfgang Grams and a GSG 9 official were shot (see GSG 9 deployment in Bad Kleinen ). The news magazine “ Der Spiegel ” then dedicated its cover story “The fatal shot - failure of the terrorist investigators”, written by Hans Leyendecker, to the mission on July 5, 1993. The corresponding article in the inside was headed with the statement marked as a quote “Killing like an execution” and made the claim that the RAF terrorist Wolfgang Grams, who was already incapacitated, had been executed at close range by the elite police officers. Leyendecker relied on an anonymous witness who was himself a police officer.

The report led to extensive political upheaval. The then Federal Minister of the Interior, Rudolf Seiters (CDU), announced his resignation on July 4, 1993, after reading a preprint of the article and assuming that an investigation would drag on for months. Two days later, the acting Federal Prosecutor General Alexander von Stahl was dismissed by Federal Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger ( FDP ).

As a result, however, doubts arose as to the correctness of the facts described. The Schwerin public prosecutor's office came to the conclusion that there were “serious doubts” about the testimony of the anonymous witness. His description deviates "irreconcilably" from the statements of the other participants. Ultimately, the description was "not of any higher evidential value than an anonymously passed rumor". A forensic medical examination by the University of Münster also came to the conclusion that the blood splatter image on site was due to a suicide . In the aftermath, Hans Leyendecker himself distanced himself from the execution thesis and called the article a “devastating story” and his “most devastating mistake”. The consequences were "that a number of people have resigned, and actually I should have been fired." Leyendecker insisted, however, that the informant in question had existed. However, the latter did not tell him the truth, for which he had already "apologized countless times".

After the "Spiegel" had set up an investigation committee by the editor Claas Relotius in the course of the affair involving partly invented articles , which is supposed to deal with incorrect reporting, the former Federal Prosecutor General Alexander von Stahl suggested that the commission also deal with the "Spiegel" - Articles aimed at bathroom little ones. The former Federal Minister of the Interior, Rudolf Seiters, agreed and called for the informant's identity to be revealed. The news magazine then announced that it would have the relevant story checked by the Commission. Specifically, the question is to be investigated whether there really was an informant from the security apparatus or just an anonymous caller.

The investigation committee has the tape record of an anonymous call in which the caller pretended to be a police officer involved in the operation. According to Leyendecker, the caller should not have been the informant from the cover story. An investigation came to the conclusion that the statements of the informant from the cover story and those of the caller are identical. According to Leyendecker, the two are said to have agreed.

Awards

2000: Award "Upright Walk" from the state association of the Greens in North Rhine-Westphalia

2001: Special prize of the Guardian Prize of the German daily press , awarded by the "Freedom of the Press" foundation for achievements in connection with uncovering the CDU donation affair

In 2002 the Association of Italian Journalists awarded him the Microfono D'Argento Prize.

In 2004 he received the Gustav Heinemann Citizens' Prize awarded by the SPD .

2006: Erich Fromm Prize (together with Heribert Prantl )

In 2007, Leyendecker and Nicolas Richter were awarded the daily press guard's prize for reporting on the CIA victim Khaled el-Masri.

In 2007 Leyendecker was awarded the Henri Nannen Prize together with Klaus Ott and Markus Balser for “Siemens bribing money scandal” in the Süddeutsche Zeitung .

In 2010 Leyendecker was awarded the Helmut Schmidt Prize together with Klaus Ott and Nicolas Richter for “Stoiber's legacy turns into a nightmare”.

In 2010 Leyendecker, together with Martin Kotynek and Nicolas Richter, was awarded the puk journalist prize for their contributions to the NDR screenplay scandal.

In 2012, together with Klaus Ott and Nicolas Richter from the Süddeutsche Zeitung , Leyendecker rejected the Henri Nannen Prize that had been awarded to them , in protest against the award made to editors of the Bild-Zeitung (the protest was expressly not directed against the Persons of the editors, but against the "breaking taboo" that a tabloid was awarded for the first time).

In 2015 Leyendecker was awarded the Journalist of the Year award for his life's work by Medium Magazin .

In 2017, Leyendecker was awarded the Research Network's Lighthouse of Honor.

In 2017 Leyendecker received the honorary award of the Association of Freelance Professions.

Fonts

Wolfram Bickerich , Jürgen Leinemann , Hans Leyendecker: Brother Johannes: Challenger Rau . Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 1986, ISBN 3-499-33068-7 .
Hans Leyendecker (ed.): The Lambsdorff judgment . Steidl Verlag , Göttingen 1988, ISBN 3-88243-111-3 .
Hans Leyendecker, Richard Rickelmann : Exporters of Death. German arms scandal in the Middle East . Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 1990, ISBN 3-88243-180-6 .
Hans Leyendecker, Richard Rickelmann, Georg Bönisch: Mafia in the state. Germany falls under the robbers . Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 1992, ISBN 3-88243-231-4 .
Georg Bönisch, Hans Leyendecker: The business with euthanasia . Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-88243-255-1 .
Klaus Brinkbäumer , Hans Leyendecker, Heiner Schimmöller: Rich Steffi, poor child: The Graf files . Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3-455-15005-5 .
Hans Leyendecker, Heribert Prantl, Michael Stiller : Helmut Kohl, power and money . Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-88243-738-3 .
Hans Leyendecker: The Corruption Trap: How Our Country Sinks into Felt . Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 2003, ISBN 3-498-03915-6 .
Hans Leyendecker: The White House Lies: Why America Needs a Fresh Start . Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 2004, ISBN 3-498-03920-2 .
Rudolf Gerhardt, Hans Leyendecker: Reading book for writers: From the correct use of language and from the art of reading newspapers . Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16411-7 .
Hans Leyendecker: Journalism needs research . In: Axel Balzer, Marvin Geilich, Shamim Rafat (eds.): Politics as a brand: Political mediation between communication and staging . Lit-Verlag, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8146-6 .
Hans Leyendecker: The great greed - corruption, cartels, pleasure trips: Why our economy needs a new moral . Rowohlt, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-87134-594-4 .