Hans Weiss (writer)

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Hans Weiss

Hans Weiss (* 1950 in Hittisau , Vorarlberg ) is an Austrian journalist , author and photographer .

life and work

Weiss studied psychology , philosophy and education at the University of Innsbruck and received his doctorate there in 1976. phil. As part of his dissertation, he worked for several months as a nurse at the Rankweil State Hospital in Vorarlberg. His diary of a madman , published in the magazine profil , meant that the director of the institution had to leave and the institution was reformed from the ground up. In 1978 he completed postgraduate training in medical sociology at the Vienna Institute for Advanced Studies . In 1978/79 he received a research grant from the British Council, with stays at the Universities of Cambridge and London.

In 1980 he worked as a pharmaceutical consultant for the groups Sandoz and Bayer AG in order to collect material on the business practices of the pharmaceutical industry for journalistic reasons. Based on his research, he wrote the books Healthy Business and Bitter Pills together with Kurt Langbein , Hans-Peter Martin and Roland Werner (alias Peter Sichrovsky) in the early 1980s , which caused a sensation at the time. With more than three million copies sold, the book Bitter Pills has become one of the greatest German-language book successes. Hans Weiss has been the sole author responsible for the new editions that have appeared since 1998.

In 1994/95 Hans Weiss completed his training at the International Center of Photography in New York and in 1997/98 and 2010/2011 at the School for Artistic Photography with Friedl Kubelka and Anja Manfredi in Vienna. Participation in exhibitions in the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg in 2012, in the Rupertinum Salzburg (2012), in the Photo Gallery Vienna (2011), in the Saline Hallein (2010), in the Palazzo Zenobio in Venice. (2009) and numerous other locations in Germany and abroad. Solo exhibitions and a. in “Deutsches Haus New York” (2015) and in the Soho Photo Gallery New York (2016, 2017).

He has received several journalistic prizes, including the " Bruno Kreisky Recognition Prize for Political Book" (2004), the "Audience Award" from the Austrian book trade (2009) for the book "Korrupte Medizin" and the Dr. Georg Schreiber Media Prize in Munich (2012) for two revelation stories in the Spiegel about the cosmetic surgeon Werner Mang.

In his non-fiction books he mainly deals with the topics of globalization (black book branded companies), disreputable business practices of international corporations (anti-social market economy) and medicine (corrupt medicine). Like the German journalist Günter Wallraff , he also slips into other roles in his research and played, among other things, a pharmaceutical representative, pharmaceutical consultant, export-import trader, doctor, the heir of a wealthy father, prison psychologist, patient. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages, with a total circulation of more than five million. In his literary work, Hans Weiss combines personal experiences with historical facts, for example in the book Mein Vater, der Krieg und Ich , published in 2005 .

His journalistic reports, comments and reports for the media Stern , Spiegel , Die Zeit , profil , ORF and Standard - for example about generous discounts in kind from pharmaceutical companies to doctors or about care for the elderly - repeatedly caused a sensation. For the ORF television documentary Irre Welt - Psychiatrie 81 , he and Kurt Langbein received the television prize for Austrian national education.

During the National Council election in Austria in 2006 , he published a letter to the editor in the Vienna daily newspaper Der Standard , which, according to political observers, contributed to the ruling Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) losing the election.

“Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel personally probably knows very well what he is talking about when he says that one shouldn't always call for the state when caring for the elderly. His 94-year-old mother-in-law was in need of care for several months last year. And what could be more natural than to employ a Slovak nurse around the clock? This was good and friendly, and cheap too (around 2 euros an hour). Not quite legally, maybe, but, well, sponge over it. "

- Hans Weiss : The standard

Afterwards, Hans Weiss put the Austrian magazine News in touch with a friend who played the alleged carer who worked for the Schüssel family in her apartment on Schwarzenbergplatz (!). News published this interview. In the media process that Schüssel's wife and sister tried, the judge saw "no signs" that an illegal carer was employed in the Schüssel house. The author's friend was sentenced to a fine. A criminal case brought against Hans Weiss by News was dropped by the court, while civil law proceedings ended with a settlement in which News paid the entire court costs. Commentary on this in Die Zeit and an interview in the magazine Datum .

His black book Agriculture , published in 2010, was number 1 on the bestseller lists for weeks. The weekly newspaper Die Zeit published a cover story and a multipart preprint. The President of the Bauernbund, Fritz Grillitsch , said at a press conference that he would sue Hans Weiss in the ground - which never happened. He also claimed that the author was a convicted criminal and that the book was commissioned by the SPÖ . Grillitsch was sued by Hans Weiss for defamation, had to withdraw his allegations in December 2010 and apologize publicly. The heated public discussion about the content of the book led to a parliamentary inquiry into peasant privileges and questionable agricultural subsidies to large farmers, international corporations and multimillionaires. Hans Weiss published a diary about his stay in New York in 2014/15. In February 2018, he published a three-part series of articles about the tax tricks and tax services of multinational corporations and banks in Austria in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit .

Publications

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Hans Weiss, short biography at haben.at .
  2. 2010/2011 .
  3. ^ Museum of Modern Art in Salzburg
  4. Rupertinum Salzburg ( Memento of the original dated February 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.museumdermoderne.at
  5. Vienna photo gallery
  6. ^ Saline Hallein
  7. ^ Palazzo Zenobio in Venice .
  8. www.meetup.com
  9. www.sohophoto.com
  10. "Dr. Georg Schreiber Media Prize "
  11. Markus Grill, Hans Weiss: The Aufschneider . In: Der Spiegel . No. 40 , 2011, p. 66-76 ( Online - Oct. 1, 2011 ).
  12. Black Book of Brand Companies  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.markenfimen.com  
  13. Take 2, Number 1 - The Practices of the Pharmaceutical Industry The Standard, August 4, 2005 .
  14. Robert Kriechbaumer : “It's enough!”. The Gusenbauer - Molterer government . Austria 2007/2008 . 1st edition. Böhlau, Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-20252-3 , pp. 202 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  15. The nursing chancellor . In: The Standard . August 19, 2006, p.  39 ( online [accessed October 13, 2017]).
  16. ^ "Wrong" caretaker of Schuessel's mother-in-law condemned - derStandard.at. January 17, 2007, accessed on September 9, 2019 (Austrian German).
  17. Increased punishment for “wrong” bowl carer. Der Standard , November 23, 2007, accessed October 13, 2017 .
  18. Do not touch herbs at zeit.de on January 11, 2007 .
  19. Date: Last questions to ... Hans Weiss ( Memento from February 13, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  20. The Black Book of Austrian Agriculture in farmsubsidy.org (PDF; 655 kB).
  21. Joachim Riedl: The farmer as a millionaire. In: zeit.de , August 30, 2010.
  22. EU agricultural subsidies still available. In: oe24.at , November 11, 2010.
  23. Big Dreams - New York Diary , published by Hanser Verlag (Munich) as an eBook (Hanser Box), December 2015.
  24. Part 1: International Corporations
  25. Part 2: Austrian Corporations and Banks
  26. Part 3: Amazon, Apple, Facebook & Co