Helmut Höge

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Helmut Höge (born October 18, 1947 in Bremen ) is a German journalist and writer. He became known as the editor of the daily newspaper (taz) , for which he has been writing since its early days.

life and work

Helmut Höge at a reading in the Literaturhaus Hamburg , Oct. 2014

In his youth Höge u. a. as a translator for a radio station for the US Air Force and as a zoo keeper at the Bremen Zoo . In 1968 he was part of the Bremen student movement. After Höge had evaded first to Sweden and then to West Berlin before doing military service , he was charged with deserting Berlin in 1969 . From 1970 he lived in the Wannsee commune in Berlin , where he participated in the magazines The social revolution is not a party matter and a hundred flowers .

In the years that followed, his journalistic commitment was focused on various Autonomous and Beatnik newspapers such as the Lila Eule , the information service for disseminating missing news , Ulcus Molle Info or the paved beach . Meanwhile , Helmut Höge enrolled at various universities, such as the PH Berlin , the FU Berlin , at the University of Paris VIII in Vincennes and at the University of Bremen and conducted an autodidactic universal course . The Marxist theorist Alfred Sohn-Rethel was a mentor to him during his studies in Bremen. The first contact with taz was made in 1978 . Its maintenance he deserved in the first place nor as Philosopher . He did not get a degree .

Höge's literary activity began during his student days with the publication of the magazine Neues Lotes Folum in the Bremer Impuls-Verlag. This early work is determined by the theories of Gilles Deleuzes , Félix Guattaris and Michel Foucault as well as by French situationism . This is particularly emphasized by the use of digression as a literary stylistic device and the situationist motif of misappropriation . They appear exemplarily in the use of footnotes , some of which form sub-texts that run over several pages . Also typical is the integration of quotations in the running text without references to the source . These working methods go back to the post-structuralist rhizome principle developed by Deleuze and Guattari in 1977 in their main work Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia , which is understood as an alternative to the hierarchical construction of knowledge. Like his journalistic texts, Höge publishes the three volumes of the New Lots Folum pseudonymously or under fictitious group names.

The boundaries between journalism and literary authorship are fluid with Helmut Höge. In 1984 his first novel Vogelsberg was published by Rotbuch-Verlag : Endless novel under the pseudonym “Agency Standard Text”. The book conveys Höge's experiences in Vogelsberg in general and in a Hessian rural community in particular in the form of journalistic research , but combined with fictional stories. Almost at the same time he published a text in the March anthology Mammut: Märztexte 1 and 2 with the title “The light bulb fake” under the pseudonym “Helke Schwan”. Höge's idea of ​​stepping back as an author behind the work remained formative for his literary work until the 1990s. (Other pseudonyms used by Höge were, for example, “W.Meier”, “Ha.Ha.”, “C. Sciolti”, “P. Acerbo”, “flora soft” or “A. Mijn Jong”.) He continued while referring to a concept by Michel Foucault , which he discussed in an interview with Christian Delacampagne (“The Masked Philosopher”). His second book, Babelsberg: Eine Endlosrecherche, which appeared in 1991 as a sequel to Vogelsberg: Endlessroman by Edition Nautilus , remains Höge's last major pseudonymous publication.

After the fall of the Wall , Helmut Höge was involved in the publication of a company newspaper at Narva , an East German light bulb manufacturer . He also supported the East German works council initiative in their attempts to defend the production facilities of the former GDR against adaptation to the free market economy by the trust . He processed his experiences in essays and reports , especially in Babelsberg: An Endless Research and in the book Berliner Ökonomie: Prols und Contras, first published in 1997 by the publishing house BasisDruck . Compared to his earlier works, it is characterized by the renunciation of fiction. Instead, complex field studies come to the fore when analyzing economic interdependencies.

In 2004 he published the book Neurosibirsk in the publishing house Peter Engstler , in which he reports on his travels in Asia . Wolves - Partisans - Prostitutes, published by Kulturverlag Kadmos in 2007 , is dedicated to "Zones of Wilderness and Barbarism" in today's "deregulated economies". After a series of brochures titled Der kleine Brehm had already presented observations of various animals since 2012 , The Funny Animal World followed in 2018 and its serious research at Westend Verlag .

Focus

What he himself called “lightbulb research” was inspired by Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow and Höge's study of Narva in the 1990s. As a specialist in light bulb technology, he dealt with the various effects of capitalist and communist market policy on the production methods of light bulbs. This main focus led to " cartel research "; on this he subsequently presented a series of analyzes by the Siemens group. In 2001, in collaboration with Peter Berz and Markus Krajewski, The Light Bulb Book was published by Edition selene .

Höge's exploration of the bollard , opened in 1989 by his essay “Order and Resistance in Public Space”, is guided less by a scientific than an artistic claim. With his bollard research, Höge examines the possibilities of redesigning or misappropriating urban space. The de-trivialization of the bollard through Höge's research also allows conclusions to be drawn about the situationist idea of ​​the connection between trivial and high culture . Höge combines his “research results” under the collective term “ caretaker art ” (currently over 300 entries) on his taz blog “This is where the temporary caretaker speaks”.

journalism

Höge has two columns in the taz , for which he has been writing extensively since 1997, and one in the left-wing newspaper Junge Welt ( Economy as Life itself ), for which he also works with other articles. He wrote for Die Zeit and occasionally writes for Friday and the Frankfurter Rundschau and also for Die Aktion and Jungle World . Höge published in Sklaves or in The Daily Life . He was also involved in start-ups, such as in 2006 Super Nomad, a Mongolian- German magazine.

Author funding

In 1998 Helmut Höge met Wladimir Kaminer at a conference on "Eastern Europe in the transition between revolution and counterrevolution". Höge arranged for Kaminer to work as a columnist for the taz and his first text appeared in 1998. In 2002 they published their joint work Heroes of Everyday with Goldmann Verlag : A photo-based lecture on the strange customs of the post-war period, in which Kaminer wrote small texts on photographs that Höge made available from his slide archive .

Höge's acquaintance with the Ukrainian Lilli Brand also led to a book publication . Their book was published in 2006 by the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt under the title Transitgeschichten .

Quotes

"There is always too much interpretation and never enough facts, the acts through interpretation are the most dangerous for freedom."

"That is the stupidest reading of a work: When you group texts around an author and thus pin him down to a certain unit of writing."

"Let's be honest: If a bastard somewhere in the world - equally arrogant towards the bottom and submissive towards power - deserves to be attacked, then it is this fucking German!"

Awards

Publications

  • Agency Standard Text: Vogelsberg. Endless novel. First part. Rotbuch, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-88022-289-4 .
  • Bismarc Media: Babelsberg. An endless search. Edition Nautilus, Hamburg 1991, ISBN 3-89401-184-X .
  • Helmut Höge: Berlin economy. Pros and Cons. BasisDruck, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-86163-066-4 .
  • Peter Berz, Helmut Höge, Markus Krajewski: The light bulb book. Edition Selene, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-85266-109-9 ;
  • Helmut Höge, Wladimir Kaminer: Heroes of everyday life. A photo-based lecture on the strange customs of the post-war period. Goldmann, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-442-54183-2 .
  • Helmut Höge: Neurosibirsk. Engstler, Ostheim vor der Rhön 2004, ISBN 978-3-929375-59-6 .
  • Helmut Höge: Wolves. Partisans. Prostitute. Kadmos, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-931659-80-6 .
  • Helmut Höge: Bollard Research. Edited with an afterword by Philipp Goll (=  Kleine Siegener Helmut Höge edition , vol. 1). Siegen, Universi 2010 (=  MuK. Mass Media and Communication, Vol. 179/180), ISSN  0721-3271 ;
  • Helmut Höge: Series of small Brehms. Part 1: Sparrows. Peter Engstler, Ostheim / Rhön 2012, ISBN 978-3-941126-20-6 (further parts in the following years about: geese, horses, swans, dogs, monkeys, elephants, bees, cows, fish, corvids ...).
  • Helmut Höge: The funny animal world and its serious exploration. Westend, Frankfurt am Main 2018, ISBN 978-3-86489-231-8 .

literature

Web links

Individual references, footnotes

  1. ↑ See Helmut Höge: Propemptikon for a professor. In: L'invitation au voyage to Alfred Sohn-Rethel. Edited by Bettina Wassmann, Joachim Müller. Wassmann, Bremen 1979, issue 1.
  2. ↑ Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari: Rhizome. In: A thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. Edited by Günther Rösch. Merve, Berlin 1997, pp. 12-42.
  3. ↑ Jörg Magenau : The taz. A newspaper as a way of life. Hanser, Munich 2007, pp. 47 and 171.
  4. ↑ Michel Foucault: The masked philosopher. Conversation with Christian Delacampagne (1980). Translated by Peter Gente . In: Aisthesis. Perception today or perspectives from a different aesthetic. Essays. Edited by Karlheinz Barck , Peter Gente, Heidi Paris , Stefan Richter. 5th revised edition. Reclam, Leipzig 1993, pp. 5–13 (PDF file; 569 kB) ( Memento from January 7, 2004 in the Internet Archive ).
  5. ↑ Höge: Wolves - Partisans - Prostitutes, p. 9 and blurb .
  6. ↑ Helmut Höge: Order and Resistance in Public Space. In: The Action. Journal for politics, literature, art . 9th vol., H. 52/54 (mid-June 1989), pp. 798-817.
  7. ↑ See Philipp Goll: Helmut Höges Pollerforschung. Editor's Afterword. In: Helmut Höge: Pollerforschung. Universi, Siegen 2010, pp. 155–200, pp. 164 ff.
  8. ↑ Since the 1990s he has been part of the network of publicists around the Berlin intellectuals Katharina and Michael Rutschky (see, for example, Katharina Rutschky: Der Stadthund. Von Menschen an der Leine. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2001, pp. 122 and 217; Michael Rutschky: Into the new time. Records 1988–1992. Berenberg, Berlin 2017, pp. 104 and 223).
  9. ↑ Kaminer: collector, smoker, writer.
  10. ↑ Höge: epilogue. In: Lilli Brand: Transit stories. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2004, pp. 151–157.
  11. ^ Helmut Höge: Berlin economy. In: Archeology of Labor. Edited by Dirk Baecker . Kadmos, Berlin 2002, p. 32.
  12. ↑ Helmut Höge: Profis versus Amateure in: Junge Welt, June 12, 2007, No. 134, p. 13.
  13. ↑ Helmut Höge: About Scheißdeutsche. “At the right time, blows / creating gave trust, fear and love” (old German saying). In: the daily newspaper, January 16, 2008, Berlin local, p. 23 (normal time).
  14. ↑ Excellent: Helmut Höge receives the Ben Witter Prize ( taz, July 30, 2014) ( Memento from August 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
  15. ↑ See the report by Detlef Kuhlbrodt : Maybe later: Die Reise (Logbook Suhrkamp | The online magazine from Suhrkamp Verlag ).
  16. ↑ Nora Sdun: Review of March 28, 2010: Janitorial Art .
personal data
SURNAME Höge, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and non-fiction author
DATE OF BIRTH October 18, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen