Herbert Kaufmann

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Herbert Kaufmann (born August 24, 1920 in Cologne ; † November 27, 1976 in Cologne ) was a German ethnologist, journalist , photographer and writer .

Life

Herbert Kaufmann grew up in Cologne and attended a grammar school there . After high school he completed an apprenticeship as 1,938 industrial manager and was then in the chemical industry operates. As a born Jew, he was hidden in the Eifel during the Second World War. After the war, he married a Protestant and converted himself.

From 1951 he made extensive trips to Africa , which he financed primarily with the sale of his numerous photographs. He spent a long time in the area around Timbuktu and in the north of what is now Mali , where he conducted extensive studies on the Tuareg in Adrar-n-Ifoghas. He processed his personal experiences in the youth novels City under the Desert Sand , The Lost Caravan Route and Red Moon and Hot Time .

After his return from Africa Herbert Kaufmann studied ethnology , sociology and geography at the University of Cologne . In 1960 he completed his studies with a doctorate to become a Dr. phil. from. The topic of his doctoral thesis was the cultural change among the Tuareg between Niger and the Algerian border. From 1962 he worked as a foreign correspondent for several German newspapers and radio stations in Nairobi .

In addition to his journalistic activities, Herbert Kaufmann was the author of travel and expedition reports , mostly in the form of books for young people , in which he repeatedly processed his personal experiences with the Tuareg and other African peoples. He also worked for radio, especially for WDR school radio. His contributions were characterized by irony, but above all by the effort to contribute to a realistic image of the African continent in German-speaking countries in the 1950s and 60s, which were still characterized by traditional, ie negative African clichés. The novels were mostly written from the perspective of the Africans, and the Europeans, if they appeared at all, as in the Sahara novels The Lost Caravan Trail and The City under the Desert Sand , did not appear as white heroes as in Karl May's , but were partners of the Africans or even inferior to them in the mastery of nature.

In his novel The King's Crocodile (1960), which was published on the occasion of the liberation of many African states into independence , Kaufmann took a critical distance from the European colonial powers and their past in Africa in a way that was unfamiliar for the time and denounced the approach taken by the British Nigeria .

Herbert Kaufmann was one of the first scientists who, since the 1950s, pursued the rediscovery and rehabilitation of the Africa researcher Heinrich Barth , who had been almost completely forgotten in Germany.

Awards and honors

Works

Kaufmann's novel biography of the West African ruler Aye-Aye (1821-1891), The King's crocodile was 1962 Fri. The King's Crocodile published in English and in Nigeria, King Ja-Jas home, still available. The award-winning love story Red Moon and Hot Time , which is set by the Tuareg in the north of Mali, has also been reprinted again and again since its first appearance and translated into several languages, most recently in 2006 (see literature list).

  • Africa , Frankfurt am Main 1954
  • The lost caravan route (also ud T. Die Hammelpiste ), Graz et al. 1955 (novel)
  • Congo between yesterday and tomorrow , Murnau 1956
  • The devil dances in Ju-Ju-Busch , Graz et al. 1956 (novel)
  • Red moon and hot time , Graz et al. 1957 (novel about the Ifoghas-Tuareg)
  • The city under the desert sand , Graz et al. 1957 (novel)
  • Nigeria , Bonn 1958
  • Riding through Iforas , Munich 1958 (travel report with very nice pictures)
  • Sulei, the little negro boy , Cologne et al. 1958 (together with Gerty Kaufmann)
  • Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi , Bonn 1959
  • The king's crocodile , Cologne et al. 1959 (novel)
  • Arrows and Flutes , Graz ao 1960 (novel)
  • La piste perdue. Paris 1960 (translated from The Lost Caravan Route )
  • Ethiopia , Bonn 1962
  • Your new neighbor in Africa , Düsseldorf 1962
  • Africa's way to the present , Braunschweig 1963
  • Economic and social structure of the Iforas-Tuareg , Cologne 1964 (Phil. Diss.)
  • Tule Tiptops strange journey , Graz et al. 1977
  • Red moon and high summer . London 2006 ISBN 0-907871-34-8 (English edition of Red Moon and Hot Time ).

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ compare VIAF and en.wikipedia

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kaufmann, Herbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH November 27, 1976
Place of death Cologne