Horst Stern

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Horst Stern (1997)

Horst Stern (born October 24, 1922 in Stettin ; died January 17, 2019 near Passau ) was a German science journalist , filmmaker and writer .

Stern was editor-in-chief and publisher of several magazines and the author of numerous essays and books on local wildlife and environmental protection . In the 1970s he created the documentary film series Sterns Stunden for Erste Deutsche Fernsehen as a screenwriter , director and presenter . As part of his commitment to environmental protection, he was a co-founder of the Federation for Environment and Nature Conservation Germany in 1975 , took part in establishing the German Environmental Foundation in 1982 , and was co-initiator and participant in the founding meeting of the Ökologische Jagdverein Bayern e. V. (ÖJV Bayern). In 1984 he retired from his journalistic work and emigrated to Ireland . There he wrote novels and short stories in the 1980s and 1990s. His biographical novel Mann aus Apulien became a bestseller . The writer Stern was a member of the PEN Center Germany . After returning to Germany in 2000, he lived in Passau.

Life

As little is known about the early part of Horst Stern's life as about his private life. In 1997, Ludwig Fischer published a book about the journalist and writer under the title Unfinished business . A year later, an interview with contemporary witnesses that Thomas Hocke conducted with him was published in the Witnesses of the Century series in the Nation's Memory Project . The book and interview provided the public with a great deal of background information, particularly about the genesis of his numerous journalistic projects.

Horst Stern was born four years after the end of the First World War in Western Pomerania and initially grew up there with his mother. He never met his father because his mother soon divorced. Also, she - a "simple woman" whose father was a blacksmith - never spoke to him "about this man".

After attending primary school, he went to the humanistic grammar school in Gollnow . Four years later, the mother remarried and moved to Berlin with her husband and child . There Stern attended a high school . Because the family lived in financially cramped conditions and he had "performed very well at school", he received a scholarship .

Originally interested in the subjects of physics, chemistry and mathematics, Stern later turned mainly to German and history. He didn't care about the teachers' complaints about his slacking off in other subjects. The scholarship was canceled, which made going to school "difficult". In addition, Stern had become “school tired”. In 1938 he was taken out of school with secondary school leaving certificate. At that time he was not aware of what he "threw away". In the same year he began an apprenticeship in banking on the advice of his stepfather.

War and Captivity

After the beginning of the Second World War , Stern was drafted into the Reich Labor Service . From there he should have been taken over to the " storm pioneers ". He did not want that and because the parachute troops had suffered great losses and, as Stern put it, needed “new human material”, he answered the call for volunteers. He does not like to talk about his war experiences and even if it is "not difficult" for an "eloquent person" to "exalt them in retrospect and attribute important decision-making characteristics to them", he does not want that "because it is not true". He had "seen incredibly cruel things", but should "not interpret". What brought him the war, a "persistent horror and an aversion to violence".

As a paratrooper he had been used in North Africa, among other places. Eventually he was taken prisoner by the Americans and taken to the Breckinridge camp in the USA. Unlike in other camps, he and his fellow prisoners were "never democratically indoctrinated". Instead, they would have been given “every opportunity” to “educate” themselves. The universities were opened to those "who were able to speak English to some extent", they were allowed to "buy books" and " get gramophones ". There was also a library. Stern worked as an interpreter during this time because he “spoke English quite well”, because “people were wanted” who “could mediate between the Americans and the prisoners”. Eventually he started a distance learning course at the University of Chicago and was able to pay for it with the money he earned as an interpreter. The chosen subjects - Anglo-Saxon law and literature - would have been of less interest to him, but he wanted to “perfect” his English, because he expected it to be useful in Germany later, after his return.

When he was released from captivity in 1948, the city of his birth, Szczecin, belonged to Poland and so he first went to Berlin. There was “nobody left” he still knew. The mother lived in Hamburg. But he went to southern Germany because Fritz Grube, an architect he knew from captivity, lived there. He took him "to Ludwigsburg for the military government".

Professional background

After his discharge, Stern initially worked as an "interpreter for the US Army in Ludwigsburg". Through his work at the local military tribunal , he had come into contact with journalists and eventually developed the desire to write himself. This wish was not only due to the fact that it was clear to him that his work as an interpreter would have no future in the long run. First he was a court reporter for the Stuttgarter Nachrichten . When he switched to journalism, a coincidence came to his aid. A trial in the military tribunal that had "attracted a lot of attention" in 1950 was difficult for most German journalists to understand. Stern, on the other hand, benefited not only from his knowledge of English, but also from his studies of Anglo-Saxon law and almost three years of experience at this court, so that he understood something of the difficult "litigation matter" more than others. That is why, as Stern claimed, the Stuttgarter Nachrichten was “the only paper for the entire duration of the trial” that was considered to be “reliable [...] in reporting”. From then on he wrote “court reports for years” for this daily newspaper.

In his editorial office, Stern met Wolfgang Bechtle . He made friends with him and began to share his interest in the animal world. Like Bechtle, he built an enclosure in which he kept “native animals”. He was able to study their behavior in peace, but was careful not to “tie them to himself and abuse them as cuddly animals”. These beginnings, accompanied by Bechtle, were decisive for his further life. Since then he has been fighting with various means "against the extinction of forests and species, against factory farming and genetic engineering" throughout his professional life.

In 1955, Stern left the Stuttgarter Nachrichten , triggered by a scandal that Stern reported in detail in a 1998 interview with contemporary witnesses. It was "actually a trivial matter", but he could not assert himself against his editor-in-chief by publishing a story he had researched , lost his temper and resigned.

He then became an editorial consultant for the family company of Delius Klasing Verlag and was responsible for several magazines in various functions. The publisher published specialist journals. Stern saw their problem in 1997 in the fact that “there may be very good specialists there”, but “the good journalists” are “elsewhere”. Because “good journalism was becoming more important” in the trade magazines at the time and Stern had made a name for itself in the meantime, he was used when other editors-in-chief “failed”.

According to Ludwig Fischer in 1997, Stern had “repeatedly tested his journalistic work on his own body, so to speak”. He kept animals when he wrote about animals, was sailing when he “made the yacht ” and “learned to ride from the bottom up in order to write riding lessons”. And when he started to write about “ecology”, he had “worked for seven years [...] as a nature conservation officer”. In science, Stern mentioned “the new religion” - “and I was damn right about it,” he rumbled twenty years later. In the 1970s, “public life was not yet so permeated with science”.

In the 1960s he made radio: he wrote more than 50 school radio programs about animals for Südfunk Stuttgart . Already in his first radio broadcast he warned "against a misunderstood love for animals". Horst Jaedicke , television director of Südfunk, tried to win over Stern, whom he had known for a long time, for television. His first attempt failed because he had asked Stern to make a 13-part series about animals in the Berlin zoo , which Stern indignantly refused. A year later, Jaedicke tried again, but always wanted "more entertainment", while Stern insisted on "more science". Jaedicke's efforts to "get Stern on TV" would have dragged on for over five years. Finally they agreed on "one or two animal shipments". Due to the success it became a series of its own.

Stern's hour

Stern wrote "television history" with the television series Sterns Hour named after him , for which he wrote the screenplay and directed. The series was produced by Süddeutscher Rundfunk between 1970 and 1979 with over 20 episodes and was mainly broadcast on ARD programs. In its largely star-shaped character, it was supposed to counter the usual, more entertaining than enlightening series of animal and nature films at the time and had developed into the “trademark for critical animal films”.

One of the special features of his program was the fact that Stern reported without exception from the local animal world. He always took up unpleasant topics, such as - from his point of view - a misunderstood love of animals , mistakes in animal husbandry and care, animal experiments or even cruelty to livestock . He dealt with animals that were exposed to unusual living conditions, such as circus horses, and tried to counter prejudices , as with his two-part series about spiders . But his "animal broadcasts disturb" too, "because they do not evaluate animals according to human return thinking or according to their cuddly qualities, but because Stern wanted animals to be understood consistently as part of nature".

The individual editions of Stern's hour , which almost always had the subtitle Remarks on ... , were "only too often jeremiads " (ie lamentations) "about the human instinct for exploitation and destruction" and yet, in addition to all the criticism, they were also "high Popular favor ". He seldom made friends with experts such as foresters or hunters , whose responsibility he never tired of appealing, just as little as “supposed animal lovers and supposed believers in progress”.

The first of his four films in 1971, which became one of his "trademarks", dealt with the domestic pig . When asked what he “did differently” and intended to do with this film, Stern said he wanted to show “that the person is the one who messed up the pig”. Pigs are "not only highly intelligent", but also "very clean animals", but the "corral" has consequences that earned them their bad reputation among those who are ignorant.

Red deer in Altenfelden, Austria
Deer peeling damage on a pasture

At the end of 1971, Stern caused a scandal with his remarks about the red deer , his “most provocative, polemical and effective journalist piece”, which was broadcast on ARD on Christmas Eve . The film hit "the whole animal-mad TV people on the minds" because it had called for "to save the German forest" for more shooting of these animals. His closing words:

“I mean, this serious subject was worth barely an hour of your quietest night of the year. You don't save the German forest by singing 'O Tannenbaum'. "

- Horst Stern : Comments on the red deer

In 1972 the responsible committees in the Bavarian State Parliament and in the Bundestag felt compelled to deal with this broadcast. In the long term, it led to reforms in German hunting law and ultimately earned him an honorary doctorate from the University of Hohenheim . It wasn't until much later that it was learned that Stern did not want this broadcast date. Rather, he tried to prevent that, as he said in the eyewitness interview. He was “completely flat” about the termination and told Jaedicke that he “couldn't do that”. The film begins “like a Christmas fairy tale”, but it becomes “bloody” and “polemical”. Jaedicke replied: "If someone needs television on Christmas Eve to get into the Christmas mood, then he should turn on the ZDF, the Regensburger Domspatzen sing - we broadcast that." In 1973, his comments about the came out at Christmas Butterfly and this time he made a “Christmas present” because, as he said, “people didn't want to be remembered forever as a Christmas molester”.

At the end of 1978 a two-part series about animals in pharmaceutical research went on air. For this he received "abuse letters". “A lot of pictures,” said Stern, require a “relativising comment”, which was “completely ignored”, “if the pictures are so strong that they totally overwhelm the audience's feelings and [...] just indignation surges ". That is "the danger that lies in this medium". These films were "the most serious" thing he had "ever done on television". In Germany he did not succeed in winning a pharmaceutical company for cooperation. So he went “to Switzerland” and after long negotiations with Ciba-Geigy came to an agreement. After the broadcast, there were “whole blasts” of outraged letters to the editor in which he was “only insulted” and denigrated as a “servant of the pharmaceutical industry”. He had "by no means presented the sadists in white coats", but, as always, was guided by the facts. "All of a sudden" he stood there "like the traitor" to his "own cause".

In early 1979, were the star hours with his remarks about chamois set. He later said that he had “said almost everything” that he “thought he should say”. If he had continued, he would have had to make “compromises” and he didn't want that. He “never regretted the exit”.

The magazine Der Spiegel announced that Stern had withdrawn “disappointed with the lack of impact of his reporting from the television business”. Stern himself sounded different when he summarized his experiences at an autograph session: "When the time comes that old ladies kiss your hands and see you as a Francis, then you are on the completely wrong boat." Ireland is then his self-chosen " TV hex ”.

Almost 20 years after his last film, Spiegel TV managed to bring him back to television in 1997. The Bavarian Forest National Park was infested with the bark beetle. Since he “helped to promote the creation of this unique German jungle 25 years ago”, he has now, as he said, “been unable to evade the obligation” to “assist the national park in one of its worst crises”. The result of the report on behalf of Spiegel TV was a “verbose plea for doing nothing” because, according to him, the forest could only be “helped” in this way.

In 2001, at the 16th  International Documentary Film Festival in Munich, four episodes of Stern's hour were shown. The online film magazine artechock has archived the accompanying text. It is said there that Stern's films are “pointed in style, provocative, ironic to polemical, but the result is always precise and well researched”. His "often pointed conclusions" had triggered "violent audience discussions", but "in his 40 year journalistic career [...] he never made a justiciable error". One cannot avoid “coming to the conclusion from his reports that man obviously sees himself as the crown of creation and subordinates all other living beings to his considerations of usefulness”.

At the beginning of 2002 the television museum of the Z-Bar in Berlin-Mitte organized one of its events with which "special moments from forty years of German television history" should be published. This evening was dedicated to the motto animal films as propaganda . The biologist Cord Riechelmann reported on this in an essay in the FAZ . According to Riechelmann, animal films are “in most cases not documentation, but the most terrible fiction”. As an example, the film Salzhölle der Flamingos by Vitus B. Dröscher was selected, which " ran on Sat.1 in the mid-nineties" in the series Dröschers Tierleben, which was popular at the time . The organizers “compared Dröscher to the journalist Horst Stern” and fell into a “media-historical memory hole”: “Hardly anyone of the predominantly younger audience knew Horst Stern.” Since he had achieved “ratings like Peter Alexander” with his programs, one had to Programs about animals do not necessarily remain “below any scientific knowledge”, said Riechelmann. Stern set "standards of seriously researched nature journalism", but "unfortunately [...] even in the public broadcasters did not find any students".

In her radio portrait on the occasion of his 80th birthday, Irene Klünder came to the conclusion that the “reconciliation of man and nature” was “still his longing, over 20 years after he made his last star hour”. On his 90th birthday, the magazine Der Stern quoted the journalist as saying that he had “wanted to show people the character of their society”. Resigned, he added: "But the bottom line was that I was taken for an animal filmmaker ."

Nature and environmental protection

Stern was already concerned with environmental, nature and species protection at a time when these terms were far from being “in the minds of the majority”, although, at least for nature conservation, relevant laws had long existed. For Südwestrundfunk , Stern was the "father of nature conservation". One of his early warnings that “dying and dying animals” are “warning lights of a defective biological system” can be found in the magazine Der Spiegel at the end of 1973 . The essay placed Stern in a relationship with his contemporary colleagues. Among them were Bernhard Grzimek and Heinz Sielmann , who, however, used completely different stylistic devices. Stern was a master of the word, his "language and pointed criticism" earned him "the reputation of a key witness for the ecological movement".

Even though Stern had dealt a lot with animals, he was always concerned with the big picture, with the connections between nature and its inhabitants, albeit limited to Germany. In the interview with contemporary witnesses, Hocke even said that what “stuck with the most” was his “preoccupation with the forest”. Stern described the forest as his "life theme" and was convinced that he "contributed" to "the fact that the forest" in Germany had declined.

From 1972 to 1979, Stern was the “nature conservation officer for the Lindau district ”. He had come to this sideline in a special way. At that time he lived with his family on Lake Constance, across from the Wasserburg peninsula . The Wasserburg Bay was under nature protection. Stern regularly read the accountability report , which was prepared and published every year by the "Oberforstdirektor". Since this report was in stark contradiction to Stern's daily observations, he finally wrote an angry letter to the editor and described the Wasserburg Bay as a "cesspool". The then district administrator, who saw "the importance of ecology in the political field dawning", then looked for a successor for the post of nature conservation officer and asked Stern to make an election. He followed the request, but did not say many words:

NSG Wasserburger Bucht, 2013

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you are looking for a nature conservation officer (sic!) Like you have, then keep your hands off me. You'll get nothing but trouble with me. I will call things by their name, and I will call them by their name even if one or the other is uncomfortable with them. "

- Horst Stern : Unfinished business (1997)

He was elected and has "never regretted it", although with his efforts to rehabilitate the bay, he negotiated the anger of the population because it was "only possible with the public locked out".

In 1975, in the middle of his tenure as nature conservation officer, Stern founded the Association for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany together with 20 other environmentalists . In 1982, together with over 400 fellow campaigners, he took part in setting up the German Environmental Foundation , which is now the largest community foundation in Germany. Stern was also one of the co-initiators of the Ökologische Jagdverein Bayern e. V. (ÖJV Bayern) and participant in its founding meeting in Munich's Hofbräuhaus on Hubertus Day in 1988.

Authorship

A special "linguistic talent" had already shown in school. It was said that Stern wrote “his German teachers still on the wall”. He initially developed this talent in his professional work, preferably in his fight for the protection of the environment and species. André Jahnke described him in this context as a “eloquent provocateur” who did not shy away from “drastic comparisons” in order to warn “against the thoughtless use of nature”. In addition to his media contributions, Stern also used other opportunities to draw attention to his concerns. After the eulogy of Manfred Fuhrmann occasion of the Bavarian Nature Protection Award , he thanked with a science journalism lecture entitled courage to emotion . A year later he thanked the city of Überlingen for the award of the Lake Constance Literature Prize with an allusion to his love of literature: Don't you have a size smaller, Thomas Mann ? He gave his speech at the opening of the 1977 Youth and Environment exhibition at the Deutsches Museum in Munich the title Bitter and angry . Later, especially after he emigrated to Ireland in 1984, his linguistic talents and literary interest found a place in books and short stories .

Magazines

Interest in science and linguistic talent combined to create a very unique style, with which Stern marked position and attitude. In 1980, after the "end of his television career", he founded the magazine natur and was "its publisher and editor-in-chief until 1984". The "old [n] Ringier ", and that was "unique in the industry", allowed him in his contract to "reject advertisements from large chemical companies or from nuclear companies". When later “the sons took over the management”, it came to a “rift” because they wanted “more tabloid journalistic bite”. Stern "threw in the towel". In 2012, Stern magazine put its first editorial online:

“You can think in NATURE. Not only hubris , but also hope lies in our minds. I am sure: Something will only change for the better in our parasitic dealings with nature, towards sparing it through the knowledge of our fellow creatures, if the rationally formulated, argumentatively proven thought that we humans belong to the group of plants becomes politically capable of majority and animal forms are not fundamentally different, but only fundamentally different: that our kinship gradient down to a hummingbird is demonstrably shorter than that up to a god, whose image we consider ourselves to be. As a species, we are biologically inescapable part of nature - living to its life, suffering from its suffering, dying bound to its death. "

- Horst Stern : Nature (magazine)

The genesis of the magazine was characteristic of Stern's projects. Among other things, he told them in detail in the eyewitness interview. While looking for a new publisher for his book about the spiders, Stern ran into Adolf Theobald in Zurich , who at the time was the "Editorial Director at Ringier". Theobald had "invented" magazines such as Capital and Twen and "the success of GEO " left him "no peace". He planned a competing paper that he wanted to call BIO . For this he tried to win Stern. He hesitated. If so, he didn't want to do just any paper, but something about "political ecology". He was given “a free hand”, “a graphic designer and an editor”, the necessary money and the “right [...] to veto ” advertisements . When, after the so-called zero number, a “sold circulation of 180,000 with 130,000 subscribers” (sic!) Was predicted within four years, Stern was “afraid of” his “own courage” and wanted to give up. Theobald threatened to alternatively publish the magazine BIO , which Stern considered to be “stuff”. With that, Stern, as he said, was "trapped" and now accepted. Nature was founded and received the subtitle Horst Sterns Umweltmagazin in the beginning . After four years it had the predicted edition. With this he saw his “duty fulfilled”, left and left behind “a well-functioning editorial team”.

In addition to his work for the magazine Natur , Stern was at times editor-in-chief of the magazines Gute fahrt und Unterwegs and publisher of the magazine Yacht . When he took over the magazine Yacht , he had "never seen a sailing boat up close", but "noticed" that he "would not be able to stick to this paper" if he "did not learn to sail himself". So he got the necessary sailing licenses and bought his own boat, which he had "sailed in the Mediterranean for a long time". It was his merit to have " maneuvered the yacht out of the waters of the German Sailing Association (sic!) And made it an independent, independent sheet". He also said he had a good trip “ freed from an absolute dependence on Wolfsburg ”.

Irregularly he wrote individual articles in many different magazines and for a time regularly columns for Die Zeit and Die Woche . Among his many individual contributions there are sometimes unusual things. This includes his essay on the bestseller Watership Down by Richard Adams , who in 1972 under the German title Down by the river had appeared. In 1975 it was given the heretical title Do Rabbits Have a God? published in the mirror . In his own way, with which he consistently opposed the “humanization of animals”, he criticized the book harshly on the one hand, but on the other hand “deserved it, despite all its incompatibilities, [...] to fly to rabbit heaven and there to become immortal ”.

Books

Horst Stern is the author of numerous books. He wrote some with authors who shared his concerns. Lauter Viechereien is one of his early works, which he wrote in 1957 together with Wolfgang Bechtle . He published about the spiders in 1975 with the zoologist and "spider researcher" Ernst Kullmann under the title Leben am Seidenen Faden . Stern had “worked on spiders for three years” and this book was “important” to him because it was “the transition from journalism to literature” for him. Because the publisher did not dare to re-issue after 12,000 copies had sold, he had "had the rights returned by Bertelsmann " and looked for a new publisher on his own. First he was able to win Kindler-Verlag in 1981 and Franckh-Kosmos was also braver than Bertelsmann 15 years later. In 1979, with Kurt Blüchel and Heinz Sielmann, Naturwunder Germany was created, and in the same year with Rudolf Schreiber and Wolfgang Dietzen, The World of Our Animals .

There are also numerous works that assign him sole authorship. Among them is his riding apprenticeship, entitled How to earn the spurs, insofar as it appeared for the first time in 1961, but was then reissued as a successful riding apprenticeship in 2015 after more than 50 years and 20 editions . It goes back to a personal request from Rolf Keller, who, as the head of the Kosmos publishing house at the time, complained that “as an old rider” he couldn't find a rider's book in his own publishing house. Stern should write him a riding apprenticeship and he was "always available for something like that". In 1997 he told Ludwig Fischer the story of its origins. The publisher, who wanted photos in the book, sent Stern to Hanover, where he was supposed to have "custom-made boots" from a "boot tailor" who had his workshop across from the "former cavalry school in Hanover ". A "trouser cutter" had also been tried to get him " riding breeches " - everything "should have its chic". However, Stern felt like in a "carnival costume". Then Keller put a riding instructor at his side and he received individual lessons - on the publisher's horse. The riding instructor “came from the Reiter-SS , a commissary through and through”, and Stern was “often yelled at in his life, but never as it was on the horse”. That was "the secret of the success of this book". In the evening after riding lessons he wrote. And read, “everything there was about this animal”, also about the “history of the horse, dressage and ethology ”.

In 1984, Stern switched from journalism to literature, after having written his first poems and fiction while still a prisoner of war . In doing so he “freed himself from this journalistic compulsion”, which “dominated him for a lifetime” and forced him to deal with issues of increased circulation or his burden of proof if one of his allegations became “justifiable”. Now he made "attention to himself with his novels". “His works, ' Mann aus Apulien ' (1986), ' Jagdnovelle ' (1989) and ' Klint - Stations of Confusion ' were perceived by some critics as literary star hours”. This view was not always shared.

His novel Klint (1993) in particular drew criticism. The literary quartet , led by Marcel Reich-Ranicki, devoted itself extensively to Stern's novel, the protagonist of which Klint became desperate and eventually fell ill with environmental destruction. From Reich-Ranicki we learn that Kindler Verlag initially accepted the book, but then "rejected it at the last moment". The book "failed", the literary critics agreed. And yet Reich-Ranicki tried to save his honor: There are “a number of episodes that are terrificly written. He can write. ”But Stern is a“ strange outsider ”and the“ environmental problem ”is not“ so particularly [...] for works of fiction ”. The animal most "abused" by humans, according to Hellmuth Karasek , was the horse for Stern and it seemed to him that Stern had prompted Stern to make this animal the "core" of the story - but in a way that Karasek " disgusting "found. Ultimately, Reich-Ranicki came up with the criticism of the book to a summary that was supposed to save what could be saved: "It is serious and not written without talent, we want to acknowledge that." Reiner Luyken had visited Stern in Ireland and learned there:

“The novel is an extrapolation of my fears. The great fears of our time are concentrated in Klint, the pivotal point of which is that man continues to drive science, accepting the destruction of the world. I think the couple of years I have will be fine. But I fear for my grandchildren. "

- Horst Stern : The time

Stern rejected the assumption that the book contained “autobiographical parts”. It is about the story "how the destruction of nature can destroy a person", but it was also a "settlement" with his profession, because he had "made harsh judgments about journalism".

Stern's novel Mann aus Apulien (1986) about Emperor Friedrich II , published seven years earlier, met with a more positive response. The philologist Theo Stemmler wrote a review in the magazine Der Spiegel , which already with its title Friedrichs Sternstunde suggested positive things. With this novel, Stern rose "into an arena" with "greats" like Robert Graves and Marguerite Yourcenar . He has to be “measured” against them. “We are experiencing a new, completely different Friedrich”, Stemmler wrote, and “astonished, maybe even incredulous”, “the reader” could follow “Friedrich's U-turn at the end of a long road”. Through “the first-person narration”, the “text is always direct, personal, lively”. Because Stern could not refrain from sexual innuendo in this novel either, Stemmler could not avoid making critical statements. Nevertheless, in summary, he finds a compliment. Such "slight taste clouding" disturbs "the enjoyment of the whole thing only a little" and a "comparison with the recognized masters of the fictional autobiography" could stand Stern "well."

His hunting novella came into being after Stern had given up his original plan to turn the material into a feature film. It “sold well in America” and was “prettier” than the German edition. In an interview with contemporary witnesses, he proudly reported how the New Yorker had written that the band had "destroyed the hunting myth of Ernest Hemingway ".

As the last of his fiction works, a small volume of poetry was published in 1994 with the title Head Love . The poems are from the 1990s, even if he wrote his first poetry while a prisoner of war. He “needs that sometimes,” he said. “Writing poetry” is “a very special kind of experience”.

Stern and the media

Media worker

Ludwig Fischer compared Stern with the “great figures of West German journalism” like Henri Nannen , Rudolf Augstein and others, to whom he “undoubtedly belonged”. Unlike her, whose name was always associated with a certain paper, it had "the impression" that Stern had followed "the media-historical development" in Germany and had used the "opportunities contained therein" to find "optimal [ …] Possible effect ”. Starting in a daily newspaper, he worked “in times of the diversified (ie diverse note from the ref. ) Press landscape as editor-in-chief and publisher of several specialist magazines”, then switched to radio, which “at the end of the 1950s” was the “most widespread mass medium “Was. Since the "mid-sixties" the "households were equipped with the ' flicker box ' across the board ", he "finally [...] got involved in television" as the "definitive leading medium that shaped the public sphere". In this, however, adds Fischer, "trying to identify a secret media-historical consistency and straightforwardness [...]" would not be appropriate because that "would in no way do justice to Stern's career".

Object of the media

During his active time in Germany, Stern was a kind of media star. He had numerous supporters, but also critics and opponents. Some he had even made an enemy with his denunciation of grievances, which he often put forward in all sharpness. Having worked in the media landscape for his entire career, he himself was often the subject of the attention of his colleagues. He liked to be in the limelight with his cause, but not as a person. And so he complained in an interview with Thomas Hocke in 1998 that he had “become a kind of public property”.

As a rule, media support was directed towards his professional contributions, which were considerable in terms of quality and quantity. Criticism, however, liked to target his person and was occasionally not afraid to lose his decency. Some "protested against the 'pig col' and 'sadists' who had to be 'kicked into the weid hole' and 'whipped' because of their 'absurd feelings'". Stern, he is quoted as saying, “showed that luxuriant, non-conformist creature” people “how it turns pigs into a pig and transforms wild animals into cookie-eating caricatures”. He had “held the mirror in front of the materially affluent society in front of its eyes” and “confronted it with the way in which it treated animals”. In doing so, he had attracted the desired attention, but also incurred the anger of some of his viewers.

As a rule, Stern was always committed to the facts in his programs. Only in rare exceptional cases did he allow “very personal” things to flow in, around 1964, when he reported on the school radio about the sea and described in detail how, as a prisoner of war on the transport to the USA, he got into what is now called a monster wave : “ Terrible, horrible and somehow primeval ”.

Despite all his diverse interests, Stern was always keen to only do what he at least believed he could learn. Recognizing one's own limits was important to him. His friend Dieter Hildebrandt once asked him to perform in his political cabaret, windshield wiper . Stern refused and was convinced that Hildebrandt had "taken it a bit offended" him for a long time.

Withdrawal from the public

In 1984, Stern retired from his journalistic work to Ireland, where he devoted himself to his writing preferences. The media reported various things about this withdrawal. The online magazines Focus and Stern referred to an earlier interview and reported that he seemed "resigned" at the time because he had "not achieved his ambitious goals". "Nothing" has changed, "the laying batteries have not become smaller, the calves are still in the dark box, and animal cruelty has even increased."

This is countered by an interview that Reiner Luyken conducted with him in Ireland in 1993 for the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit . Stern seemed angry about how his withdrawal was interpreted: “I was always proud of my job, of my status as a journalist and now it means that the old man has given up. A man gives up. With that I am being dragged through the media now. In doing so, I only do what is deeply human, namely to live contemplatively . ”Luyken must have experienced anything but resigned Stern when he ended his report with the remark that Stern was“ still obsessed with swimming against the current . "

In an interview with contemporary witnesses, Stern mentioned the motives for his stay in Ireland: “I wanted to put kilometers between myself and these (sic!) Public demands on myself. That was the main reason. ”There were many who wanted to use him for their own purposes, and if he refused, he was“ insulted ”. But since he was convinced that he had “fulfilled his duty to the public”, he felt he had the “right to step backwards”.

At times, Stern seemed annoyed when it was touted as new, which he assumed was known from his films. In 1997 he complained about being awarded the Golden Camera for a film about animal transport: "We should talk again about the fact that today the young generation is rediscovering everything that I showed them 20 years ago". Stern was referring to the 1996 Golden Camera , which honored Manfred Karremann as the best documentary filmmaker. A year later, in an interview with a contemporary witness, when Thomas Hocke asked him about its effect, he said: "I have actually only ever achieved something in the minds and hearts of the powerless, and almost nothing in the minds of the powerful."

Since his return to Germany in 2000, Stern has avoided “TV stations and the press” and refused “any interview requests” - reported the Focus in its online offer. On the occasion of his 90th birthday, a “spokeswoman for the city of Passau” announced that he “did not want to go in public and celebrate his special day in seclusion”. Horst Stern died in January 2019 at the age of 96.

Fonts (selection)

Non-fiction

  • with Wolfgang Bechtle : Lots of things. Stories of animals with family ties . Franckh, Stuttgart 1963 (first edition: 1957).
  • Animally cheerful. The best animal jokes with zoological notes . Delius, Klasing, Bielefeld, Berlin 1960.
  • This is how you earn your spurs . Kosmos, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-440-14476-3 (Original title: This is how you earn your spurs. Learn to ride as it rarely says in a book . First edition: Franckh, Stuttgart 1961).
  • With animals by yourself. One in animal science . 4th edition. Maier, Ravensburg 1974, ISBN 3-473-39146-8 (first edition: Franckh, Stuttgart 1965, The book edition of the radio lectures).
  • Song of earthworms and other curiosities. Tells strictly according to nature. 13 new radio lectures . Franckh, Stuttgart 1967.
  • Horst Stern: Stern for readers. Animals and landscapes . Franckh, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-440-04017-8 .
  • Courage to contradict. Speeches and essays . Kindler, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-463-00595-6 .
  • with Ernst Kullmann : life by a thread . The mysterious world of spiders . Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-440-07129-4 (first edition: Bertelsmann, Munich 1975).
  • Save the forest . Updated version edition. Kindler, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-463-40107-X (first edition: 1979).
  • Rudolf L. Schreiber (ed.): Save the wild animals . Pro-Natur-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-88582-001-3 .
  • Rudolf L. Schreiber (Ed.): Save the birds - we need them . Herbig, Munich, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-7766-0872-2 (first edition: 1978).
  • with Rudolf L. Schreiber , Wolfgang Dietzen: The world of our animals . Springer, Hamburg 1979.
  • Ecology: Waldeslust '79 . In: Geo-Magazin. No. 9 , 1979, ISSN  0342-8311 , p. 134-156 .
  • Kaiserstuhl: the ugly vineyard . In: Geo-Magazin . No. 10 , 1979, ISSN  0342-8311 , p. 130-156 .
  • Open letter to the speech given by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt on nature conservation in Europe . In: Geo-Magazin . No. 12 , 1979, ISSN  0342-8311 , p. 156–158 (Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's answer: “You have thoroughly misunderstood me.” In: Geo-Magazin. No. 4, 1980, ISSN  0342-8311 , pp. 148–149.).
  • Animal testing . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-499-17406-5 (This volume contains the original texts from Horst Stern's scripts for the film Die Stellvertreter - Animals in pharmaceutical research ).
  • with Kurt Blüchel , Heinz Sielmann : Natural wonders of Germany. The last natural treasures of our homeland . Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1990, ISBN 3-88703-608-5 (first edition: Naturalis, Munich, Cologne 1988).
  • Comments on a vacation landscape. Remarks on the red deer . Droemer Knaur, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-426-03989-3 .
  • Comments on the animal in the trade. Comments on the domestic pig . Droemer Knaur, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-426-03990-7 .
  • Ulli Pfau (Ed.): The Horst-Stern-Reading Book . German Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-423-30327-1 .
  • Ludwig Fischer (Hrsg.): The weight of a spring. Speeches, polemics, essays, films . Goldmann, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-442-72204-7 .

Poems and fiction

  • Corporal Kluncke . In: The reputation . Independent papers for independent readers . tape 4 , no. 6 , March 15, 1949.
  • Man from Apulia . The private papers of the Italian Staufer Frederick II, Roman-German Emperor, King of Sicily and Jerusalem, first after God, on the true nature of humans and animals, written 1245 - 1250 . 1st edition. Kindler, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-463-40010-3 .
  • Hunting novella . 1st edition. Knaus, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-463-40119-3 .
  • Klint. Stations of confusion . 1st edition. Knaus, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-8135-0294-5 .
  • Head love. Poems . Ed. Pongratz, Hauzenberg 1994, ISBN 3-923313-86-1 .

Filmography (selection)

  • Notes on the Bee (1970)
  • Observations on Domestic Cattle (1970)
  • Notes on the Hound (1970)
  • Observations on the Domestic Pig (1971)
  • Notes on the Domestic Chicken (1971)
  • Notes on the Hedgehog (1971)
  • Notes on the Red Deer (1971)
  • Notes on the Horse in the Circus (1973)
  • Notes on the Stork (1973)
  • By a thread - remarks on the spider (1975)
  • Comments on the dog as a commodity (1976)
  • Notes on the Animal in the Zoo (1976)
  • Observations on Animals in Pharmaceutical Research (1978)
  • Notes on Chamois [sic!] (1979)

Awards and honors

literature

  • Ludwig Fischer (Ed.): Unfinished business. The journalist and writer Horst Stern (=  contributions to media aesthetics and media history . No. 4 ). Lit Verlag , Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-8258-3397-6 ( limited preview in the Google book search [accessed on August 12, 2017]).
  • Reinhard Piechocki, Ludwig Fischer (ed.): Horst Stern. Speeches - essays - interviews . Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Bonn 2014, ISBN 978-3-89624-119-1 (treatises by and about Horst Stern. Table of contents at the DNB ).

Film portrait

Web links

Commons : Horst Stern  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Horst Stern  - Quotes

Remarks

  1. ↑ Stern is married and has two children. Der Spiegel magazine and artechock reported:
    • "The passionate loner who, assisted by Mrs. Anneliese and two sons, kept owls, owls, falcons, martens and foxes in a leased orchard in the 1950s ..." NN: Man made a pig. In: Der Spiegel . December 31, 1973. Retrieved August 15, 2017 .
    • “1946 marriage with Annelies Bettin” in artechock (accessed on August 26, 2017). The year of marriage is doubtful. Stern said he was released from captivity in 1948.
    • He has grandchildren, Reiner Luyken: swimmers against the current. In: Der Spiegel . March 5, 1993. Retrieved November 3, 2017 .
  2. ↑ According to current knowledge, when Stern was actually released from captivity has to remain unclear:
  3. ↑ They are printed in Horst Stern: Stern for readers. Animals and landscapes . Franckh, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-440-04017-8 .
  4. ↑ This included programs such as Ein Platz für Tiere by Bernhard Grzimek and Expeditions into the Animal Kingdom (until 1991 by Heinz Sielmann ) or pure entertainment films such as Daktari , Lassie or Flipper , all of which were very popular.
  5. ↑ Stern's Hour: Remarks on the Red Deer . Direction and screenplay: Horst Stern. Camera: Kurt Hirschel. First broadcast: December 24, 1971 (ARD). In six parts on Ulli Pfau's YouTube channel . Quote: Horst Stern, remarks about the red deer, part 6 on YouTube , timestamp 0:53. Retrieved August 20, 2017
  6. ↑ see also the time table for the history of nature conservation
  7. ↑ Poems written by Stern while he was a prisoner of war were published by Günther Birkenfeld in the horizon and one of his short stories was published in one of the first post-war papers in Germany: Der Ruf , founded by the so-called Gruppe 47 .
  8. ↑ In this context, a remark by Stern may be of interest, with which he tried to defend himself against criticism in the Spiegel magazine 20 years earlier: “The riding press hit me as violently as if [a] hippological guest worker had fire in their exclusive Thrown stable. “ NN: Man made the pig a pig. In: Der Spiegel . December 31, 1973. Retrieved August 15, 2017 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ TV journalist Horst Stern died , zeit.de, accessed on January 22, 2019
  2. ↑ "Stern's Hour" creator Horst Stern is dead , br.de, accessed on January 21, 2019
  3. ^ Members. PEN Center Germany, accessed on September 21, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Ludwig Fischer (Ed.): Unfinished business. The journalist and writer Horst Stern (=  contributions to media aesthetics and media history . No. 4 ). Lit Verlag , Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-8258-3397-6 ( limited preview in the Google book search [accessed on August 12, 2017]).
  5. ↑ Horst Stern in conversation with Thomas Hocke, in the series Witnesses of the Century , created in the project Memory of the Nation ( interview - August 5, 1998  - duration 59:53 minutes).
  6. ↑ Fischer 1997, p. 9
  7. ↑ a b c Fischer 1997, p. 10
  8. ↑ Fischer 1997, p. 295
  9. ↑ Fischer 1997, p. 11
  10. ↑ Fischer 1997, p. 12
  11. ↑ For the story of how Stern became an American prisoner of war, see interview with Stern / Hocke (from 04:29)
  12. ^ Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky - WWII Prisoner of War Camp. In: Eastern Kentucky Military Historical Society (EKMHS). Retrieved August 17, 2017 : "Camp Breckinridge was an Army post built in 1942, on 36,000 acres, at a cost of $ 39,000,000. [...] Used during WW II, 1943-46, as prisoner of war camp for as many as 3,000 enlisted men of German Army. "
  13. ↑ a b c d Fischer 1997, p. 13
  14. ^ German POWs in the Southern United States: Reeducation and Reactions during World War II. In: The History Experience. May 3, 2014, accessed on August 17, 2017 .
  15. ↑ Fischer 1997, p. 14
  16. ↑ a b Fischer 1997, p. 16
  17. ↑ a b c Horst Stern in the Munzinger archive , accessed on August 16, 2017 ( beginning of article freely available)
  18. ↑ Irene Klünder: A critic in the snail shell. In: SWR2 . October 28, 2002, accessed on August 28, 2017 (duration 27:31 minutes. Page numbers refer to the manuscript . Repeat on October 24, 2012, subtitle: On the 90th birthday of the conservationist Horst Stern ).
  19. ↑ a b c Fischer 1997, p. 17
  20. ↑ a b c d e f g h N.N .: Man made the pig a pig. In: Der Spiegel . December 31, 1973. Retrieved August 15, 2017 .
  21. ↑ a b c Klünder 2002, p. 5
  22. ↑ Klünder 2002, p. 6
  23. ↑ a b c Klünder 2002, p. 4
  24. ↑ Interview with contemporary witness Stern / Hocke (1998, 09:35)
  25. ↑ Fischer 1997, p. 22
  26. ↑ a b Fischer 1997, p. 23
  27. ↑ On the way to radio, see contemporary witness interview Stern / Hocke (from 12:39)
  28. ↑ a b Fischer 1997, p. 25
  29. ↑ The story of how he got on television was "adventurous". It is told in detail in the Stern / Hocke interview with contemporary witnesses (from 3:00 p.m.)
  30. ↑ a b c Horst Stern. In: Weltbild . Retrieved August 13, 2017 .
  31. ↑ 'Stern' hours of television history. In: SWR television. October 12, 2012, accessed August 15, 2017 .
  32. ↑ Comments on the horse in the circus on YouTube
  33. ↑ Stern reported in detail in an interview with contemporary witnesses about the particular difficulties of filming nocturnal spiders in motion when exposed to light, because they usually immediately lapse into rigidity when they are irradiated with light: Stern / Hocke interview with contemporary witnesses (from 9:24 pm)
  34. ↑ a b c Klünder 2002, p. 3
  35. ↑ Klünder 2002, p. 7
  36. ↑ See contemporary witness interview Stern / Hocke (from 34:20)
  37. ↑ a b Horst Stern: Comments on the red deer, part 1–6 on YouTube
  38. ↑ a b In detail about the background and audience reactions in the contemporary witness interview Stern / Hocke (from 26:35)
  39. ↑ NN: Against the grain. In: Der Spiegel . December 20, 1971, accessed on August 17, 2017 (Der Spiegel uses a shortened quote: Stern spoke in the original of the "German" forest. Spiegel does not use this word.).
  40. ↑ Horst Stern shocked with "Remarks on the Red Deer". In: Chronicle of the ARD. Retrieved August 15, 2017 .
  41. ↑ Honors. Honorary doctors. In: University of Hohenheim. Retrieved August 17, 2017 .
  42. ↑ a b Klünder 2002, p. 9
  43. ↑ a b c Klünder 2002, p. 10
  44. ↑ a b Fischer 1997, p. 36
  45. ↑ Fischer 1997, p. 37
  46. ↑ a b c Fischer 1997, p. 38
  47. ↑ a b Remarks on a Dying Forest . Spiegel TV report from November 23, 1997. Timestamp 3:49 - 5:01
  48. ↑ a b c d The animal in sight: Horst Stern. In: 16th International Documentary Film Festival Munich 2001. artechock , 2001, accessed on August 26, 2017 .
  49. ↑ a b Klünder 2002, p. 8
  50. ↑ a b Cord Riechelmann: So cute, our feathered friends. In: true. Retrieved on August 16, 2017 (first published on January 7, 2002 in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung No. 5, p. BS3).
  51. ^ A b c André Jahnke: TV journalist Horst Stern celebrates his 90th birthday. In: Stern (magazine) . October 24, 2012, accessed August 14, 2017 .
  52. ↑ The father of nature conservation. In: SWR2. October 24, 2012, accessed August 28, 2017 .
  53. ↑ a b c d e f TV journalist Horst Stern turns 90. In: Focus . October 24, 2012, accessed August 15, 2017 .
  54. ↑ See eyewitness interview Stern / Hocke (from 36:30)
  55. ↑ a b Fischer 1997, p. 30
  56. ↑ a b Fischer 1997, p. 29
  57. ↑ Wolfgang Kornder: Impressions from the festive event - Ökologischer Jagdverband Bayern. In: Ökologischer Jagdverein Bayern e. V. Archived from the original on January 22, 2019 ; accessed on November 29, 2018 .
  58. ↑ Hunt for a prejudice - Greenpeace magazine issue 5.09. In: Greenpeace magazine. Archived from the original on January 22, 2019 ; accessed on January 22, 2019 .
  59. ↑ DNB 1068195738/04
  60. ↑ a b Congratulations, dear Horst Stern! In: Nature (magazine) . October 24, 2012, accessed August 16, 2017 .
  61. ↑ a b c Reiner Luyken: Swimmers against the current . In: The time . No. 10 , March 5, 1993, ISSN  0044-2070 , pp. 100 .
  62. ↑ See eyewitness interview Stern / Hocke (from 43:35)
  63. ↑ a b c Fischer 1997, p. 39
  64. ↑ a b c d Fischer 1997, p. 40
  65. ↑ a b c Fischer 1997, p. 41
  66. ↑ a b Fischer 1997, p. 24
  67. ↑ a b Horst Stern: Do rabbits have a god? In: Der Spiegel . July 7, 1975. Retrieved August 13, 2017 .
  68. ↑ Life by a thread. DNB, accessed September 24, 2017 .
  69. ↑ a b Fischer 1997, p. 27
  70. ↑ a b Fischer 1997, p. 28
  71. ↑ Interview with eyewitnesses Stern / Hocke (from 07:07)
  72. ↑ Fischer 1997, p. 42
  73. ↑ a b The Literary Quartet 26, August 15, 1993, timestamp 42:03 - 55:00
  74. ↑ See eyewitness interview Stern / Hocke (from 53:31)
  75. ↑ In detail about the history of the book, which goes back to the "sixties", in the contemporary witness interview Stern / Hocke (from 40:19)
  76. ↑ a b Theo Stemmler: Friedrich's great moment. In: DER SPIEGEL 40/1986. September 29, 1986. Retrieved August 25, 2017 .
  77. ↑ The story of the hunting novella can be found in the contemporary witness interview Stern / Hocke (from 48:55)
  78. ↑ See eyewitness interview Stern / Hocke (from 54:45)
  79. ↑ a b Fischer 1997, p. 53
  80. ↑ Interview with contemporary witnesses Stern / Hocke (from 01:28 a.m.)
  81. ↑ Horst Stern: habitats for plants and animals: the sea . School radio, 2nd program, 5: 00-5: 30 p.m. Süddeutscher Rundfunk, July 10, 1964
  82. ↑ Fischer 1997, p. 34
  83. ↑ Fischer 1997, p. 35
  84. ↑ See contemporary witness interview Stern / Hocke (from 56:06)
  85. ↑ Interview with eyewitnesses Stern / Hocke (from 02:20 am)
  86. ↑ Comments on the horse in the circus on YouTube
personal data
SURNAME Stern, Horst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist, filmmaker and writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH 17th January 2019
Place of death near Passau