Johannes Grotzky

Johannes Grotzky (2013)

Johannes Grotzky (born January 3, 1949 in Hildesheim ) is a German journalist and honorary professor at the University of Bamberg . From 2002 to 2014 he was radio director of Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR).

Studies and professional career

After graduating from high school in high school Josephinum Hildesheim , he studied Slavic philology , Balkan philology and the history of Eastern and Southeastern Europe at the universities of Munich and Zagreb. Further study visits followed in Belgrade, Skopje and Sarajevo. After completing his master's degree, he received his doctorate in 1976. phil. at the University of Munich.

In 1977 he came to Bayerischer Rundfunk as a press editor.

In 1983 he became radio correspondent for ARD in Moscow and in 1989 moved to Vienna as Balkan correspondent and head of the ARD radio studio in Southeast Europe .

In 1994, as chief correspondent at BR in Munich , he took over the management of the Capital Studio Bonn-Berlin and foreign correspondents .

In 2001 Grotzky became head of the Politics and Current Affairs department and editor-in-chief of the radio.

On January 1, 2002, he was appointed radio director.

From 2005 to 2006 he was chairman of the ARD radio commission. In autumn 2011, the Broadcasting Council confirmed him for his last term of office until April 30, 2014.

In addition to his journalistic activities, Grotzky published numerous articles and books in which he deals with the states of Eastern Europe. He was also a longstanding author of the Hamburg weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

Teaching assignments

From 1995 to 2006 he was a lecturer at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich (Institute for Slavic Philology; Institute for Communication Studies).

Since 2012 he has been a lecturer and since 2014 honorary professor for Eastern European Studies , Culture and Media at the Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg (Institute for Slavic Studies) and 2014-2016 lecturer for Russian culture and history at the University of Philosophy in Munich .

Topics and positions

Yugoslavia

In his 1993 book Balkan War about the breakup of Yugoslavia, he makes clear the failure and complicity of Western politics.

Radio independence and quality

In an interview to look back on his work on the radio, Grotzky emphasized that it was particularly important to him that he had defended the independence of the editorial offices from all outside influences.

I have taken clear positions with regard to the programs: We help to form opinions, but we do not manipulate opinion. We check our sources and disclose them. We don't hide anything. We stand up for mistakes and correct them. And very important: We don't lie to our audience.

Russia and Ukraine

The media coverage of Ukraine was criticized by Grotzky as one-sided and selective. In his laudatory review of the collection of essays “Euromaidan. What is at stake in Ukraine ”by Juri Andruchowytsch , he emphasizes the importance of different perspectives and relativizes the Russian and European views of the Ukraine conflict. “The more differentiated a conflict situation is - like in Ukraine, the more likely the media are looking for supposedly clarifying differences between victim and perpetrator roles. This should enable a dramaturgy of easy understanding. ”According to Grotzky, a simplification of this kind should be overcome by a representation as complex as possible and the integration into an overall picture.

Russia's image of the media

In September 2013, Groztky criticized that the image of Russia since Gorbachev had been superficial and sketchy . Behind Gorbachev, no one noticed the internal Russian conflicts, Yeltzin was wrongly glorified and much too late it was realized that his political order was extremely unstable and that the president had become the front man of the oligarchs and his family clan. The new Russian money nobility was perceived with a mixture of admiration and contempt. Putin was understood from the outset in terms of his KGB past and the amnesty regulation for Yeltsin and, in the era of Schröder's Putin friendship, was viewed with hope. The highlight was Putin's appearance in the German Bundestag in 2001. The turnaround occurred with the centralistic tendencies and the suppression of the oligarchs, the Russian political system of the “vertical power” was received with astonishment and amusement. The climax of the negative view was reached (before September 2013) with the trials against Pussy Riot , the legally enshrined homophobia and the control of foreign foundations.

In his opinion, the media concentrated too much on individual political leadership figures and everyday politics, so the cultural, geographical, historical and political complexity of the multi-ethnic state was neglected.

In 2016, Grotzky expressed his lack of understanding of double standards in reporting. He complained about a pro-Western narrative , journalistically unheard-of headlines such as "Is Putin stopping now" or "Would you wage war with Russia, Ms. Merkel?" have become sheer impossibilities. "

Chernobyl and the collapse of the Soviet Union

Grotzky agreed with Gorbachev's view that the Chernobyl reactor accident contributed more to the collapse of the Soviet Union than glasnost and perestroika.

... the belief in the omnipotence of the state, including in Gorbachev's politics, was first and foremost severely demolished, and I believe that Gorbachev himself never recovered from this nuclear power plant disaster in his reputation among the population.

Awards

• In 1992 he received the Journalist Prize of the Southeastern Europe Society for his journalistic achievements , the Rudolf Vogel Medal in gold in recognition of his services to the expansion of knowledge about Southeastern Europe.
• In 2002 he was awarded the Bavarian State Medal for Social Services for his integration efforts .
• In 2006 he was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit and the Bavarian Constitutional Medal in silver .
• In 2010 he received the "Silver Vortex" from the Bavarian Music Council for his commitment in the field of music funding
• In 2017, the Petersburg Dialogue awarded him the special Peter Boenisch Memorial Prize for his life's work as a journalist and his special commitment to German-Russian relations.

Works

• Morphological adaptation of German loanwords in Serbo-Croatian. Munich 1978.
• Instructions for use for the Soviet Union. Munich 1985, 4th edition 1990.
• Conflict in a multi-ethnic state. The nations of the Soviet Union on the move. Munich 1991.
• Challenge Soviet Union. A world power is looking for its way. Munich 1991.
• Balkan War. The disintegration of Yugoslavia and the consequences for Europe. Munich 1993.
• Freedom alone doesn't make you feel full. Everyday life in the reform states of Eastern Europe. (Ed.) Munich, Landsberg am Lech 1996.
• Edition BR radio book. Ten volumes (ed. With Christoph Lindenmeyer), Munich 2007–2009.
• BR radio edition. (10 single editions with a total of 48 CDs, edited with Christoph Lindenmeyer), Munich 2007–2010.
• Checkmate. The last years of the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. Munich 2004, new edition. Norderstedt 2008, paperback edition 2019.
• Strange neighbors. The east and south-east of Europe at the end of the 20th century. Norderstedt 2009.
• Lenin's grandson. Reports from a bygone world. Norderstedt 2009.
• Border crossings. Searching for traces between East and West. Norderstedt 2010.
• What right do we fight there? Contributions to the role of the media in times of war and crisis. Norderstedt 2011.
• Panta Rhei. Contributions to media culture. Norderstedt 2012.
• Living history. Conversations in BR-alpha. Norderstedt 2013.
• Russia's religious renaissance. From the Gorbachev era until today. Voices of Time, Volume 232, 2014, Issue 5, pp. 291–302.
• Contributions to language change in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Norderstedt 2017.
• Chernobyl. The catastrophe. Contemporary reports, comments, reviews. Norderstedt 2018.
• Why become a journalist? Contributions from practice. Norderstedt 2018.
• Romania - the fall of a dictatorship. Revolution and power struggle. Reports 1989/90. Norderstedt 2019.

Web links

Commons : Johannes Grotzky  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Johannes Grotzky in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Johannes Grotzky on the University of Bamberg's website
• Dr. Johannes Grotzky says goodbye (2014)
• Information on the university website
• About the German media's image of Russia (2014)
• On the presentation of the Chernobyl accident in the media (2016)
• School of Philosophy, annual reports

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Not listed on http://www.zeit.de/autoren/register/G , because only the permanent employees of ZEIT ONLINE are automatically registered there. Registration is voluntary for freelance authors and ZEIT employees.
2. ↑ Then it should be listed here: https://www.hfph.de/hochschule/lehrende
3. ^ Yugoslavia - selection of literature (II) . In: The time . December 3, 1993, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed February 11, 2017]).
4. ↑ Ursula Zimmermann, Bayerischer Rundfunk: Dr. Johannes Grotzky: Questions to the outgoing radio director | BR.de . March 27, 2014 ( br.de [accessed February 11, 2017]).
5. ^ Ukraine - Corrective to the media public . In: Deutschlandfunk . ( deutschlandfunk.de [accessed on February 11, 2017]).
6. ↑ Johannes Grotzky: To the Russia picture in the German media . ( academia.edu [accessed February 11, 2017]).
7. ↑ quoted from: Ulrich Teusch: Lückenpresse: The end of journalism as we knew it . Westend Verlag, 2016, ISBN 978-3-86489-647-7 , pp. 93 ff . ( Google.de [accessed on 11 February 2017]).
8. ↑ Former ARD correspondent on Chernobyl - "Radioactivity was thrown out unhindered for ten days" . In: Deutschlandfunk . ( deutschlandfunk.de [accessed on February 11, 2017]).