Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler

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Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler, 1956

Karl-Eduard Richard Arthur von Schnitzler (born April 28, 1918 in Dahlem , † September 20, 2001 in Zeuthen ) was a German journalist . During the Second World War he was transferred to the 999 Penal Battalion as a soldier in the Wehrmacht for anti-Nazi propaganda . As chief commentator on GDR television and author and presenter of the political agitational television program The Black Channel , he was the most controversial journalist among the GDR population.

Life

Youth and education

Schnitzler was the youngest son of Legation Councilor Julius Eduard von Schnitzler . According to his autobiography, Schnitzler's grandmother was an illegitimate daughter of the “99-day emperor” Friedrich III. , he himself was a great-grandson of the emperor. Schnitzler's father had been Vice Consul in Shanghai since 1898 . On September 20, 1913, he was raised to the Prussian nobility. The mother was Margarethe von Schnitzler, b. Gillett. His brother, ten years older than him, was Hans Schnitzler . His cousins ​​included the IG Farben sales director , Georg von Schnitzler , and the ambassador Herbert von Dirksen . The banker Kurt Freiherr von Schröder was related by marriage. Schnitzler's upper-class family included later Nazi war criminals.

At the age of fourteen Schnitzler joined the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ).

time of the nationalsocialism

After graduating from the Friedenauer Gymnasium , Schnitzler dropped out of the medical studies he had begun in Freiburg in 1937 after two semesters . He had contact with the banned KPD . From 1938 to 1940 he completed a commercial apprenticeship at the Felten & Guilleaume cable works in Cologne . In 1939 he became the owner of a freight forwarding company.

During the Second World War , Schnitzler did military service from 1939 to 1944. He was posted to a Wehrmacht intelligence department. From 1940 to 1944 he was a Wehrmacht soldier in France, Yugoslavia and the USSR. In August 1941 he was wounded and used because of anti-Nazi propaganda with the penalty battalion 999 in the Africa campaign , where he was wounded again. In 1943 he made contacts with the Resistance in France . In April 1944 he was arrested in Paris. He escaped from custody and was active in the military resistance of the Maquis . In June 1944 he was taken prisoner by the British . In the same year he became an employee of the BBC's German department and did propaganda work for the British.

Journalist in the British zone of occupation

While in British captivity, he prepared for his work on post-war German radio : he was employed by the BBC program Here German Prisoners of War speak to the homeland , and later for broadcasting in the British occupation zone , the Northwest German Broadcasting (NWDR) in Hamburg. In October 1945 he started his service in Hamburg as head of women's radio in the NWDR headquarters and also gave contributions to the series Are we on the right path? , which Peter von Zahn directed. On January 1, 1946, he became head of the politics department of the NWDR Cologne. The statement he often quoted later that he was "acting director" in Cologne apparently relates to his function, according to which, as deputy director, he was significantly involved in building up the NWDR in Cologne. The British Chief Controller of the NWDR, Hugh Carleton Greene , judged him retrospectively: “Schnitzler was transferred from Cologne to Hamburg on a trial basis, where he continued to make political comments; he was a good radio publicist and had a bright head whom I didn't want to lose. Since he continued to incorporate communist propaganda into his comments, however, I came to the conclusion that he had to go. ”On December 31, 1947, he received his resignation.

Relocation to the Soviet occupation zone

Von Schnitzler (2nd from left) on the arrival of the special train with the Foreign Minister of the GDR, Lothar Bolz , in Geneva in 1959

At the end of 1947, Schnitzler went to the Soviet zone of occupation , where he joined the SED in 1948 and became a commentator for Berlin radio and Germany's broadcaster. In 1952 he became head of the commentator group of the State Broadcasting Committee and later chief commentator of GDR television .

Schnitzler commented on the uprising of June 17, 1953 in the GDR as follows:

“After a day and a half an adventure came to an end that was supposed to turn the democratic sector of Berlin into a source of fire that could have sparked a world fire. […] It was not about norms, not about free elections, not about improving the standard of living, not about freedom of any kind; Instead, under the abuse of the good faith of some of the Berlin workers' and employees, that they had to respond to gross errors in raising the standard with work stoppages and demonstrations, paid provocateurs and the scraps of the West Berlin underworld bought an attack on freedom, an attack on existence tried on the jobs, on the families of our working people. Provocateurs unleashed the riots not because there was dissatisfaction, but because all measures and steps have been taken by our government and the Politburo of the SED to eliminate the causes of dissatisfaction, to immediately improve the standard of living of our working people and to obstruct the unity of Germany clear away. "

- Karl Eduard von Schnitzler : The attempt on peace failed.

Author and presenter of the propaganda program The Black Channel

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From 1960 (first broadcast on March 21), he moderated the propaganda program The Black Channel , in which he commented on excerpts from Western television in line with the GDR leadership. On August 27, 1962, he described the 18-year-old bricklayer Peter Fechter , who bled to death in front of the camera at Checkpoint Charlie while trying to escape without arms, as “a shot criminal”.

His western opponent was the journalist Gerhard Löwenthal , who targeted human rights violations in the GDR on the ZDF-Magazin program . The hardliner Schnitzler was nicknamed " Sudel-Ede ". The SFB commentator Günther Lincke gave him this name in early February 1961 in the show Mitteldeutsches Tagebuch as a replica of Schnitzler's verbal attack against the Mitteldeutsche Tagebuch ("Black channels like sudeln ..."), in which it was previously reported that the chief commentator of the GDR Television regularly made purchases in West Berlin with D-Mark to cover its consumer needs and visited night clubs there. Schnitzler said: “A Günter Lincke - the name Lincke is in stark contrast to the ideology of this gentleman. With 'Sudel-Ede' he came up with something pretty for me. ”Another nickname - rumored in political jokes and in cabaret - was Karl-Eduard von Schni (also Karl-Ed or Karl-Eduard Vonsch ), because supposedly everyone Viewer switched to another channel before the end of his name in the announcement. According to the political joke, a "Schnitz" was that part of a second that you needed to turn off the television after Schnitzler appeared on the screen.

In 1978 Schnitzler became a member of the central board of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship . Schnitzler was - depending on the prevailing political weather conditions - bound by instructions: During and after the initiation of the billion- euro loan for the GDR in the first half of 1983, he was obliged to hold back as a "communist eater" because of the portrayal of his favorite enemy, Franz Josef Strauss .

Turning time

In the GDR, Schnitzler was one of the most hated system representatives among the population. In particular, the persistent discrepancy between loudly proclaimed social aspirations and individual reality in private life was bitter among the people. For example, during the demonstrations immediately before November 9, 1989, the following were loudly chanted: “Schnitzler stop lying, don't buy anything in the West!” On October 23, 1989 demonstrators in Leipzig demanded: “Schnitzler away from image and Sound that sullies the nation! ”Der Spiegel commented:“ In addition to the shortage of tropical fruits, it was the oversupply of Schnitzler comments that drove people onto the streets in 1989. ”

Since the summer of 1989, GDR television had become less and less credible as a result of the SED leadership's ignorance of the realities. In September, in a planning consultation of the television committee, chairman Heinz Adameck said that one should “not stick to the familiar” in the future. In October 1989, the current camera only reached under four percent of GDR citizens. In the course of a structural change in the Black Canal, Schnitzler was to be provided with an “expert” for the purpose of “factual information”, which Schnitzler indignantly refused. In order to enforce the withdrawal of the change, he wrote to the new SED chairman Krenz. Schnitzler described his merits and at the same time vowed improvement. He announced "withdrawal of the polemics, renouncement of attacks by name while at the same time objectively weighing the achievements, successes and sense of reality of the FRG". But Krenz stayed cold and Schnitzler gave up.

On October 30, 1989, the GDR television set the Black Channel after 1519 episodes after its removal was demanded at the Monday demonstrations and the newspaper Neues Deutschland had reviled it as a " Nessie- like fossil". The slot after the Monday film was given on November 6th to the spectacularly critical series of reports Klartext , which in the following months achieved a viewing participation rate of over 40 percent. The " turning point " had reached GDR television.

In January 1990, the SED-PDS initiated a party expulsion process against Schnitzler, which he countered with his own resignation.

After German reunification in 1991, Schnitzler was a columnist for the satirical magazine Titanic and author of the Weißenseer Blätter for a few months . He became a member of the DKP .

When asked about values, he said in the N3 talk show Profile : "Of course we [meant socialism and capitalism] will be able to learn a lot from each other", but there are still ideological differences that need to be resolved . Schnitzler told the television magazine Spiegel TV in August 1997: “Thank God [...] we built the wall . That was absolutely correct. ”In the further course of the conversation, he described the wall as a beneficial building.

In 1999 he appeared on the show I'll introduce myself! of the broadcaster TV Berlin . He belonged to the permanent circle of authors of the communist-socialist monthly RotFuchs .

Schnitzler as a documentary filmmaker

In addition to his television work, Schnitzler also made numerous documentaries. In some of his works, media scientists from the University of Leipzig proved in an investigation that Schnitzler “proved” his allegedly factual theses with manipulated or re-enacted film material. The viewing quota for Schnitzler's documentaries, which was kept secret in the GDR, was seven percent.

Family and private

In 1940 he married Marlis Hoeres from Eschweiler , with whom he had a son, Stephan, who committed suicide at the age of 42. In 1952 he married the actress Inge Keller . The daughter Barbara Schnitzler emerged from the divorce in 1956 , who, like her mother, became an actress. The third marriage with Christine Laszar , entered into in 1958, was divorced after a short time.

Schnitzler's fourth wife, the Hungarian actress, singer and editor Márta Rafael (1926–2017), was arrested in a West Berlin department store in 1983 after she was caught by a department store detective stealing two packs of women's stockings worth 16.40  D-Marks would have. There was widespread coverage of the theft in the Western media, and the unbelief of Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler, who celebrated the suppression of the workers' uprising of June 17, 1953 and cheered the construction of the Wall while his family continued to shop in the West, was further increased Basics.

Schnitzler died in Zeuthen at the age of 83 of complications from pneumonia . His urn grave is in the Eichwalde cemetery in the Dahme-Spreewald district of Brandenburg .

Filmography

Awards

Fonts

  • Germany and the world. Comments 1948 to 1955 . Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1955.
  • Television journalism - a genre of documentary film . In: Documentarists of the World. Testimonials . Henschelverlag, Berlin 1982, pp. 314-319.
  • My castles or How I found my fatherland . Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-355-00971-7 .
  • The red channel. Poor Germany . Edition Nautilus, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-89401-211-0 .
  • Provocations . Edition Nautilus, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-89401-225-0 .
  • My film reviews 1955–1960. A selection . With a foreword by the author, art is weapon! of October 7, 1999. Nordost-Verlag W. Metzger, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-00-005190-2 .
  • Early food for thought. Lost property from the K.-E. v. Schnitzler. First radio commentaries 1944–1947 (via BBC London and NWDR Cologne) . Compiled and with a foreword by Heinz Grote. NORA-Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86557-142-7 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Sudel-Ede" is dead . In: Manager Magazin , September 20, 2001.
  2. ^ Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler: My castles or How I found my fatherland. Edition Nautilus, 1995, ISBN 3-89401-249-8 .
  3. ↑ The head of the sewage treatment plant. In: taz , September 22, 2001.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Torsten Hampel: The end of the black channel. In: Der Tagesspiegel , October 26, 2014.
  5. ^ HDG, Living Museum Online, Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler
  6. ↑ a b c d e f Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler - class fighter and bon vivant MDR September 29, 2016.
  7. ↑ a b Biographical Databases. Schnitzler, Karl-Eduard von. Federal foundation to come to terms with the SED dictatorship .
  8. ↑ When Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler turned off the sound. At: saechsische.de , October 30, 2014. Accessed December 9, 2018.
  9. ↑ Schnitzler, Karl Eduard von - Entry at the Association of Film and Television Museum Hamburg in collaboration with students from the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW)
  10. ↑ Sir Hugh Greene: Made History with the Radio. A biography. Quadriga Verlag Severin, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-88679-114-9 , p. 113.
  11. ^ GDR radio, June 18, 1953. German radio archive.
  12. ↑ 40 years of the Wall - 1519 times Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler . In: Manager Magazin , August 10, 2001.
  13. ^ The Wall Museum at Checkpoint Charlie .
  14. ↑ Black Channel . Chronicle of the turning point.
  15. ^ A b c Propaganda, man against man . In: Der Spiegel . No. 7 , 1961, pp. 58 ( online ).
  16. ↑ a b c Steffen Winter: Schnitzlers Schnitzer . In: Spiegel Online , April 23, 2004.
  17. ↑ Regina Mönch : A rescue package for an enemy. How the Federal Republic once saved the GDR regime - "The billion-dollar deal - Strauss and the GDR" . In: FAZ , October 6, 2014, p. 17.
  18. ↑ Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk : book review, autobiography He has understood, the amazing autobiography of the former "Junge Welt" boss Hans-Dieter Schütt . In: Der Tagesspiegel , November 2, 2009.
  19. ↑ Politics of running away . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1999 ( online ).
  20. ↑ 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Black noise . ( Memento of October 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) NDR, accessed on July 17, 2012.
  21. ↑ Ernst Elitz: When the Black Canal was full. In: The world . October 30, 2014, accessed February 6, 2017 .
  22. ^ A b Jürgen Wilke, Julia Martin, Denis Fengler, Marc Levasier: Journalists and journalism in the GDR - professional organization, Western correspondents, "The Black Channel". Böhlau, Cologne 2007, p. 235 ( excerpts online at Google Books).
  23. ^ Konstanze Neumann-Gast, Ursula Gast, Uwe Hartung, Bernd Lindner, Hannelore Reinhardt-Fischer, Jörn Richter, Günter Roski, Wolfgang Schneider: Leipziger Demontagebuch. Chants and banner slogans from the Leipzig Monday demonstrations between October 9 and December 11, 1989. Leipzig 1990, extract available at dirk-schindelbeck.de (PDF; 136 kB).
  24. ↑ Obituary . In: Der Spiegel . No. 39 , 2001 ( online ).
  25. ^ Rüdiger Steinmetz and Reinhold Viehoff (eds.): German television east. A program history of GDR television . VBB, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86650-488-2 , p. 405.
  26. ^ Quotations from Gunter Holzweißig: Agitator and bourgeois: Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-8305-3923-0 , p. 65.
  27. ↑ Ashes on black ice . In: Der Spiegel , 36/1991, pp. 75-78.
  28. ^ Rüdiger Steinmetz, Reinhold Viehoff (ed.): German television east. A program history of GDR television . VBB, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86650-488-2 , p. 521 f.
  29. ^ Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler . In: Der Spiegel . No. 32 , 2001 ( online ).
  30. ^ Talk show Profile NDR-Fernsehen (N3).
  31. ^ Spiegel Online : Interview with Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler for Spiegel TV , August 1997, accessed on August 15, 2007.
  32. ↑ Individual examples: Tilo Prase falsification of history - the silent film is running, the voice actor barks . In: FAZ , April 22, 2004.
  33. ↑ Family matters: Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler . In: Der Spiegel . No. 2 , 1959 ( online ).
  34. ^ Foundation processing .
  35. ↑ Berlin Chronicle. June 30, 1983. 25 years ago we reported on a prominent shoplifter. In: Der Tagesspiegel , January 30, 2008 .; When-the-Black-Channel-was-full.html When the Black Channel was full. Ernst Elitz, In: Die Welt , October 30, 2014.
  36. ^ Knerger.de: The grave of Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler
personal data
SURNAME Schnitzler, Karl-Eduard von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schnitzler, Karl-Eduard Richard Arthur von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist
DATE OF BIRTH April 28, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Dahlem
DATE OF DEATH September 20, 2001
Place of death Zeuthen