Karl-Heinz Baum

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Karl-Heinz Baum (born May 29, 1941 in Breslau ) is a German author and journalist. Since 2003 he has been working as a freelance journalist and author. As the GDR correspondent for the Frankfurter Rundschau, he is a contemporary witness of the fall of the Berlin Wall and German unification .

Life

Karl-Heinz Baum was born in Breslau (Silesia) in 1941. In April 1945 the family fled to the Hamburg suburb of Halstenbek, where he spent his youth and in Hamburg, Kiel and Bremen. After graduating from high school, he studied history, political science, journalism and sociology at the Free University of Berlin and at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz .

In 1966 he began to work as a journalist and parliamentary reporter for Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland in Mainz. He wrote for Die Zeit , the Frankfurter Rundschau , Allgemeine Zeitung (Mainz) , Badische Zeitung (Freiburg), Darmstädter Echo , Kieler Nachrichten , Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung , Stuttgarter Nachrichten , Süd-Kurier (Konstanz) and the Weser Courier (Bremen).

In 1977 he went to the GDR as a correspondent for the Frankfurter Rundschau . 1985-89 he was also the GDR correspondent for the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (Essen). Baum saw his work as interfering on the job, and he was said to have a special relationship with the people of the GDR. As one of four West German GDR correspondents, he reported on the funeral of the last refugee shot at the wall, the 20-year-old waiter Chris Gueffroy .

On November 9, 1989, he took part in the press conference in which the GDR politician Günther Schabowski read out a resolution by the SED Central Committee that led to the opening of the inner-German border. During the night Baum was among the people celebrating the opening of the border at the Bornholmer Strasse border crossing . His article That night Berlin did not go to sleep - The feeling of having lived in a dungeon and holding the first trophies of freedom of travel in hand appeared on November 11, 1989 in the Frankfurter Rundschau . The article was reprinted in the Frankfurter Rundschau on the 10th and 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with small additions .

From 1990 to 2003 he worked in the Berlin office of the Frankfurter Rundschau and mainly reported on events in connection with German unification, the coming to terms with the GDR past and the work of the GDR state security (Stasi) . After 2003, Baum continued to report on these topics as a freelance writer. Since 2004, Baum has been conducting interviews with former Western journalists accredited in the GDR for the Federal Foundation for Coming to terms with the SED dictatorship .

In 2014, Baum was honored by the Federal Agency for Civic Education in the “Person” category as a Western correspondent for his services to conveying the historical events of the fall of the Berlin Wall .

He lives in Berlin , is married and has three children.

Publications (monographs)

  • (with Karl-Heinz Jürgens): GDR - Cities and People , Munich 1990 (illustrated book).
  • Thuringia - A foray through places, landscapes and history , Frankfurt 1994.
  • The peaceful revolution , Berlin 2009.
  • (with Roland Walter): "... honest and conscientious ..." - Mielkes Mannen against the New Forum , Berlin 2009.
  • (with Thomas Schiller (ed.)): They didn't expect candles , Leipzig 2015.
  • No Indian game, reports by a Western journalist. selected and edited by Jürgen Klammer, Berlin 2017.

literature

  • Eberhard Grashoff , Muth (Ed.): Inside in front of the door . Berlin 2000, p. 120 ff.
  • Fengler. In: Jürgen Wilke : Journalists and journalism in the GDR . 2007, p. 79 ff.
  • Michael Richter: Review: Karl-Heinz Baum / Roland Walter (eds.): "... honest and conscientious ..." - Mielkes men against the New Forum. In: Totalitarianism and Democracy , 6, 2009.

Collaboration on books in the publishing house zba, buch

  • Erna Huth, Michael Weber: ... and helped myself with God's help . Berlin 2004.
  • Sigrid Paul: Wall through the heart . 2nd Edition. Berlin 2008.
  • Sigrid Paul: Wall through my heart , Berlin 2009.
  • Westphal, Keseberg-Alt (Hrsg.): Robbed youth Russian youth in German labor camps . Berlin 2011.
  • Gilbert Furian: Flour from Mielkes mills . 3rd ext. Edition. Berlin 2012.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frankfurter Rundschau - About us - Karl-Heinz Baum / author. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. Archived from the original on February 4, 2017 ; accessed on January 30, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Contemporary witness office: Karl-Heinz Baum. Federal foundation for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship, accessed on January 18, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Contemporary witness office: Karl-Heinz Baum. Federal foundation for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship, accessed on January 18, 2017 .
  4. ^ Gert Weisskirchen : Human Rights - Diplomacy - Journalism . Lecture for the federal network for citizenship, May 23, 2014, http://www.bbe.de/fileadmin/inhalte/aktuelles/2014/07/NL13_Vortrag_Weisskirchen.pdf, accessed January 8, 2017
  5. ^ Karl-Wilhelm Fricke, Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk: Committed to the truth: Texts from five decades on the history of the GDR . 1st edition. Ch.links, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86153-208-5 , p. 77 .
  6. ↑ Karl-Heinz Baum: From the silent border to a silent grave . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . January 24, 1989.
  7. ↑ Chris Gueffroy: Report of the West correspondent Karl-Heinz Baum about the funeral. In: Chronicle of the Wall - joint project of the Center for Contemporary History Potsdam e. V., the Federal Agency for Civic Education and Deutschlandradio . Retrieved January 18, 2017 (copy of the original article in the Frankfurter Rundschau ).
  8. ↑ Grashoff / Muth (ed.): Inside in front of the door . Edition Ost, Berlin 2000, ISBN 978-3-89793-023-0 , pp. 133 .
  9. ^ Karl-Heinz Baum remembers the press conference on November 9, 1989. In: Weser Kurier. November 8, 2014, accessed on January 18, 2017 (see also: berliner-mauer-gedenkstaette.de audio contribution: reactions to the Schabowski press conference at 3:24 min).
  10. ↑ Contemporary witness office: Karl-Heinz Baum. Federal foundation for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship, accessed on January 18, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Frankfurter Rundschau , November 9, 1999 and November 6, 2014.
  12. ↑ Karl-Heinz Baum: Fall of the Wall: Berlin did not go to sleep that night. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. November 6, 2014, accessed January 18, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Horch und Guck - Alphabetical index of the authors and their contributions. (No longer available online.) Bürgerkomitee Leipzig e. V. for the dissolution of the former State Security (MfS), archived from the original on January 18, 2017 ; accessed on January 18, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.horch-und-guck.info
  14. ^ Inventory of Klaus Mehner. Federal foundation for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship, accessed on January 31, 2017 .
  15. ↑ 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall: remembering history - shaping the present. Federal Agency for Civic Education , January 23, 2015, accessed on January 18, 2017 .
  16. ^ "Free" journalism in the GDR. Federal Agency for Civic Education , January 23, 2015, accessed on January 18, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Baum, Karl-Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German author and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH May 29, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw