Karl Günter Simon

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Karl Günter Simon (born February 9, 1933 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein ; † April 25, 2013 in Berlin ) was a German essayist , reporter and writer . He also wrote under the pseudonyms Saul Simon (fiction) and Simon .

Life

Simon studied Romance languages ​​and journalism in Göttingen, Paris, where the boy scout traveled by bike, and Berlin after graduating from the Max-Planck-Gymnasium Ludwigshafen and a bricklayer apprenticeship that was quickly broken off again . He also learned pantomime from Étienne Decroux . In 1959 he received his doctorate on literature and film in France at the Institute for Romance Philology at the Free University of Berlin .

In 1960, Simon advanced to become a German pantomime expert with his fundamental book on pantomime , with which he discovered pantomime for Germany. In the culture department of Stern in Hamburg from 1965 to 1968 he continued to develop into an expert in the fine arts , where he portrayed Horst Janssen in 1966. His principle of portraying people before they get into the field of journalism resulted in his bestseller Die Kronprinzen in 1969 . Simon had a connection to television through his earlier work as an author of fictional radio reports. In the series Simon's Contemporaries - People and Trends , he continued to portray people on their way to power. The portrait of the then young Bundestag member Manfred Wörner , which showed him as a Starfighter pilot, produced a scandal. Then Simon was kicked out of ZDF, but followed up with the first entrepreneur series on German television with Millionendiener .

In 1975, the passionate rider, fluent in French and Spanish, switched to the new GEO and initially preferred to travel and mount Latin America for his reports - always off the beaten track and always on his own to immerse himself in the country and its people. In his private life, he retired to the Dilsberg mountain fortress . He also wrote numerous reports for Playboy , FAZ and Die Zeit . In order to open up the Middle East , Simon began to learn Arabic in the Berlin mosque , as he always saw the key to understanding a strange world in the language. He ended up in prison in Egypt after his photographer, who later arrived, ignored his request not to counter arrogance to photography bans in the Islamic world. In Pakistan, when he was looking for knowledgeable people to talk to, he had to spontaneously give a lecture on Islam to the faculty of the Faculty of Islamic Studies at the University of Karachi . In 1990, the Fernuniversität Hagen asked him to create the tutorial for creating a report. Simon, who found writing on the PC crippling, bought a ball-head typewriter for his typesetting .

Simon retired by learning Chinese and traveling China for a long time. Instead of people, the consequent Internet refuser went over to writing glosses on the pitfalls of technology in the sense of lateral thinking and portraying the beauty of simplicity in everyday objects.

Saul Simon about Karl Günter Simon:

“I soon noticed that Shi-nômu-san didn't understand a lot about computers, but was fluent in many languages, which enabled him to penetrate very quickly into special idioms such as managerial language. When I asked: How do you become a management consultant? he replied: "You have to learn managerial language and invent a few new words, that's all." [...] His "case studies" are indeed apt to open the eyes of some managers and some people. Opening your eyes [...] is the beginning of all problem solving. "

- Simon : Epilogue to In the Land of Long Noses . Eichborn 1998, p. 166 f.

Works

Essays

  • Germany, mime country? : Answer to the mimes manifesto. In: Theater Today . Volume 5, No. 9, September 1964.
  • Die Medienmacher: Do you know your medium, Helmar Frank ? In: The month . Issue 244, January 1969.

Books

  • Mime: origin, essence, possibilities. Nymphenburger Verl.-Handl, Munich 1960.
  • The Crown Prince: A Generation on the Way to Power. Fischer, Frankfurt 1969.
  • Millionaire: The New Careers. Econ, Düsseldorf 1973, ISBN 3-430-18526-2 .
  • Text and concept in Schreiber, Herrmann (ed.) Islam and everything in the name of Allah. 2nd Edition. GEO published by Gruner + Jahr Verlag, Hamburg 1991, ISBN 3-570-06210-4 .
  • Saul Simon: In the land of long noses: The journey of the Japanese Shi-nômu Kagee to Germany as a business location, recorded by his friend Saul Simon. Eichborn, Frankfurt 1998, ISBN 3-8218-0567-6 .

Translations (selection)

  • Georges Schehadé : Die Veilchen , in: Theater im S. Fischer Verlag I, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt 1962

items

  • Guatemala : The Pious Pagans. In: Geo-Magazin. Hamburg 1980, 4, pp. 82-102. Culturally informative experience report. ISSN  0342-8311
  • Colombia : Everyone wants to go to Eldorado Geo 12/1977, pages 8–42. Publisher Gruner + Jahr, Hamburg

Documentaries

  • Simon's contemporaries: people and trends. ZDF
  • Millionaire. Documentation in 6 parts, ARD 1972

Radio plays

  • Saul Simon: The day after tomorrow report. WDR, Red .: Wolfgang Prahde
  • Saul Simon: Überlein's career - a fairy tale with music. WDR, Red .: Georg Bungter
  • Illustrated figures I-VII - Physiognomic studies of our time.

Textbooks

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Blurb of a millionaire
  2. ↑ Blurb of a millionaire
  3. ↑ blurb Islam and all in Allah's name
  4. ↑ Millionaire D 1972 . Entry in fernsehserien.de
personal data
SURNAME Simon, Karl Günter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Simon, Saul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Ludwigshafen am Rhein
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 2013
Place of death Berlin