Karl Rickers

Karl Rickers (3rd from left) receives presents on the occasion of his 80th birthday

Karl Otto Rickers (born February 20, 1905 in Neukirchen ; † September 28, 1999 in Kiel ) was a German journalist and the last editor-in-chief of the social democratic Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung , whose publication was discontinued in 1968.

Life

Karl Rickers was the younger son of the journeyman painter Johannes Rickers and his wife Elisabeth. His older brother was the painter Hans Rickers . Due to his father's many job changes, he often moved with his parents and siblings, from Neukirchen to Flensburg , then to Itzehoe , where he started school, on to Neumünster (second year of school) and finally, shortly before the outbreak of World War I , to Kiel. After graduating from elementary school in 1920, Rickers learned the profession of wood sculptor at the Kiel Crafts and Applied Arts School until 1923 . He started his first job as a wood carver's assistant in a workshop in Schwerin . In the Mecklenburg city he joined the SPD . He had already become a member of the Socialist Workers' Youth during his professional training. In the spring of 1925 he went on a hike with a friend that took them to Gelnhausen , where they both made wood carvings for a furniture factory in a workshop. Disappointed with the "kitchen furniture mess" and with the master who was in arrears with his wages, they quit after a short time. Rickers then visited friends in Frankfurt am Main and then returned to Kiel by train with the money he had earned. There he worked as a freelance carver and built, among other things, Kasper heads for the local organization of the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft der Kinderfreunde , headed by Andreas Gayk , who worked full-time as a local editor for the Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung (VZ).

Because Rickers had written several articles for the newsletter of the Socialist Workers' Youth , he was known to Gayk. This enabled him to join VZ in 1926 , first as a freelancer, then as a trainee, later as a young editor with a fixed salary. One of his special tasks in the early years of journalism was reporting on negotiations before the Kiel labor court . Later, as a local editor, he had to report on the “battles in the hall” between the National Socialist SA and SS on the one hand and the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold on the other. After the transfer of power to the National Socialists , the VZ was banned. The last edition appeared on February 27, 1933, the day of the Reichstag fire .

In December 1933 Rickers moved to Berlin, where he edited a few weeks of news for the regime-critical social democratic weekly magazine Blick in die Zeit , whose editor was Andreas Gayk, who had also moved from Kiel to Berlin. Then he worked as a craftsman in a workshop for metal reliefs . When Blick in die Zeit was so successful that an entertainment supplement called a short break could be included, Gayk hired Rickers as editor for this side project. This activity ended when both publications were banned in August 1935.

Rickers then worked as a freelance commercial artist and created, among other things, maps for Michael Freund , who was working on a contemporary world history in documents . In January 1937 he got a permanent job as a cartographic draftsman at the Reichsamt für Landesaufnahme . In 1939 he was transferred to the Hamburg branch of the Reich Office. In 1940/41 he first worked in the field in Mecklenburg and then in Schleswig-Holstein to correct measurement table sheets .

On August 8, 1941, Rickers was called up for military service. Until the surrender on May 8, 1945 , he was continuously stationed with the air defense in Kiel-Friedrichsort , most recently with the rank of NCO . Under the British occupation , he had to stay in the Dithmarschen settlement area from May to August , in which 300,000 German soldiers were temporarily concentrated . In late autumn he resumed his work as a cartographic draftsman in the Hamburg authority, which was now working on behalf of the military government.

At the end of March 1946, at the request of Andreas Gayk, Rickers returned to Kiel and became the local editor of VZ , which appeared again on April 3rd . He and Gayk were the only ones who had worked for VZ before 1933, many of the other ex-editors had gone into practical politics or had since taken up other professions, others were emigrants abroad. And Gayk was only a nominal member of the editorial team, the future Lord Mayor of Kiel was far too much concerned with practical local politics. "As editor he wanted time being appear to visualize the tradition of the old national newspaper with his name. In Imperssum" 1954 Rickers editor of VZ and remained so until its setting for economic reasons at year-end 1968. After that he made Several times vacation substitutes for the editor-in-chief of Nordwoche , a social democratic weekly newspaper published by Jochen Steffen , which appeared from April 11, 1969 and had to cease publication at the end of September 1971 (also for economic reasons).

Honors

• 1985: Culture Prize of the State Capital Kiel

Publications (selection)

• The new Volks-Zeitung 1946–50. In: Working Group Democratic History (ed.): We are the building people. Kiel 1945 to 1950 . Neuer Malik Verlag, Kiel 1985, ISBN 3-89029-950-4 , pp. 135-165
• Memories of a journalist from Kiel 1920–1970. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1992, ISBN 3-529-02723-5 .

Web links

• Gerhard E. Gründler : Memories of Karl Rickers , web archive, accessed on December 8, 2017.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biographical information is based on: Karl Rickers, memories of a journalist from Kiel. 1920-1970 , Wachholtz, Neumünster 1992, ISBN 978-3-529-02723-9 .
2. ↑ Karl Rickers; Memories of a journalist from Kiel. 1920-1970 , Wachholtz, Neumünster 1992, p. 57.
3. ↑ Karl Rickers; Memories of a journalist from Kiel. 1920-1970 , Wachholtz, Neumünster 1992, p. 230.
4. ↑ Culture and Science Prize of the State Capital Kiel, award winner since 1952