Klaus Behnken

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Klaus Behnken (born January 22, 1944 in Hamburg ; † October 19, 2016 in Berlin ) was a publicist , editor , member of the SDS federal board, actor and co-founder of the weekly newspaper " Jungle World ". The author Heinrich Behnken (1880–1960) was a grandfather .

Live and act

Childhood and youth

Behnken's father, Hans-Heinrich Behnken (1919–1997), was an officer in the Hamburg 76th Infantry Regiment and, after being wounded in 1941 during the war, served as a training officer in Hamburg. He married Lisa Paul, Behnken's mother, in 1943. In July 1954, she and her two children left her husband and returned to their homeland in Bergzow . The official divorce took place two years later. Klaus Behnken went to school in the GDR and became a young pioneer . When he was 14 years old, he and his family left the country for West Berlin . The mother had remarried, and two children resulted from this marriage. After all, the family lived in Augsburg and Klaus Behnken went to grammar school in Eichstätt , and graduated from high school in 1965 at the Laubach College .

Political activity

Klaus Behnken studied sociology in Tübingen from the mid-1960s . As a member of the first left AStA , he joined the Socialist German Student Union and became one of its most important speakers in Tübingen. At the 23rd delegates' conference of the SDS from November 17 to 19, 1968 Behnken was elected to the provisional federal board of the SDS.

Lecturer, publicist and actor

In the seventies Behnken worked as an editor at the März-Verlag. In 1977 he was in charge of the novel essay Die Reise von Bernward Vesper , edited by Jörg Schröder , which is considered an influential depiction of the 1968 generation and an important contemporary document.

In 1977 Behnken published Franz Jung's “Schriften und Liefe” (writings and letters) in two volumes at Verlag Petra Nettelbeck together with Petra and Uwe Nettelbeck , also: (Ed.): Germany reports of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sopade) 1934–1940: 7 volumes as reprint; Publishing house Petra Nettelbeck / Zweausendeins, Salzhausen, Frankfurt am Main 1980

Behnken was also active as an actor. In 1991 he played the lead role in the film The Cynical Body .

Journalistic career

In 1994 Behnken became head of the cultural department of the daily newspaper “ Junge Welt ”, which at that time was headed by Oliver Tolmein as editor-in-chief. When the daily newspaper was wound up in 1995 by the then owner Erik Weihönig and its publication was discontinued, the workforce took over the newspaper independently and Klaus Behnken became editor-in-chief .

In 1997 there was a dispute within the workforce after managing director Dietmar Koschmieder Behnken wanted to depose editor-in-chief in order to steer the newspaper's political course in a different direction. He was of the opinion that "an anti-fascist and anti-national tendency had become predominant". The vast majority of the editorial team stood behind Klaus Behnken and, after Koschmieder did not abandon his demand, occupied the editorial offices for more than two weeks. The strike newspaper published by Klaus Behnken's parliamentary group was called “Jungle World”. After Koschmieder had resigned from all striking editors on June 2, 1997, the "Jungle World" was founded as a weekly newspaper. Jungle World , initially only planned as a strike newspaper for the editorial majority, was initially produced in the apartment of Klaus Behnken, the former flat share of the band Ton Steine ​​Scherben , on Tempelhofer Ufer 32 in Berlin-Kreuzberg , with borrowed computers. Behnken was subsequently “in charge of the service ” and the newspaper did not have an official editor-in-chief. However, he is regarded as the “founder, mastermind and spiritus rector” of the newspaper, which he shaped like no other.

In 2011 Behnken contracted lung cancer and died on October 19, 2016 as a result of a pulmonary embolism . Klaus Behnken is buried in the Montmartre cemetery in Paris .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Markus Bickel: Freedom and Socialism. From west to east, from east to west: How his youth in the GDR and FRG shaped the >> Jungle World << founder Klaus Behnken, in: dschungel # 23 2017, pp. 12-13.
  2. ↑ Tagblatt.de
  3. ↑ http://jungle-world.com/artikel/2016/43/55088.html
  4. ↑ taz.de of October 20, 2016
  5. ↑ How a revolt in the "Junge Welt" became the new weekly newspaper "Jungle World" By Adrienne Braun, Die Zeit September 12, 1997
  6. ↑ Brief description on kollektiv-betriebe.org
  7. ↑ Jungle World, October 27, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Behnken, Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH 19th October 2016
Place of death Berlin