Klaus Polkehn

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Klaus Polkehn (born June 11, 1931 in Berlin ; † January 12, 2008 ) was a German journalist and writer .

Life

Education and journalist

After completing his apprenticeship as a typesetter and doing a volunteer job, he started working for the FDGB newspaper , the tribune . In March 1953, his father had attracted attention politically because he had overlooked a sentence mistake as the chief editor during the night shift at the imprimatur: For Stalin there was now the name friend of war instead of friend of peace . As a result, his father was sentenced to five and a half years in prison in December 1953 for boycotting and acting as agents .

Dispute with the SED and the weekly post

This also affected Klaus Polkehn, who lost his position at the newspaper Tribüne . He had opposed the false allegations made about his father. Representatives of the department for agitation in the Central Committee of the SED informed him that he was no longer allowed to work as a journalist. After a conversation with the lawyer Friedrich Karl Kaul , the latter gave him the advice that he should apply to the magazine Wochenpost . But even this application was initially thwarted by officials of the SED. But the editors around Rudi Wetzel , Günter Stillmann and Rudolf Hirsch stood up for him so persistently that he was given an employment contract at the beginning of 1954. Even so, he was able to start working in the newspaper beforehand.

Work in the weekly mail

He was the youngest editor in the editorial team. When the first edition was printed on December 17, 1953, he had the "privilege" of pouring champagne over the rotary press. First he wrote articles as a business editor. Then he wrote factual reports. He got along well with Gerhart Eisler , the head of the foreign policy editorial team , Hanns Eisler's brother , because he too had some arguments with the party. So it came about that he switched to this department and wrote articles about other countries, building on impressions from his trips abroad, especially in the Arab countries. Since 1957 he was in contact with Si Mustapha-Müller , who had set up and directed the Algerian repatriation service for the French Legionnaires .

From 1969 Polkehn held the post of deputy editor-in-chief.

After the political change

When the economic and political changes came after the political change in the GDR, he left the magazine in October 1991 and became a freelance writer. He also worked for the political rights of the Palestinians in the journal Palestine News, which he published, and in the German-Arab Society .

As a writer, he wrote many reports from his travels, books and non-fiction books in the field of cultural-historical representations.

Awards

1972 Klaus Polkehn was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze.

Fonts

  • Secret matter of command - a factual report with Horst Bärwald, Berlin 1960
  • Until five past twelve - A factual report with Horst Bärwald, Berlin 1960
  • Sherlock Holmes has had its day , Berlin 1961
  • How It Really Was - Zionism in Plot with Fascism , in: Horizont 3 (1970), p. 28
  • A bird's eye view of continents: the airplane discovers the earth , Leipzig 1962
  • Sun over Rif and Tell; Northwest African reports 1962 , Leipzig 1963
  • Under the spell of the Sahara: The great desert in the mirror of the millennia , Leipzig 1969
  • Meghal, aki nem hallgat with Horst Szeponik, Budapest 1970
  • Out and about in Algeria , Leipzig 1975
  • Caliphs, Fes and Morgenstern: Time images from old cities in the Middle East , Berlin 1979
  • If you don't keep silent, you have to die: a factual report about the mafia with Horst Szeponik, Berlin 1983
  • Palestine: Travels in the 18th and 19th Centuries , Berlin 1986
  • Campaign with General Mafia with Horst Szeponik, Berlin 1986
  • Zionism in Plot with National Socialism ", Freiburg 1987
  • War for water? - the conflict of the century in the Middle East , Berlin 1992
  • That was the weekly post: history and stories of a newspaper , Berlin 1997
  • Wilhelm II in Constantinople. The political starting shot for the construction of the Baghdad Railway , in: Jaschinski, Klaus / Waldschmidt, Julius, Des Kaisers Reise in den Orient 1898, Berlin 2002
  • Back then in the Holy Land: Travels to Old Palestine , Berlin 2005
  • The mission of Si Mustapha - a German fights for Algeria , in: Wolfgang Schwanitz (ed.): Germany and the Middle East in the Cold War , Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-86583-144-3 , pp. 30–45 .

credentials

  • Klaus Polkehn, That was the weekly post: History and stories of a newspaper , Berlin: Ch. Links, 1997 ISBN 3-86153-141-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.welt.de/geschichte/article174321721/Stasi-Verleumdung-Ein-Fehler-in-Stalins-Nachruf-zerstoerte-zwei-Leben.html
  2. ↑ In 2006 he reported on this long-term collaboration in an essay that is a central source on Si Mustapha-Müller and his work in the Algerian war .
  3. ↑ Neues Deutschland , April 27, 1972, p. 4
personal data
SURNAME Polkehn, Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 12, 2008