Kurt Wagenführ

Kurt Hans Fritz Wagenführ (born February 13, 1903 in Schönebeck (Elbe) ; † April 5, 1987 in Gauting , Obb.) Was a German media journalist and founder and first director of the "Institute for Broadcasting and Television".

Life

After graduating from high school in Magdeburg , he first completed an apprenticeship in banking and then studied law in Halle and Leipzig. In 1925 he received his doctorate on the subject of confusion ability of trademarks Dr. jur. He volunteered at the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung in Berlin, for which he worked until 1928, and worked in the Berlin office of Hamburger Nachrichten until 1930 . From March 1930 Wagenführ headed the press office of " Deutsche Welle GmbH " Berlin. After the National Socialists came to power, he was dismissed, so that from 1933 onwards he wrote as a freelance journalist for daily newspapers and TV guides, primarily on the then new media of radio and television. In 1936 he founded the monthly magazine Weltrundfunk (1936–45), of which he was also director. Under his leadership, the Institute for Broadcasting and Television Broadcasting was established at the University of Berlin in 1941, with financial support from the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda . One of his students there was Gerhard Eckert .

Since Wagenführ was still called up in April 1945, he was briefly a prisoner of war. In 1946 he became head of the press office of the NWDR in Hamburg . However, the British control officers did not consider him just a follower of National Socialism , so that Wagenführ was released again in mid-1947. Wagenführ was still interested in the development of the new medium of television, so that he not only founded the specialist magazines Rundfunk und Fernsehen (1948) and Fernsehen (1953), but also played a key role in founding the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research in Hamburg . At the same time he worked as a lecturer for radio and television at the Universities of Hamburg and Münster. From 1962 until his retirement in 1969 he headed the press office of Deutschlandfunk in Cologne. Until his death, Wagenführ wrote as a freelance journalist mainly on media topics.

Prizes and awards

• 1969 Josef Drexel Prize
• 1973 Adolf Grimme Prize
• 1978 Hans Bredow Medal
• Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon

literature

• Winfried B. Lerg: Kurt Wagenführ and the radio customer . In: Rundfunk und Geschichte , 13th year, 1987, no. 4, pp. 393–398.
• Walther Killy , Rudolf Vierhaus (ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia . Volume 10, KG Saur Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-23163-6 , p. 275.

Web links

• Literature by and about Kurt Wagenführ in the catalog of the German National Library
• Kurt Wagenführ in the Munzinger archive , accessed on February 25, 2011 ( beginning of article freely available)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hans Bohrmann, Arnulf Kutsch: Broadcasting Studies in the Third Reich , Part 3 (Broadcasting Studies at the Universities of Berlin and Leipzig). In: Rundfunk und Geschichte , 2nd year, 1976, no. 1, pp. 17–21, here p. 17.
2. ↑ Lu Seegers: The success story of HÖR ZU! (1946-1965) . lmz-bw.de ( Memento of the original dated August 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) 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. 2001; accessed August 1, 2014 
3. ^ Wagenführ, Kurt Hans Fritz . ( Memento of the original from August 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) 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. fernsehmuseum-hamburg.de; Retrieved February 25, 2011