Norbert Heinrich Holl
Norbert Heinrich Holl (born January 25, 1936 in Gleuel ) is a German diplomat and writer.
Life
Norbert Heinrich Holl grew up in Cologne , went to a dwarf school in a Hunsrück village during the war, and from 1946 attended the Altsprachliche Apostelgymnasium in Cologne, where he graduated from high school in 1955 as the best of his year. At the same time, from 1950 onwards he completed regular holidays, school and study stays in Paris, visited a. a. In 1953 the Jesuit-run institution Saint-Jean in Douai, northern France, for one trimester and studied law at the University of Paris in 1955/56 . In 1960 he received his doctorate as the youngest Jura-graduate student of North Rhine-Westphalia at the University of Cologne Dr. iur. and in 1963 became the youngest judge at the district court, then also at the Cologne regional court .
After passing the Federal Foreign Office's selection competition in November 1963, Holl worked in the diplomatic service of the Federal Republic of Germany from March 1964 to January 2001. He completed positions at the German Embassy in Athens (1964/5), at the Consulate General Houston (1966/69), began in 1972/3, at his own request, to study the Arabic language at the Middle East Center for Arabic Studies MECAS of the British foreign and international Commonwealth Office FCO in Shemlan, Lebanon, was transferred to the German embassy in Cairo (1973/77), followed by activities at the German embassies in Paris (1977/81), where he worked because of his contribution to the then still young Franco-German Airbus Project was named 'Chevalier de l' Ordre national du Mérite '. From 1985 to 1990 he headed the economic department at the German embassy in Delhi.
1996/97 Holl was seconded at his own request to the United Nations, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali as Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations (UN Assistant Secretary-General) appointed and be the first German to lead the UN Special Mission to Afghanistan (United Nations Special Mission to Afghanistan, UNSMA). In this capacity he made several presentations to the UN Security Council in New York on the situation in Afghanistan. Knowing that no matter how intensive negotiations with the warring parties, u. a. The Taliban and the leaders of the Northern Alliance did not lead to a permanent ceasefire in the civil war, Holl submitted his resignation to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on December 31, 1997, but remained in corresponding contact with the United Nations even after his departure. After a two-month study stay ("Visiting Fellow") at the Australian National University in Canberra (political science lectures, Afghanistan lectures, Arabic studies), he returned to his last post in 1998 ( Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Malaysia) in the Foreign Office.
Holl has lived in Brittany since 2001 and works as a writer. After the publication of a political non-fiction book about his work in Afghanistan (2002) and lectures at several universities (including Aix-en-Provence, Munich, Kuala Lumpur) he works as a fiction writer.
He read from his novels at book readings in the Cologne Literature House and in the Cologne Bookstore (2010/2013). Readings from his books were also held in Weiperath (2018) and Berlin (2019).
Holl's interests are also in Arabic Koran calligraphy. His collection includes Koran writings and Koran fragments from the 8th to 18th centuries and was exhibited on loan from the Islamic Art Museum in Kuala Lumpur in 2000/2001.
Works
- Mission Afghanistan, 2002, Herbig Verlag , Munich,
- Visiting a whale, stories, 2003, Edition Isele, Eggingen
- From people who read at the table, Roman, 2008, Principal Verlag Münster
- Norman's Secret, Roman, 2010, Berlin University Press , Berlin / Cologne
- La Bruyère's Theorem, Roman, 2012, Berlin University Press , Berlin / Cologne
- Breton Days, Roman 2014, Berlin University Press, Berlin / Cologne
- The riddle of the cloud writing - Zumbroth's exit into the Orient, novel 2016, new edition 2017, Independent, ISBN 978-1-97318-652-6
- Dhanyavad, Roman 2017, BoD, ISBN 978-3-7431-3690-8
- Double track, Roman 2018, BoD, ISBN 978-3-7528-2063-8
- You and the Polish Letters, Novel 2019, BoD, ISBN 978-3-7392-3109-9
- The beautiful Zena, Roman 2020, BoD, ISBN 978-3-7519-0003-4
Web links
- Literature by and about Norbert Heinrich Holl in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Holl, Norbert Heinrich |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German diplomat and writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 25, 1936 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gleuel |