Ralph Giordano

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Ralph Giordano in March 2008

Ralph Giordano (born March 20, 1923 in Hamburg ; died December 10, 2014 in Cologne ) was a German journalist , publicist , writer and director who became known with the partly autobiographical novel Die Bertinis , published in 1982 . In his works he mainly dealt with the Holocaust and its consequences.

Life

Ralph Giordano was born the son of a pianist and a Jewish piano teacher in Hamburg- Barmbek . His paternal grandfather, an orchestra conductor, had come to Germany from Sicily as a young man . In 1940, before graduating from high school, the then 17-year-old had to leave the Johanneum , a renowned humanistic grammar school, due to the Nuremberg Laws , where a lifelong friendship with his classmate and later writer Walter Jens had developed. Together with his family, Giordano was exposed to numerous forms of discrimination and persecution. The Gestapo interrogated the young Giordano three times , mistreated him and locked him up. Giordano himself, his two brothers and his parents were able to survive in a cellar in Hamburg-Alsterdorf until the liberation by the British on May 4, 1945 , where they had to hide for several months when their mother was threatened with deportation .

In his autobiography he writes:

"The liberation from the fear of violent death, which is possible at any time, because I had, was, was and will remain the key experience of my existence."

In a chapter of the autobiography Negro, Negro, Chimney Sweep! describes Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi the friendship between Giordano, his family and Massaquoi. Giordano and his brother Egon knew Massaquoi from the Hamburg swing café König . When Egon met Massaquoi by chance on the street during the underground period, he knew that he could trust the dark-skinned Afro-German and take him to his hiding place, where he introduced him to his family, who lived there in a cellar. Ralph Giordano describes this incident with changed names in his book The Bertinis .

Ralph Giordano on January 12, 1956 at the IV German Writers' Congress in Berlin

After the Second World War , Giordano began his journalistic work for the Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung . He completed a journalistic training at the German Literature Institute in Leipzig . From 1946 to 1957 he was a member of the KPD, which has been illegal since 1956 . Under the pseudonym Jan Rolfs , he had a West German diary published in the GDR by the Neues Leben publishing house in 1953 , which reported on the actions of the KPD in Hamburg and was permeated with admiration for Josef Stalin . In 1955 Giordano moved to the GDR, where he stayed for nine months, only to move soberly back to Hamburg. From 1958 he observed the beginning of the Nazi trials on behalf of the Central Council of Jews in Germany . He published his reckoning with Stalinism in 1961 in his book The Party is Always Right (see also Song of the Party ), in which he himself made a reference to his West German diary in order to forestall a revelation by his former comrades. From 1961 to 1988 he worked as a television journalist and has since produced over 100 documentaries for various broadcasters (mainly NDR and WDR ). He often dealt with historical topics such as German colonialism or the genocide of the Armenians .

In 1982 Giordano published The Bertinis , a partly autobiographical work on which he had worked for almost 40 years. In 1988, the story of a Jewish family in which it was during the Nazi era by Egon Monk for ZDF filmed.

In 1987 Giordano's book The Second Guilt or From the Last to Be German appeared , in which Giordano deals with the survival of National Socialism in the Federal Republic of Germany . As the second guilt he describes the unwillingness of large sections of the German public to come to terms with the crimes and compensation of the victims, as well as the political decisions that enabled accomplices to regain office and dignity even in a democracy. With this font he particularly attracted the hatred of neo-Nazis . On the increasing threat he wrote books like If Hitler Had Won the War (1989) and an overview of letters to the editor on the “second guilt” ( How can this generation still breathe?, 1990).

Experience with openly militant right-wing extremism , especially the riots in Hoyerswerda and the Mölln assassination attempt , led Giordano to write an open letter to Chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1992 . In it he wrote that he was ready to take action against militant right-wing extremism “right down to the level of armed self-protection”, since the government was obviously not ready to give minorities the necessary protection. This letter sparked a heated public discussion.

In 2000 he published the traditional lie, in which he dealt with the undemocratic roots of the Bundeswehr . In the anti-Semitism debate triggered by Jürgen Möllemann in June 2002, he said that his feeling of flight had not been so strong since the liberation from National Socialism. In 2003 he criticized the positions of the peace movement against the Iraq war , which he accused, among other things, of " anti-Americanism ".

In 2005 Giordano told Stern magazine that his wife, who was seriously ill with cancer, had died through active euthanasia .

In the spring of 2005 Giordano criticized Rolf Hochhuth massively for his statements in an interview with Junge Freiheit about the Holocaust denier David Irving . He later admitted that he had formulated his criticism without knowing the full text of the interview. In an article that was published in the Berliner Zeitung , he withdrew his damning verdict and expressed his solidarity with Hochhuth. The fact that Hochhuth, to put it mildly, "seriously missed" with his remarks about Irving remains the same. Hochhuth himself had previously apologized, but he found the word excuse to be inappropriate for his remarks.

In October 2006 Giordano interpreted a right-wing extremist incident at the secondary school "An der Elbe" in Parey (Saxony-Anhalt) in such a way that the whole of Germany was involved in this crime. One reason for the "cheeky unfolding of hatred of Jews" is a lack of moral courage . This deficiency is a feature of German history.

Giordano supported the center against evictions until November 2007 . He changed his mind on the grounds that the "German-induced murder universe of the Second World War and its occupation policy" was still "notoriously neglected". It would not do "to spread the story of the expulsions rich in pictures, but to hide the bloodbath of the prehistory in marginal subordinate clauses".

For the autobiography of Adolf Hitler's last bodyguard, Rochus Misch , published in 2008, The Last Witness. I was Hitler's telephone operator, courier and bodyguard . Ralph Giordano wrote the preface under the title Misch - You are of course still needed (pp. 19–35).

Giordano lived in Cologne-Bayenthal from 1972 and had a holiday home in Ireland. He was married three times. The first and third women died of cancer.

  • Helga (1913-1984)
  • 1987: Marriage with Tanja, divorce after about a year
  • 1994 to 2002 Roswitha, b. Everhan (1944-2002)

On December 10, 2014, Giordano died at the age of 91 in a Cologne hospital from the consequences of a femoral neck fracture . Ralph Giordano found his final resting place in Cologne's southern cemetery .

On November 14th, 2017 in Hamburg-Barmbek , the Piazzetta-Ralph-Giordano was named after Giordano.

Giordano's library received the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial in Hamburg , where around 3300 books will be presented as the “Ralph Giordano Library” from February 16, 2018.

Awards

Ralph Giordano has received numerous awards for his journalistic work as well as for his political commitment.

Bertini Prize

The name of the award goes back to Giordano's novel The Bertinis and the call for moral courage contained therein. The prize was created on the initiative of the Hamburg educator Michael Magunna. Today it is supported by an association in which various ideal and material sponsors have come together. There are annual prizes to be won with a total value of € 10,000  .

Every year the jury selects the winners from among the submitted proposals and applications; the award ceremony takes place every year on January 27th, the day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism . 57 groups and individuals have so far been awarded the Bertini Prize . They all did what, in the memory of the past, calls for action in the present, from Giordano's point of view: do not be intimidated.

Positions critical of Islam

Especially in the last ten years of his life, Giordano had repeatedly come out through criticism of the Muslim associations in Germany and as a warner of the dangers of Islamic extremism . Some of his statements were very controversial. At the “ Critical Islamic Conference ” in Cologne in 2008, Giordano demanded the deportation of the General Secretary of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, Aiman ​​Mazyek , because he had spoken of the compatibility of Sharia law and the Basic Law .

In the newspaper Die Welt on October 19, 2010, Giordano published a total of “10 theses on the integration debate” under the heading “The do-gooders and the dark sides of Islam”, with which, in his opinion, Thilo Sarrazin is right.

After the speech of Federal President Christian Wulff on the day of German unity on October 3, 2010, Giordano condemned his positive attitude towards Islam in an open letter . In 2011 Giordano in an open letter to Federal President Wulff criticized his thesis that "Islam and democracy , Islam and the rule of law , Islam and pluralism need not be a contradiction in terms". This betrays "such a disturbing ignorance of reality, such a naive equation of Islam that actually exists with an Islam that conforms to the EU that it makes one speechless".

Controversy about the DITIB central mosque in Cologne-Ehrenfeld

In his memories of someone who got away , Ralph Giordano criticizes the construction of the planned DITIB central mosque in Cologne's Ehrenfeld district . According to his own account, after the memoirs appeared in March 2007, he received several death threats over the phone, which he attributed to radical Muslims. In a dispute with Bekir Alboğa , DITIB's dialogue officer, mediated by the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger on May 16, 2007 and also documented by video , Giordano again spoke out against the construction of the mosque. He sees “ integration in general as a failure” and the construction of the mosque is “a wrong signal”. In various interviews, Giordano criticized the massive presence of representatives of the presumably right-wing extremist part of the political spectrum , namely “ Pro Köln ”, in the citizens' movement against the mosque building and reiterated his criticism of the building project.

On May 25th, Giordano publicly announced in an interview with the Hamburger Abendblatt that he had received the threatened phone calls mentioned.

Giordano addressed the public with a “Manifesto in Defense of Freedom of Expression ” on June 1, 2007 in the Kölner Stadtanzeiger to draw attention to the “blackmail potential” he perceived and which critics wanted to keep under “Islamic observation”. He, on the other hand, will continue to oppose “all unconstitutional and thus anti-integration conditions and conditions” without taboos and also subject the “notoriously unconstitutional” Sharia to the historical-critical method just as naturally as the Bible . He made politicians of the Greens jointly responsible for the extent of the threat he perceived , as they denied the “legitimate self-interest of the majority society ” and prevented a realistic assessment of immigration . He himself wants to work with secularized Muslims who are prepared to reform for an integration that deserves the name.

On August 16, 2007 Giordano spoke again about the construction of the mosque. He responded to an offer of the DITIB organization responsible for the construction with an open letter in which he declared the DITIB representatives to be deniers of the Armenian genocide , with whom he refused to talk. He declared the teachings of the Koran to be incompatible with the Basic Law. One day after the nationwide Mosque Open Day on October 3, 2007, Giordano called the planned large mosques "a declaration of war " and "a land grab on foreign territory".

approval

  • In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Necla Kelek wrote that Giordano was right with his criticism of the mosque building, since Islam is politics and carries on politics. Mosques do not serve the purpose of integration, but are the "germ cells of a counter-society". Muslims would have to put up with being confronted with the question “how do they deal with the basic values ​​of this society”, as Giordano did.
  • Christian Geyer wrote in the FAZ : "Ralph Giordano is right because the burqa ... is a symbol of paternalistic oppression". "I want those women who wear the burqa voluntarily to be convinced by Giordano when he says: The burqa degrades women up to the hour." At the end of his article, Geyer asks the following questions to women who wear burqa:
    • Should it really be a detriment to renounce the veiling as voluntarily as one has decided in favor of it?
    • Why make his religious beliefs dependent on a symbol that in many other cases represents a damaged biography?
  • The publicist Lea Rosh said in her laudation on the occasion of the award of the prize for moral courage of the "Freundeskreis Heinrich Heine" to Giordano on September 28, 2007, that she was critical of his criticism of the planned mosque building in Cologne and his criticism of the denial of the genocide on the Armenians fully agree with Giordano and can sign "every line".
  • The social scientist Hartmut Krauss called for "Solidarity with Ralph Giordano". Giordano's justified criticism of “anti-democratic Muslims unwilling to integrate” is defamed as xenophobic by pro-Islamic forces . Islam could not claim the full protection of the Basic Law, since its basic content collided massively with basic and human rights. In addition, the increased building of mosques is only a matter of symbolic politics, as the number of mosque visitors has shrunk, according to the Center for Turkish Studies.
  • The Central Council of Ex-Muslims described the criticism of fellow journalists of Giordano's position as "attacks" and "absurd".
  • Giordano's statements were also supported by the right-wing citizens' movement pro Cologne . However, Giordano publicly distanced himself from it.

Rejection

  • The Frankfurt educationalist Micha Brumlik has explicitly dealt in an essay with the transformation of the writer into - as he writes in the title - "xenophobia". In it he comes to the conclusion: “Ralph Giordano was once a moral authority in Germany. […] But now […] the author has become what he has analyzed for years and thus pilloried: a petty bourgeois driven by dull resentment , who - driven by obscure prejudices - has his dear hardship and trouble, to fend off the excessive applause from the wrong, the right side. "
  • In the Süddeutsche Zeitung , Matthias Drobinski wrote that Giordano would not become a “right-wing radical” because of his criticism, but he had to be told that “in his utterances, anger regularly defeats the mind”. Giordano and with him the majority of the population could not "make it a condition for a minority to solve problems with religion before they can build a splendid house of prayer".
  • The Zeit author Jörg Lau wrote that Giordano "hid the worthwhile elements of his criticism of Islam under so much angry polemics that it is difficult to even take notice of them." Anyone who wants to let the population vote on sacred buildings, as Giordano suggests that he could not only forget other mosques, but also new synagogues like in Leipzig and Munich. The permission to build a mosque is not a grace granted by the majority of the population for successful integration, but a question of religious freedom and building rights . Lau regrets the cooperation between Giordano and Udo Ulfkotte's Pax Europa as “intellectual suicide” and “the inglorious abdication of a man who was once an enlightener”.
  • Eberhard Seidel wrote in the taz : “Today Ralph Giordano [...] represents an undifferentiated friend-foe thinking, and his omissions are dangerous incendiary speeches that are in the tradition of the anti-asylum discourse at the beginning of the 1990s. An important moral authority is dismantling itself. That is a shame. "
  • Patrick Bahners criticized Ralph Giordano for "taking over the position propagated by right-wing extremists that remembering the Nazi crimes prevented Germans from articulating their free opinion on questions of national existence".
  • Günter Wallraff stated that Giordano exhibited “a degree of hardship that is completely incomprehensible to me. He excludes people and gives them no chance at all. ‹…› Giordano suddenly presents himself as an expert on Islam and comes up with the term Taqiyya . "
  • Marco Carini referred to Giordano's “martial” utterances such as “declaration of war” and “land grabbing on foreign territory” and asked about the conclusions that could be drawn from this: “When does it start to fire back? Should the enemy of the war be driven back out of the country with heavy artillery? While Giordano's statements leave plenty of room for interpretation, at least one thing is clear: only one person has declared war here - Giordano on Islam. "
  • The cabaret artist Hagen Rether judged in his stage program: "This poor Ralph Giordano, he got so lost in a bitter, one-sided polemic, he is so brimming with anger with Islam that he is now getting applause from the Nazis."

Works

Books

Publications here chronologically by first publication

1940-1949
  • Morris. Story of a friendship. Berlin 1948; As a paperback by Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-462-02945-2 .
1950-1959
  • Jan Rolfs (pseudonym): West German diary. New Life Publishing House, Berlin / GDR 1953.
1960-1969
  • The party is always right. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1961. As a new edition by Herder, 1990, ISBN 3-451-08413-9 . (Giordano's development 1945–1957 and eventual break with communism on German soil)
  • Ralph Giordano (Ed.): Scars, Traces, Witnesses. 15 years of the general weekly newspaper for Jews in Germany. Publishing house of the general weekly newspaper of Jews in Germany, Düsseldorf 1961
1980-1989
1990-1999
  • At the fires of the world. A television man reports . Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-297-8 . Knaur Taschenbuch 4860, ISBN 3-426-04860-4 . (= Extended new edition of the book Die Spur - Reports from a Endangered World. S. Fischer Verlag, 1984.)
  • How can this generation still breathe? Letters to the book “The Second Guilt or From the Last to Being German”. 1990, ISBN 3-89136-289-7 .
  • Israel, for God's sake, Israel. 1991, ISBN 3-462-02129-X .
  • Wolfgang Weirauch, Arfst Wagner , Ralph Giordano, Imanuel Geiss , Thomas Höfer, Christoph Lindenberg : Anthroposophists and National Socialism. 1991, ISBN 3-926841-32-X .
  • As publisher: Germany and Israel: Solidarity in Probation. Balance sheet and perspective of German-Israeli relations. 1993, ISBN 3-88350-029-1 .
  • Will Germany be dangerous again? My letter to Chancellor Kohl, causes and consequences. 1993, ISBN 3-462-02291-1 .
  • I'm nailed to this land. Speeches and essays about the German past and present. 1994, ISBN 3-426-80024-1 .
  • Farewell to East Prussia. Journey through a melancholy land. 1994, ISBN 3-462-02371-3 .
  • Ralf Dahrendorf, Margarete Mitscherlich, Ralph Giordano: Hamburg 1945: Destroyed. Liberated. Hopeful? Civic event series on the 50th anniversary of the end of the war. 1995, ISBN 3-7672-1243-9 .
  • Clemens Lindemann, Ignatz Bubis , Manfred Buchwald , Ralph Giordano: Documentation of the 4th award ceremony on November 16, 1994 to Ralph Giordano; Series of publications by the Siebenpfeiffer Foundation. 1995, ISBN 3-9801611-2-9 .
  • My Irish diary. 1996, ISBN 3-462-02568-6 .
  • That was the end of it ... What remained of the German-German border. 1996, ISBN 3-89136-591-8 .
  • The wombat and other animal stories. 1997, ISBN 3-423-20328-5 .
  • Germany trip. Notes from a difficult homeland. 1998, ISBN 3-462-02739-5 .
  • We are the stronger. Speeches, appeals, writings on German topics and people of our time. 1998, ISBN 3-89136-671-X .
  • Martin Schmidt, Brigitte Reimann , Ralph Giordano: Hoyerswerda - literary reflections. 1998, ISBN 3-9808957-0-X .
2000-2009
  • The traditional lie. From the warrior cult in the Bundeswehr. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-462-02921-5 .
  • Sicily, Sicily! A homecoming. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-462-03140-6 .
  • RG and Uwe Laugwitz: About the difficulties of living, thinking and writing. Conversation from 1986. Uwe Laugwitz Verlag, Buchholz in der Nordheide 2003, ISBN 3-933077-12-5 .
  • A stroke of luck, a miracle, a miracle. In: Martin Doerry (Ed.): Nowhere and everywhere at home. Conversations with survivors of the Holocaust. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-421-04207-1 . Pp. 172-185. (Also as CD)
  • Memories of someone who got away. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2007, ISBN 3-462-03772-2 . (Autobiography)
  • Mixed - they are of course still needed. Foreword to Rochus Misch's autobiography : The Last Witness. I was Hitler's operator, courier, and bodyguard. Pendo, Zurich / Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-86612-194-2 . Pp. 19-35.
2010–2012
  • My life is so sinfully long. A diary. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-462-04240-5 . (Diary March 20, 2009 to March 20, 2010)
  • The achievement of not having become a cynic . Speeches and writings on Germany from 1999 to 2011. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-462-04404-1 .

Films (selection)

  • Heia Safari - The legend of the German colonial idyll in Africa . Two-part television film, WDR 1966, 90 min.
  • Hunger - a challenge to life and death . TV film, WDR 1968, 85 min. (Honorable recognition by the press jury for the Adolf Grimme Prize 1969)
  • Camilo Torres - Rebel of the Cross. A Colombian tragedy . TV film, WDR 1969, 45 min. (Honorable recognition at the Adolf Grimme Prize 1970)
  • The Armenian question no longer exists - tragedy of a people . TV film, WDR 1986, 45 min. (On the genocide of the Armenians )
  • The Jews of Königswinter . TV film, WDR 1987, 45 min.
  • The Perfect Murder - How the Nazi Judges were acquitted . TV film, WDR 1988
  • That was the end of it ... What remained of the German-German border, TV film, 1996.

Publications in magazines

Talk

literature

Web links

Commons : Ralph Giordano  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Ralph Giordano  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Beware of ideologues!" In: Jungle World , August 16, 2006
  2. ↑ Alliance against Anti-Semitism: Open letter to the peace movement: Against political naivety , February 2003 (letter co-signed by Ralph Giordano)
  3. ↑ Ralph Giordano: My wife was spared the worst - through active euthanasia. In: Hamburger Abendblatt of October 21, 2005.
  4. ↑ Ralph Giordano: The man did not deserve this damnation. In: Berliner Zeitung of March 26, 2005, p. 32.
  5. ↑ Ralph Giordano: All of Germany is involved in this crime. In: Spiegel Online , October 13, 2006
  6. ↑ Ralph Giordano: “Jewish intellectuals contradict the accusations from the left-wing radical“ anti-German ”scene. Your counter-speech: Never again war, down again Holocaust, never again expulsions. ” Interview on his support of the center against expulsions , taken from: specifically 09/2004.
  7. ^ "Displaced people lose Giordano".  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: faz.net@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.faz.net  
  8. ↑ Ralph Giordano is dead. In: Focus , December 10, 2014, accessed December 10, 2014.
  9. ↑ The grave of Ralph Giordano. In: knerger.de
  10. ↑ Hamburg gets Ralph Giordano-Platz. In: deutschlandfunkkultur.de , November 10, 2017, accessed on November 11, 2017
  11. ↑ Concentration camp memorial receives library from Ralph Giordano , deutschlandfunkkultur.de, published and accessed on December 28, 2017
  12. ↑ Merit holders since 1986. (PDF) State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on March 11, 2017 .
  13. ^ Speech by Ralph Giordano at the award ceremony on September 17, 2003 in Berlin
  14. ↑ Arthur Koestler Prize 2014 went to the publicist Dr. Ralph Giordano. DGHS press release
  15. ↑ Official Gazette of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, issue 40/2017 of May 23, 2017, page 799.
  16. ↑ Information on the Bertini Prize
  17. ^ Günther Lachmann: Central Council of Muslims: "Sharia and democracy are compatible". In: welt.de . March 3, 2011, accessed October 7, 2018 .
  18. ↑ Integration: The Do-Gooders and the Dark Side of Islam. In: welt.de . September 19, 2010, accessed October 7, 2018 .
  19. ↑ “Not immigration, Islam is the problem!” Giordano's open letter to Christian Wulff in October 2010
  20. ↑ Open your eyes, damn it! In: Die Welt , September 20, 2011
  21. ^ Death threat against Giordano. In: Die Welt , May 24, 2007 and [1] , Der Spiegel , May 25, 2007
  22. ↑ Stop the construction of this mosque. In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , May 16, 2007; (Interview on the planned construction of a central mosque in Cologne), Link to the video ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2007 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ocs.zgk2.de
  23. ↑ "This 'But with such criticism you are getting close to the Nazis of today' is a murderous argument that, given my biographical background, leads itself into the absurd. […] There we are with the really uncanny situation: namely that many people who do not have my background want to express the same criticism of the construction of the mosque and of the Islamic parallel societies in Germany in general, but do not dare to do so because they fear, firstly, to be placed in the right-wing extremist, racist neo-Nazi corner and, secondly, to suddenly see the wrong allies at their side. ”, in: New dispute over the Cologne mosque. In: Bild (newspaper) , May 18, 2007, p. 6.
  24. ^ Death threats against writer Ralph Giordano. In: Hamburger Abendblatt , May 25, 2007.
  25. ↑ TEXT Ralph Giordano. In: Kölner Stadtanzeiger , June 1, 2007, Ralph Giordano attacks Muslims. In: Die Welt , June 1, 2007.
  26. ↑ "I wonder how someone to whom the Koran, this foundation document of an archaic pastoral culture, is sacred, can stand on the ground of the Basic Law ... One thing excludes the other." In: Giordano: Mosque building is "declaration of war". In: Tagesspiegel , August 17, 2007
  27. ^ Giordano: Grand mosques are land grabbing. In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , October 4th
  28. ↑ Necla Kelek: The minaret is a symbol of power. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 5, 2007
  29. ^ FAZ of May 25, 2007
  30. ↑ Lea Rosh: Laudation for Ralph Giordano. In: duesseldorf-blog.de , September 28, 2007 (PDF; 27 kB)
  31. ↑ Islam Debate - Mosque Construction. ( Memento of the original from November 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Humanistic Press Service , May 30, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hpd-online.de
  32. ↑ Central Council of Ex-Muslims defends Ralph Giordano. ( Memento of the original from September 13, 2007 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. In: Humanistic Press Service , May 30, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hpd-online.de
  33. ↑ Kristian Frigelj: Ralph Giordano wants to take rights for himself. In: Die Welt , August 7, 2008
  34. ↑ Micha Brumlik: “The halved humanum. How Ralph Giordano became a xenophobia ”, in: Thorsten Gerald Schneiders (Ed.): Islamfeindlichkeit. When the lines of criticism blur . Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag 2009, p. 469.
  35. ↑ Giordano's criticism of Islam: The old man and the mosque. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 1, 2007
  36. ↑ Jörg Lau: Out of the factory. Muslims want to build a new mosque in Cologne - no cause for alarm at www.Zeit.de
  37. ↑ Jörg Lau: Ralph Giordano's intellectual suicide at www.Zeit.de
  38. ↑ Where Ralph Giordano is wrong. In the mosque dispute in Cologne, the author denies Muslims in Germany their basic right to freely practice their religion. To the lack of republican spirit of debate. In: TAZ , May 29, 2007
  39. ↑ Patrick Bahners: The alarmists. The German fear of Islam. dtv, Munich, 2012, p. 246.
  40. ↑ "I am not a suitable enemy image" , (Interview with Günter Wallraff) In: Jüdische Zeitung , August 2007. (www.j-zeit.de)
  41. ↑ Marco Carini: The axis of the apostate. About the break with the left. Rotbuch Verlag, Berlin 2012, p. 225.
  42. ↑ Works here in the appendix in the thematic context:
    • Autobiographical Records:
      • Memories of someone who got away. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2007, ISBN 3-462-03772-2 . (Autobiography)
      • The party is always right . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1961. As a new edition: Herder, 1990, ISBN 3-451-08413-9 . (Giordano's development 1945–1957 and eventual break with communism on German soil.)
      • My life is so sinfully long. A diary. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-462-04240-5 . (Diary March 20, 2009 to March 20, 2010.)
    • Fiction with autobiographical motives / autobiographical background:
    • Speeches, writings, appeals, appreciations, discussions, forewords:
      • I'm nailed to this land. Speeches and essays about the German past and present. 1994, ISBN 3-426-80024-1 .
      • We are the stronger. Speeches, appeals, writings on German topics and people of our time. (1998) ISBN 3-89136-671-X .
      • RG and Uwe Laugwitz: About the difficulties of living, thinking and writing. Conversation from 1986. Uwe Laugwitz Verlag, Buchholz in der Nordheide 2003, ISBN 3-933077-12-5 .
      • A stroke of luck, a miracle, a miracle. In: Martin Doerry (Ed.): Nowhere and everywhere at home. Conversations with survivors of the Holocaust. DVA , Munich 2006, ISBN 3-421-04207-1 , pp. 172-185. (also as CD)
      • Mixed - they are of course still needed. Foreword to Rochus Misch's autobiography : The Last Witness. I was Hitler's operator, courier, and bodyguard. Zurich and Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-86612-194-2 , pp. 19–35.
      • The achievement of not having become a cynic . Speeches and writings on Germany from 1999 to 2011. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-462-04404-1 .
    • Travel impressions and reports:
    • National Socialism, Third Reich, Germany: Dangers and displacement:
      • If Hitler had won the war. The plans of the Nazis after the final victory. 1989, ISBN 3-462-02944-4 .
      • Wolfgang Weirauch, Arfst Wagner , Ralph Giordano, Imanuel Geiss , Thomas Höfer, Christoph Lindenberg : Anthroposophists and National Socialism. Flensburger-Hefte-Verlag, Flensburg 1991, ISBN 3-926841-32-X .
      • The second guilt or burden of being German. Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-89136-145-9 .
      • How can this generation still breathe? Letters to the book “The Second Guilt or From the Last to Being German”. 1990, ISBN 3-89136-289-7 .
      • Will Germany be dangerous again? My letter to Chancellor Kohl, causes and consequences. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-462-02291-1 .
      • Ralf Dahrendorf , Margarete Mitscherlich , Ralph Giordano: Hamburg 1945: Destroyed. Liberated. Hopeful? Civic event series on the 50th anniversary of the end of the war. 1995, ISBN 3-7672-1243-9 ,
      • Martin Schmidt, Brigitte Reimann, Ralph Giordano: Hoyerswerda - literary reflections. Hoyerswerdaer Kunstverein, Hoyerswerdaer 1998, ISBN 3-9808957-0-X .
      • The traditional lie. From the warrior cult in the Bundeswehr. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-462-02921-5 .
    • Additional:
      • Jan Rolfs (pseudonym): West German diary. New Life Publishing House, Berlin / GDR 1953.
      • Ralph Giordano, Friedrich Heyer , Raffi Kantian, Wilm Sanders, Tessa Hofmann , Hagop Guektchian, Ernst E. Pioch: Armenia - a small people with a great heritage. Catholic Academy, Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-928750-17-8 .
      • As publisher: Germany and Israel: Solidarity in Probation. Balance sheet and perspective of German-Israeli relations. 1993, ISBN 3-88350-029-1 .
      • Clemens Lindemann, Ignatz Bubis , Manfred Buchwald , Ralph Giordano: Documentation of the 4th award ceremony on November 16, 1994 to Ralph Giordano; Series of publications by the Siebenpfeiffer Foundation. 1995, ISBN 3-9801611-2-9 .
  43. ↑ This conversation from 1986 was taken up again by both interlocutors 11 years later in an exchange of letters in 1997. Giordano had initially spoken out against the publication in April 1997 without clarifying revision, but after a subsequent written exchange of ideas with Laugwitz in May 1997 he declared his consent to the publication of the large-volume interview. The following books and essays by Giordano are dealt with: Hamburg - early 1947, The Bluff of Corporate “Entflechtung”, Morris, The Party is Always Right, The Problem - the “Ugly German”, The Bertinis, The Trace. Reports from an endangered world, The second guilt or The burden of being German .
personal data
SURNAME Giordano, Ralph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rolfs, Jan (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist, writer and director
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 2014
Place of death Cologne