Siegbert Schefke

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Angela Merkel and Siegbert Schefke on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in Bornholmer Strasse

Siegbert Schefke (born February 21, 1959 in Eberswalde ) is a German journalist . He became known because he secretly made film recordings of the Monday demonstration on October 9, 1989 in Leipzig during the Peaceful Revolution , which he passed on to the media in the West .

Career

Panasonic M7 video camera used for secret recordings on October 9, 1989

The son of a bricklayer did an apprenticeship as a construction worker with a high school diploma and after completing his military service he studied with the NVA at the Cottbus University of Civil Engineering . From 1985 he worked in East Berlin as a construction manager for new building renovations. In 1986 he began to get involved in peace and environmental groups; he was one of the founders of the environmental library in the Berlin Zionsgemeinde . As a photographer, cameraman and reporter, from 1987 he worked as a freelance for various television magazines such as the ARD magazine " Kontraste " and German newspapers. He documented the destruction of the environment and the decline of historic cities in the GDR. The Stasi gave the operational procedure against Schefke the code name "Satan" and, because of his commitment, saw him as one of the most dangerous opposition members, because his television images also reached the GDR population. Together with Aram Radomski , when Western journalists were no longer given access to Leipzig, he secretly filmed during the largest and most decisive Monday demonstration up to that point on October 9, 1989 from the tower of the Reformed Church . To do this, he used a camera that he had received from the expatriate dissident Roland Jahn . He gave the pictures to the Spiegel correspondent Ulrich Schwarz; the next day the Tagesschau broadcast the spectacular recordings of the "Beginning of the End of the SED Regime". In order to protect Schefke and Radomski, the ARD stated that the origin of the images was that they came "from an Italian camera team".

After the Peaceful Revolution, Schefke went on a six-month lecture tour in the United States; In 1991 he and Radomski were awarded the Siebenpfeiffer Prize . Since 1992 Schefke has worked occasionally as a freelancer at mdr . In 2005 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon . In 2009 he was honored with the Bambi in the silent heroes category together with Aram Radomski and Christoph Wonneberger . In 2014 Schefke received the Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media from the Media Foundation of the Sparkasse Leipzig .

In 2019 Schefke received a permanent US visa for himself and his family.

Schefke was portrayed by Arnd Klawitter in Hans-Christoph Blumenberg's docu-drama “ Deutschlandspiel ” (2000) .

Awards

Fonts

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Caption for the documentation in the morning magazine , viewed on August 2, 2010.
  2. ↑ Roland Jahn on jugendopposition.de ( Federal Agency for Civic Education / Robert Havemann Society eV), viewed on March 8, 2017.
  3. ^ The way to the public on jugendopposition.de ( Federal Agency for Civic Education / Robert Havemann Society eV), viewed on March 8, 2017.
  4. ↑ Jens Bauszus: Miracles of Leipzig. The power of television images , Focus from October 9, 2009, sighted on August 2, 2010.
  5. Jump up ↑ , Der Tagesspiegel from February 1, 2008, viewed on January 30, 2009.
  6. ↑ How civil courage changed society in the GDR on sce.de.
  7. ↑ Bambi Awards Hollywood Glamor and Memory of the Fall of the Wall, FAZ November 27, 2009, viewed on August 2, 2010.
  8. ↑ Germany game in the IMDb
personal data
SURNAME Schefke, Siegbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Eberswalde , GDR