Thomas Medicus

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Thomas Medicus (* 1953 in Gunzenhausen , Middle Franconia ) is a German journalist and author .

Life

Medicus studied German, political science and art history in Marburg . After receiving his doctorate in 1981, he worked as a freelance journalist for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , the Basler Zeitung and Deutschlandfunk , then a feature editor at Tagesspiegel in Berlin, deputy feature editor of the Frankfurter Rundschau and cultural correspondent for the Frankfurter Rundschau in Berlin. In the summer of 2001 and in the spring of 2006 he was a fellow in the department “The Society of the Federal Republic” at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research .

In 2004 In the eyes of my grandfather appeared on the story of his grandfather, General Wilhelm Crisolli (1895–1944), which received a lot of press coverage. Ulrich Raulff described the book as “detective research into his grandfather's guilt in the partisan war”, Sigrid Löffler stated: “The fact that an excellent novel came about is the special quality of the book.” Others, however, see the work more critically and call it Hannes Army as “literature of justification” for washing the family of the perpetrators from guilt. Medicus is active “out of concern for the honor of the family” as “wage clerk for his own family and in the service of the zeitgeist”.

In spring 2007 Medicus was at the invitation of the Goethe-Institut Goethe-Munk-Writer in Residence at the Munk Center for International Affairs at the University of Toronto . From 2008 to 2010 he worked at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research in the joint project Social Capital in the Upheaval of European Societies - Communities, Families, Generations . In March 2012, his biography about Melitta von Stauffenberg appeared , about which the NZZ wrote: “What Medicus has unearthed and researched about [her] is both remarkable and sometimes unbelievable - but by no means unbelievable. It is also well written. ”In 2012 he was editing the extensive catalog for the exhibition Verführung Freiheit. Responsible for art in Europe since 1945 ( German Historical Museum Berlin ).

On March 7, 2014, Rowohlt Berlin Verlag published the narrative non-fiction book Heimat. A search . During his literary expedition to the provinces of his childhood, Thomas Medicus came across a dark historical secret and met the world-famous American writer JD Salinger . Uwe Ritzer wrote about it on March 29, 2014 in the Süddeutsche Zeitung : "The book is not a homeland book and its content is only superficially a local story ... It is about the province in the geographical sense and about the one in the mind."

In September 2016, Thomas Medicus published the volume Vergehnislicher Wandel. Views from the Province 1933–1949. The Biella photo collection on the rule of National Socialism in the German provinces - "a spectacular find" was the opinion of Die Welt , N24 and Deutschlandradio Kultur : "Thoughts of our present force themselves ..."

On September 22, 2017, Medicus published the narrative Germany book "After Idylle. Report from an unsettled country" at Rowohlt Berlin, which was presented on the Blue Sofa at the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair. Harry Nutt wrote in the Frankfurter Rundschau on October 18 2017: "Medicus is ready to be surprised by the people he meets" and said that "Medicus' trip to Germany (this book) makes a valuable inventory of the mental state of the country". "

For many years Medicus organized a scientific writing workshop for doctoral students at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research. Between 1989 and the beginning of the 2000s he traveled regularly to Central and Eastern Central Europe. Today he works as a freelance author and publicist in Berlin. Since 1996 he has been writing, working and often living in Dolgie / Poland.

In 2014 he was awarded the Literature Prize of the Wilhelm and Christine Hirschmann Foundation in Treuchtlingen for his complete works. Medicus received for Heimat in November 2017 . A search for the special prize of the August Graf von Platen Literature Prize .

Publications

  • The great love. Economy and construction of the body in the work of Frank Wedekind . Guttandin and Hoppe, Marburg 1982, ISBN 3-922140-12-2 (= dissertation).
  • Cities of the Habsburgs. Anton Hain Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-445-06023-1 .
  • In my grandfather's eyes. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-421-05577-7 .
  • with Heinz Bude , Andreas Willisch (ed.): About life in transition. Using the example of Wittenberge. Views of a Fragmented Society. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86854-233-2 .
  • Melitta from Stauffenberg. A German life. Rowohlt, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-387134-649-1 .
  • Homeland. A search. Rowohlt, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-87134-761-0 .
  • (Ed.): Fatal change. Views from the Province 1933–1949. Hamburger Edition HIS, Hamburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-86854-302-5 .
  • After the idyll. Report from an insecure country. Rowohlt, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-87134-831-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrich Raulff: The Nazi era as a family novel - Brother Hitler. on sueddeutsche.de , March 8, 2004.
  2. ↑ Hannes Heer: "It was Hitler - the liberation of the Germans from their past . Aufbau Taschenbuch, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-7466-7062-1 , p. 214-224 .
  3. ^ Munk Center for International Affairs , University of Toronto
  4. ^ Art and social research in dialogue: About life in transition.
  5. ↑ Cord Aschenbrenner: A seedy woman. In Neue Zürcher Zeitung , July 18, 2012, accessed on June 7, 2017.
  6. ↑ The Rise of the Nazis in the Small Town. In: Die Welt , September 7, 2016, accessed June 7, 2017.
  7. ↑ on September 3, 2016. See podcast Deutschlandradio (can no longer be listened to)
  8. ^ Jan Stephan: Treuchtlinger Literature Prize for Thomas Medicus. nordbayern.de, March 12, 2014, accessed June 7, 2017 .
  9. ^ Olaf Przybilla : National Socialism - How the brown mob raged in Franconia. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 5, 2016, accessed on June 7, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Medicus, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and author
DATE OF BIRTH 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Gunzenhausen