Thomas Urban (journalist)

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Thomas Urban during an interview with Lech Wałęsa (1992)

Thomas Urban (born July 20, 1954 in Leipzig ) is a German journalist and non-fiction author .

education

Urban's parents are from Wroclaw . As expellees , they initially settled in the Soviet occupation zone near Leipzig. At the end of 1955 the family fled the GDR .

Urban spent his school days in the industrial community of Oberaussem near Cologne in the Rhenish lignite district . In 1973 he passed the Abitur at the Erftgymnasium in Bergheim . He then did military service and became a reserve officer. He practiced judo as a competitive sport and reached the 1st Dan . At the University of Cologne he studied Romance Studies , Slavic Studies and Eastern European History; thanks to several DAAD scholarships, he also studied in Tours , Kiev and Moscow .

In Cologne, Urban worked for the Russian dissident Lev Kopelev, who was expatriated from the Soviet Union . For graduate studies, he went to Lomonossow University in Moscow in 1981/82 . Because he had transported letters and medicines for dissidents , he was arrested by the KGB and deported. Urban found a job as a Russian teacher in the Federal Language Office .

journalism

After attending the Henri Nannen School in Hamburg, Urban first worked for the Associated Press (AP), then for the German Press Agency (dpa), until he switched to the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), for which he was from 1988 to 2012 Eastern Europe correspondent . Until 1992 he reported from Warsaw, where he followed the fall of party rule and the restructuring of the economic system . From 1992 to 1997 he was office manager in Moscow; he analyzed the great upheavals under Boris Yeltsin and also wrote reports from the scenes of the Abkhazian War and the First Chechen War .

From 1997 to 2012 he reported from Kiev, where he witnessed the Orange Revolution , and again from Warsaw, where he journalistically accompanied the rise of the Kaczyński twins . In the debate about the expulsion of Germans from the areas east of Oder and Neisse , he spoke out against the initiative of the Prussian Treuhand organization to demand compensation from Poland for the property of the former German residents that had been forcibly given up.

In 2012 he took over the correspondent's office in Madrid . In comments and analyzes, he defended austerity as a way out of the economic crises in Spain and Portugal .

Contributions to the history of Eastern Europe

Poland

Urban presented several books on the history of the German-Polish conflict, beginning with the controversies about the German minority in Poland: “Germans in Poland” (1993). In his review for Die Zeit , Klaus Bednarz emphasized that the author was “just as unprejudiced as unemotional” in dealing with a chapter of contemporary history that was “long denied” in Poland.

He was awarded the Georg Dehio Book Prize for his book “The Loss” (2004) about the mutual expulsions and forced evacuation of Germans and Poles . In his laudation , Hans Maier stated that the “knowledgeable and objective” presentation left the reader with “thoughtfulness”. Klaus Bednarz found in his review that the book was a “valuable help” in “understanding between Germans and Poles”. The former Swiss diplomat Paul Stauffer said that the "unconstrained sympathetic" portrayal gives hope for a "loosening of the rigid enemy images".

Former Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker and ex-Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt entrusted Urban with the volume on Poland for the book series “ The Germans and their Neighbors ”, which they have published since 2008 . In his review at the time , Klaus Harpprecht called Urban’s book “an excellent study which gives rise to the hope that a similarly intensive partnership could flourish between Poles and Germans as has grown between French and Germans”.

Russia

In the monograph "Russian Writers in Berlin in the Twenties" (2003) Urban traced the Russian literary scene in Berlin from 1921 to 1923.

Rainer F. Schmidt called his book " Katyn 1940 " (2015) in the FAZ a "contemporary historical achievement of the highest order". The writer Marko Martin called it a “standard work” around the world . Urban was able to prove for the first time that former Wehrmacht officers from the ranks of the resistance movement made a decisive contribution to blocking the Soviet initiative to put Katyn on the list of German war crimes at the Nuremberg trials .

In the series “Streitschrift” of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung edition” published by Heribert Prantl , Urban's book essay “The errors of the Kremlin” on the annexation of the Crimean peninsula by Russia and the Russian-Ukrainian war over the Donbass appeared . In his review, Rupert Neudeck called the essay "excellent", written by someone who "knows exactly what is going on in an excited debate".

Football and politics

Urban was particularly interested in the political history of football in Poland and the Soviet Union. The historical monograph “Black Eagle, White Eagle. German and Polish footballers in the machinery of politics ”(2011) the Alsatian author Martin Graff called a“ treasure trove ”, football is represented as a“ reflection of the past ”.

During the European Football Championship in 2012 , an exhibition co-designed by Urban on the basis of the book was shown in the German embassy and the House of History in Warsaw. Urban was invited to the German national team's training camp near Nice to participate in an information evening for the players about the host countries Poland and Ukraine.

On the occasion of the 2012 European Football Championship, the final of which was held in Kiev, he analyzed Russian and Ukrainian publications on the alleged death game of 1942, the consequences of which (execution of Soviet footballers who defeated an Wehrmacht self in occupied Kiev) were, according to his account, a legend of Soviet propaganda . In his opinion, not only the Soviet feature film “ The Third Half ” ( Treti taim , 1964), but also the Russian remake of the subject, “ Match ” (2012), portrayed the course of events considerably.

He also shed light on the fate of the Starostin football brothers in the Soviet Union during the Stalin era.

Private

Urban is married to a Polish woman from Wroclaw , his parents' hometown.

Prizes and awards

Fonts

Books
Contributions
  • Shortage of skilled workers: The manipulators: Authors who run half-truths and falsehoods, gloss over and defamation also riot on Wikipedia. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . October 5, 2019, p. 12
  • Wikipedia: Over a hundred mistakes, great! Online lexicon. A poor text receives a prize. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . December 16, 2015.
  • The myth of the Kiev death game. In: From Conflict to Competition. German-Polish-Ukrainian football history. Eds. D. Blecking, L. Pfeiffer, R. Traba. Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2014, pp. 205–221, ISBN 978-3-7307-0083-9 .
  • The football brothers Starostin - Beria's victims in the GULAG. In: D. Blecking, L. Pfeiffer (Ed.): Sportsmen in the "Century of the Camps". Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-89533-872-4 , pp. 280–285.
  • Gajto Gasdanow - a writer of "Russkij Montparnasse" / Гайто Газданов - писатель “русского Монпарнаса”. In: Tatjana Lukina (ed.): The Russian Munich / Русский Мюнхен. MIR eV, Center of Russian Culture in Munich, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-9805300-9-5 , pp. 184–193.
  • The Turning Years in Poland. In: Witold Krassowski: Powidoki z Polski / Afterimages of Poland / Views, Forbearances. EKpictures, Warszawa 2009, ISBN 978-83-910577-1-1 , pp. 9-15.
  • Germans, Poles and Jews - a tricky love triangle. In: Krzysztof Ruchniewicz, Jürgen Zinnecker (Ed.): Between Forced Labor, Holocaust and Displacement. Polish, Jewish and German childhoods in occupied Poland. Juventa, Weinheim / Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-7799-1733-5 , pp. 27-41.
  • Ilja Ehrenburg as a war propagandist. In: Karl Eimermacher, Astrid Volpert (Hrsg.): Thaw, Ice Age and guided dialogues. Russians and Germans after 1945. West-east reflections. New series, 3; Fink, Paderborn / Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-7705-4088-4 , pp. 455-488.
  • Displacement as an issue in Poland. In: Petra Rösgen (Red.): Flight, displacement, integration. Speeches at the exhibition opening on December 2, 2005; [Opening of the exhibition Flight, Expulsion, Integration on December 2, 2005]. Foundation House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn 2006, ISBN 3-9808132-9-0 , pp. 156–165.
  • Niemcy nad Wisłą - wczoraj i dziś / Germans on the Vistula - yesterday and today. In: Georgia Krawiec (Ed.): Niemcy w Polsce / Germans in Poland. Droste, Warsaw 2005, pp. 15–22.
  • The Splett debate in Poland since 1989. In: Ulrich Bräuel, Stefan Samerski (Hrsg.): A bishop in front of a court. The trial of Danzig Bishop Carl Maria Splett in 1946. fiber, Osnabrück 2005, ISBN 3-929759-98-5 , pp. 25-44.
  • Historical burdens of the integration of Poland into the EU. In: From Politics and Contemporary History . 5-6 / 2005, January 31, 2005, pp. 32-39.
  • History dispute - four fateful years. In: GEO Special Poland. No. 4/2004, pp. 98-101.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Badtke: "Black Eagles - White Eagles." German-Polish Football Stories , n-tv.de , September 5, 2011.
  2. ↑ Abitur classes since 1926 on erftgymnasium.de, accessed on October 11, 2019
  3. ↑ Anja Musick: Reading Urban. Poldi, Poland and football , Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , March 28, 2012.
  4. ^ Lew Kopelew Forum  ( page no longer available , search in web archives ), kast.de June 3, 2015.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / termine.ksta.de
  5. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 27, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) 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 / www.kiev-dialogue.org
  6. ↑ medientage.org , accessed on October 11, 2019
  7. ↑ The yellow villa in the Weyertal. Sixty years of the Slavic Institute at the University of Cologne (1953-2013) . Nümbrecht 2014, p. 415.
  8. ↑ Sabine Voßkamp: Th. Urban: The loss , www.hsozkult.de , January 19, 2005.
  9. ↑ Thomas Urban: Catalonia wants to split off. In: sueddeutsche.de. September 26, 2012, accessed March 17, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Thomas Urban: Saving can be the solution , sz.de , September 2, 2015.
  11. ^ Thomas Urban: Saving unavoidable , bpb.de , October 6, 2015.
  12. ↑ Klaus Bednarz: Long denied. Thomas Urban's history of the German minority in Poland , in: Die Zeit , November 26, 1993, p. 48.
  13. ^ Ceremonial award of the Georg Dehio Book Prize 2006 to Karl-Markus Gauß and Thomas Urban , kulturforum.info
  14. ^ Klaus Bednarz: forgive and renounce. In: Die Zeit , November 11, 2004, p. 28.
  15. ^ Paul Stauffer, Expulsion - Evil of a Century. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , 20./21. August 2005.
  16. ↑ Klaus Harpprecht: What we should know about each other . In: Die Zeit , February 26, 2009, p. 52.
  17. ^ Katrin Kruse: Risk of infection in Berlin , taz.de , November 12, 2003.
  18. ^ Rainer F. Schmidt: Exculpation of the Soviets? , in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 9, 2015. p. 14.
  19. ↑ Marko Martin: A mass murder that almost would have been forgotten , in: Die Welt , May 9, 2015, p. 7.
  20. ↑ Solveig Grothe: How the Russian Cold Saved Hitler , in: spiegel.de , March 13, 2018.
  21. ↑ Thomas Urban: How the Katyn massacre disappeared from the prosecution , in: sz.de , May 14, 2015.
  22. ^ Rupert Neudeck: The errors of the Kremlin , sonnseite.de , August 13, 2015.
  23. ↑ Schwarzer Adler, Weisse Adler. In: The Rhine Palatinate. Magazine. View across borders , June 9, 2012.
  24. ^ White Eagles, Black Eagles. Polish and German footballers in the shadow of politics , dsh.waw.pl
  25. ↑ White eagles - black eagles , willimowski.football
  26. ↑ Bayern players are now fully involved , in: spiegel.de , May 28, 2012.
  27. ↑ The Myth of the Kiev Death Game. In: From Conflict to Competition. German-Polish-Ukrainian football history. Eds. D. Blecking, L. Pfeiffer, R. Traba. Göttingen 2014, pp. 205–221
  28. ^ The Kiev "Death Game" 1942. The feature films for the 20th and 70th anniversaries. In: SportZeiten , 1.2014, pp. 7–18.
  29. ↑ The football brothers Starostin - Beria's victims in the GULAG. In: Ed. D. Blecking, L. Pfeiffer (Ed.): Sportsmen in the "Century of the Camps". Göttingen 2012, pp. 280–285.
  30. ↑ Nikolai Starostin. The rise, fall and rise of a legendary player. In: Russkij Futbol. A reader. Eds. S. Feisberg, T. Köhler, M. Brand. Göttingen 2018, pp. 64–75.
  31. ↑ Klaus Bednarz: Long denied. Thomas Urban's history of the German minority in Poland. In: The time. November 26, 1993, p. 48 ( zeit.de ).
  32. ↑ Thomas Urban , at Georg Dehio Book Prize.
personal data
SURNAME Urban, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and non-fiction author
DATE OF BIRTH July 20, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig