Willi Köhler (journalist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Willi Köhler (born January 31, 1907 in Kassel , † August 26, 1977 in East Berlin ) was a German journalist . For eight years he was head of department at New Germany .

Life

After graduating from high school, Willi Köhler studied German in Berlin from 1929 to 1931 . He then found a job as a newspaper dealer, which he carried out until 1933. At the same time, in 1931, he joined the KPD and became the political leader of the KPD street cell " Uncle Tom's Hut ". The meetings of this Berlin-Zehlendorfer local association often took place in Johannes R. Becher's house.

As a freelancer, he wrote for communist newspapers, including the KPD party newspaper Die Rote Fahne . From 1933 to 1940 Willi Köhler was a welfare recipient , worked as a bookseller's assistant and did illegal party work in Zehlendorf. After serving in the German Wehrmacht from 1940 to 1944, he was taken prisoner of war by the Soviets from August 1944 to August 1948 , where he was sent to an Antifa school .

Köhler returned to Germany, in the Soviet Zone , joined the SED and took over management functions in the agitation and press apparatus of the party's central committee . In this function he appeared with publications in press organs such as the Daily Rundschau . In 1955 he joined the SED daily newspaper Neues Deutschland as a permanent employee . In 1956 he took over the management of their culture department . In 1964 he was dismissed because he took dogmatic positions. He was replaced by a representative of the young party guard , the Leipzig FDJ secretary Klaus Höpcke , while Köhler from then on increasingly wrote articles and political comments , conducted interviews and was employed as a foreign correspondent , for example at the West German SPD party congress in the preparatory phase of the emergency laws . In 1970 he received an external teaching position at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig for the subject "Methodology of argumentation and polemics ".

His close association with Johannes R. Becher resulted in a large number of articles about him and his work. He also campaigned for his profession when he believed he had discovered signs of disdain for the “journalistic genre”. For example, in his 1976 essay The “small” and the “large” form in the world stage, he resisted the principle of equating feuilletonism with superficiality.

Awards

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Andreas Herbst : Köhler, Willi . In: Helmut Müller-Enbergs , Jan Wielgohs, Dieter Hoffmann (eds.): Who was who in the GDR? A biographical lexicon . With the collaboration of Olaf W. Reimann and Bernd-Rainer Barth . Revised and expanded new edition. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86153-201-8 , p. 454 f .
  2. ↑ Willi Köhler: In the editorial staff of the "Red Flag" . In: New Germany . No. 290/1973 , October 20, 1973, Culture. Encounters, p. 11 .
  3. ↑ a b Willi Köhler Archive. Short biography / history of the institution. In: adk.de. Retrieved February 20, 2018 .
  4. ^ Central Committee of the SED congratulates Comrade Willi Köhler . In: New Germany . No. 26/1977 , January 31, 1977, pp. 5 .
  5. ↑ Dogmatists had to go . In: The time . No. 6/1964 , February 7, 1964, Zeitspiegel ( zeit.de [accessed February 20, 2018]).
  6. ^ Willi Köhler, Günter Böhme: speaking choirs against Wehner and Brandt . In: New Germany . Organ of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. No. 78/1968 , March 18, 1968, pp. 1 f .
  7. ↑ Willi Köhler: The "small" and the "large" form . In: Peter Theek (Ed.): Die Weltbühne . 71st volume, issue 24, June 15, 1976, p. 743-745 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Koehler, Willi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH August 26, 1977
Place of death East Berlin