Berlin-Brandenburg contemporary witness award
The Berlin-Brandenburg Zeitzeugenpreis is awarded in a writing competition that is aimed in particular at non-professional authors. Closely integrated into the company's marketing concept , the prize has been awarded annually since 2005 on the initiative of the payment publisher Frieling-Verlag Berlin and its managing director Johann-Friedrich Huffmann for “authentic”, contemporary historical contributions in the Berlin-Brandenburg region.
The aim of the competition is to remember "lived history" and to convey personal experiences as "interestingly" as possible, but no literary standards are applied to this - which in turn suits the main target group of the company initiating this award.
To endow the competition
According to Managing Director Huffmann, the competition is deliberately endowed with “not prize money, but rather vouchers” from his company, which the winners can redeem for the publication of new texts. This is to prevent it from becoming “commercial competition”. The 1st prize is a sculpture of memories , a bronze sculpture by the artist Achim Kühn , which depicts an open book. The winners of the 2nd and 3rd prize will be granted one or two free publications of six book pages each in anthologies published by Frieling-Verlag Berlin . In addition, the winners' contributions as well as other texts honored by the jury will be published as part of a documentation by Frieling-Verlag Berlin .
The only so far known professional authors who took part in this competition were Peter Reusse , who received a “special prize” in 2006 for his story Gaskopp , as well as Jenny Schon , who in 2008 received a 3rd prize for her story My first Berlin Marathon was awarded.
Cooperation partners and sponsors
The cooperation partners of the writing competition include the Allied Museum and the Berlin City Museum Foundation . The competition is also supported by the Documentation Center for Everyday Culture of the GDR , the Brandenburg State Center for Political Education, the Siegen Center for Childhood, Youth and Biography Research and the Berlin Contemporary Witness Exchange. The media partner is Der Tagesspiegel .
Prominent supporters from politics and business
The Frieling-Verlag Berlin has succeeded in gaining prominent support for the “Zeitzeugenpreis”. The company has so far been able to win well-known politicians as laudators and for the handover of the award, such as the former President of the Bundestag Rita Süssmuth and the former Mayor of Berlin Klaus Schütz . Participants in the jury work include a. also politicians like Jörg Schönbohm , Marco Bülow , Monika Griefahn as well as Wolfgang Gerhardt and Monika Grütters . Patrons were u. a. 2011 the Governing Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit and the Prime Minister of Brandenburg Matthias Platzeck .
In his celebratory speech on the occasion of the competition “20 Years of the Fall of the Wall” (2009), Edzard Reuter also pointed out, in the interests of the company, that the “academic search for truth” should make use of subjective testimonials from contemporary witnesses, because their contributions “are definitely more productive (could) emerge as some so-called 'contemporary historical documents', no matter how weighty they may be. "
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ zeitzeugenpreis.de ( Memento of the original from February 2, 2014 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. To the initiator of the award
- ↑ zeitzeugenpreis.de ( Memento of the original from February 3, 2014 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. See press release: Contemporary witnesses again in the Rotes Rathaus of Berlin on March 27, 2008
- ↑ zeitzeugenpreis.de ( Memento of the original from February 3, 2014 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. At the advertised prices
- ↑ a b I'm (not) a Berliner / Brandenburger , online in the Berliner Tagesspiegel from October 9, 2011
