Category: Interview

Edition 2/2026, Interview

Bringing the past into the present A conversation on the occasion of the publication of Schuld und Geheimnis. Bekenntnisse von Legenden der deutsch-jüdischen Publizistik [Guilt and secrecy. Confessions of legends of German-Jewish journalism]

Martina Thiele in coversation with Siegfried Weischenberg | Resistance, »internal emigration,« or flight? After the Nazis seized power, Jewish journalists mostly had no choice but to flee. How did they survive? How were they – and non-Jewish dissidents – able to oppose the dictatorship from exile through their journalism? And in contrast, how did others who stayed behind advance their careers or accommodate themselves to Nazi rule? In his new book, Schuld und Geheimnis. Bekenntnisse von Legenden der deutsch-jüdischen Publizistik [Guilt and secrecy: Confessions of legends of German-Jewish journalism], Siegfried Weischenberg, professor emeritus of journalism, focuses on well-known and lesser-known journalists. Whether Alfred Kerr or Hilde Spiel, Fritz Sänger or Elisabeth Noelle – a wide range of behaviors and accounts of their experiences are up for discussion. Author Siegfried Weischenberg and media scholar Martina Thiele (Tübingen) use the life stories and journalistic work of important 20th-century German journalists as a starting point to discuss autobiographies as sources, memory and forgetting, guilt and responsibility, as well as anti-Semitism and gender relations in journalism.

Edition 2/2024, Interview

»A call to arms« An interview with Karl Kraus (1874 – 1936)

By Horst Pöttker | Karl Kraus was born on April 28, 1874 in Jičín, then in Bohemia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now in Czechia, and died on June 12, 1936 in Vienna. He came from an upper middle class family, who moved to the capital, Vienna, in 1877. Having begun studies in Law and Philosophy, and following initial forays as a journalist for various magazines and daily newspapers, he published the cultural policy magazine Die Fackel from 1899 until his death – for most of this time as its sole author. The book edition of his pacifist drama Die letzten Tage der Menschheit [The last days of humanity], whose enormous length meant that it was only ever performed in abridged versions, sometimes edited by the author himself, came out in 1922. As a journalist, satirist, poet and playwright, Karl Kraus was sharply critical of what he called the »yellow press« and its language. He also gave opinions on other problems, such as the questionable benefits of intellectual involvement, the accusation of antisemitism, and the rejection of the war.

Edition 2/2024, Interview

The war in Gaza, German media and the »wrong side of history«?

Mandy Tröger in conversation with Kai Hafez | The German Communication Association (DGPuK) recently published a »position paper for non-discriminatory discourse.« It was prompted by reactions to a statement issued by academics at Berlin universities defending the right of students to protest against the war in Gaza. The DGPuK condemns any hostility towards academics, defamation and threats – both from outside and within the academic community. This position paper shows again the great need for academic expertise and discourse regarding the war in Gaza, reporting on this war and the conflict in the Middle East. Kai Hafez, Professor of Comparative Analysis of Media Systems and Communication Cultures at the University of Erfurt, Germany, is a recognized expert on questions of media representations of the Middle East in German media. In the last few months, he has been expressing his criticism on current war reporting, for example, on German national radio Deutschlandfunk, in the press and in media podcasts.