Daniel Siemens (2022): Hinter der Weltbühne. Hermann Budzislawski und das 20. Jahrhundert. [Behind the World Stage. Hermann Budzislawski and the 20th century]
Reviewed and translated by Stine Eckert | He wasn’t a champion of women, says Daniel Siemens in an Online-Talk organized by the Critical Communication Studies Network on March 15, 2022, about Hermann Budzislawski, whose biography he wrote. It is the first one about the man »behind the world stage« – a pun referring to Budzislawski’s years as editor-in-chief of the famous and influential German Weltbühne magazine, meaning literally World Stage, during the Weimar Republic. Again and again, Siemens addresses Budzislawski’s difficult interactions with women authors. For instance, when he shrugged off the article offered by 29-year old Hannah Arendt about the Jewish World Congress, perhaps because she signaled she also could take her work to the competition, the Tage-Buch magazine. Or when he denied that Dorothy Thompson, one of the most important American journalists at the time, had achieved her fame through her own work and charisma. But first things first.