Henryk M. Broder

Henryk Marcin Broder (born 20 August 1946, self-designation Henryk Modest Broder) is a Polish-born German journalist, author, and TV personality.

Henryk M. Broder
Broder on 25 September 2013
Born
Henryk Marcin Broder

(1946-08-20) 20 August 1946
Katowice, Poland
NationalityGerman
OccupationJournalist, author

Broder is known for polemics, columns, and comments in written and audiovisual media. He wrote for the magazine Der Spiegel, as well as its online version and the daily Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. Since 2010, he has been writing for Die Welt. He is co-editor of Der Jüdische Kalender (The Jewish calendar), a compilation of quotes and texts relating to German Jewish culture, published annually. Besides his numerous publications, he appears as a frequent guest on German TV talk shows. In 2010 and 2011, he produced and starred, alongside Egyptian-German writer and political scientist Hamed Abdel-Samad, in the satirical TV series Entweder Broder – Die Deutschland-Safari (a wordplay on "entweder/oder", German for "either/or", "Either Broder – The Germany Safari") on ARD.

Broder is especially interested in Vergangenheitsbewältigung, Islam, Israel, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He sees a close relationship between German criticism of Israel's policies and Antisemitism, a view criticized by, among others, the French-German columnist Alfred Grosser.[1]

Life

Born in Katowice, Silesia, Poland, Broder moved to Cologne with his family in 1958. Both of his parents were survivors of Nazi death camps. In Cologne, he studied economics, law and psychology but failed to graduate. Together with fellow student and nascent writer Fred Viebahn, whom he had known since high school times, he founded and edited two short-lived radically liberal quarterlies ("PoPoPo" and "Bubu/Eiapopeyea"). In the late 1960s he took over the St. Pauli-Nachrichten together with the journalist Michel Roger Lang, a then highly successful tabloid newspaper in Hamburg, along with Günter Wallraff, Stefan Aust and the photographer Günter Zint, in order to agitate the working class of the city with a combination of leftist articles, nude photography and lonely hearts ads.

In the 1970s, he wrote for the satirical magazine Pardon. From 1979 to 1981 he published, together with fellow journalist Peter Finkelgruen, the periodical "Freie Jüdische Stimme" ("Free Jewish Voice"). In 1981, he left Germany to work in Israel for a while, but continued to write for high-level periodicals as Die Zeit, Profil, Die Weltwoche, and Süddeutsche Zeitung. In the 1980s he also hosted the television talk-show Leute, along with Elke Heidenreich, which ran on Sender Freies Berlin; one of their guests was African-American poet Rita Dove, who had just won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize and is married to Fred Viebahn, Broder's old friend from Cologne.

Broder wrote a series of books which dealt with the relationship between Germans and Jews, respectively the growing German Jewish community. Together with Eike Geisel, Broder published essays, books and a documentary about the Jüdischer Kulturbund (Jewish Cultural Union), a previously unknown chapter of Jewish German cultural life during the Third Reich. He wrote books about foreign policy with special regard to Israel, Islam and the growing German Jewish community.

Ever since Operation Entebbe, Broder grew more and more critical of the German approach towards Israel, and what Broder sees as appeasement towards Islamic threats. In Broder's opinion, Anti-Zionism is in essence anti-Semitic.[2]

Broder's trademark is his polemical, blunt, and quick-witted style. He publishes hate mail and heated exchanges between him and critics on his website. The result of some of Broder's polemics were a series of lawsuits, some won and some lost by him. Many of Broder's writings for outlets such as spiegel.de and welt.de are archived at the Achse des Guten blog, which he, together with two other prominent German journalists, operates as a collaborative platform for the unfettered expression of about two dozen of his colleagues.

Broder is married to a publisher, and they have a grown-up daughter. He lives in Berlin.

Awards
Broder receiving the 2007 Ludwig-Börne-Preis

Works
  • Wer hat Angst vor Pornographie? Ein Porno-Report, Melzer, Darmstadt 1970
  • As co-author: Die Schere im Kopf. Über Zensur und Selbstzensur, Köln 1976
  • Danke schön. Bis hierher und nicht weiter. Mit Beiträgen von Detlef Hartmann, Ulrich Klug, Uwe Maeffert, Ulrich Vultejus, Konkret Literatur-Verlag, Hamburg 1980
  • Der Ewige Antisemit. Über Sinn und Funktion eines beständigen Gefühls, 1986
  • Fremd im eigenen Land. Juden in der Bundesrepublik, 1987
  • Ich liebe Karstadt und andere Lobreden, 1987
  • with Geisel, Eike: Premiere und Pogrom. Der Jüdische Kulturbund 1933–1941. Texte und Bilder, Siedler, Berlin 1992 ISBN 3-88680-343-0
  • Erbarmen mit den Deutschen, 1993
  • Schöne Bescherung! Unterwegs im Neuen Deutschland, 1994
  • Volk und Wahn, Goldmann, München 1996
  • Die Juden von Mea Shearim, 1997
  • Die Irren von Zion, Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 1998
  • Jedem das Seine, Ölbaum Verlag 1999
  • www.deutsche-leidkultur.de, Ölbaum Verlag 1999
  • Kein Krieg, nirgends: Die Deutschen und der Terror, Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2002
  • A Jew in the New Germany, University of Illinois Press, Champaign, 2003
  • Hurra, wir kapitulieren – Von der Lust am Einknicken, wjs Verlag, 2006
  • Kritik der reinen Toleranz, wjs Verlag, Berlin 2008
  • Vergesst Auschwitz! Der deutsche Erinnerungswahn und die Endlösung der Israel-Frage, Albrecht Knaus Verlag, Munich 2012

Audio
  • Ach So! Gad Granach und Henryk Broder on Tour, CD, Ölbaum-Verlag, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-927217-40-9

See also

References
  1. Grosser, Alfred (1 September 2008). "Verschleierung als Methode". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German).
  2. Wir sind alle traumatisiert (We all are traumatised): "Der Antizionismus ist für Nichtjuden wie für Juden nur eine Ausrede, ihren Antisemitismus sozusagen in einer politisch aseptischen Form präsentieren zu können. Kein Mensch geht hin und sagt: Ich bin Antisemit. Es gibt keinen Antizionismus, der seinen Ursprung nicht im Antisemitismus hätte ...Dass in einer aufgeklärten Diskussion alle Positionen vertreten werden können, ist selbstverständlich. Kritik an Israel ist vollkommen selbstverständlich." (Antizionism is for Jews and non-Jews just a pretext to present antisemitism in a political aseptical version. Nobody just comes around saying "I am an antisemite." There is no Antizionism which doesn't have its origin in antisemitism [...] It's a matter of course that in an enlightened argument any position can be held. Criticism of Israel is a matter of course.)
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