The writer Ralph Giordano had an eventful life as a controversial publicist and television reporter. His experiences during the Nazi era shaped him.
Ralph Giordano barely survived the Second World War and the persecution by the National Socialists - hiding in a Hamburg basement. In the decades that followed, he made a name for himself as a pugnacious publicist, novelist and television reporter.
The horrors of the Nazi era shaped him
Giordano was born on March 20, 1923 in Hamburg. At first he spent a carefree childhood there. His parents are both musicians. His father has Sicilian roots, the mother is German Jew. He has two brothers, Egon and Rocco.
When the Nazis come to power, the harassment of the Jewish family begins. Ralph Giordano has to leave high school. He was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo several times. "We were poor people, leaving Germany was never an option," he once answered in a newspaper interview when asked why his family had never left Germany.
Fearing deportation, the family goes into hiding
After the bombing, the Giordanos fled Hamburg in 1943, but had to return to the Hanseatic city after being denounced. Fearing that their mother would be deported, the family went into various hiding places. She only survived National Socialism because a neighbor was willing to risk her own life to hide it. Almost starving, the family was liberated by the British Army on May 4, 1945.
Interim emigration to the GDR
After the war, Giordano works as a journalist. He observed the Nazi trials on behalf of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. A political interlude with the communists follows:in 1946 he joins the KPD and moves to the GDR in 1955. But just two years later he returned to the Federal Republic. In publications such as "The party is always right" (1961) he settles accounts with Stalinism.
Social Policy Specialist
In 1991, together with other celebrities such as Günter Wallraff or BAP singer Wolfgang Niedecken, Giordano demonstrated for the right to stay for Roma.His television career began in the early 1960s. He produced over 100 documentaries, many for NDR and WDR. As a specialist for minorities, driven by his own biography, he not only reports on the Nazi era and Stalinism, but also on the problems of developing countries in films such as "Slums - Backyard of Mankind" or "Hunger - The Challenge of Life and Death ", for which he was awarded the Grimme Television Prize in 1968.
Family history
In 1982 the author published "The Bertinis". The partly autobiographical novel describes the persecution of a Hamburg family under National Socialism. In the book, which was filmed by ZDF in 1988 and on which Giordano had been working for almost four decades, he deals with his own family history. An annual prize for civil courage, the Bertini Prize, also goes back to the novel. It is traditionally awarded on January 27th, the Holocaust Remembrance Day for the victims of National Socialism.
Warning of new right-wing extremism
Giordano himself has been honored with numerous prizes - here he is a guest at the Henri Nannen Prize 2006 ceremony.His life experiences always remain the most important motivation for Giordano to get involved. In the 1990s, too, he repeatedly raised his voice - for example in books such as "The Second Guilt" or "The Last of Being German", but also as a commentator on current political events.
He always takes positions on the role of minorities in the country, on recent German history, on Israel and on Judaism. In particular, his protests against the Cologne Mosque in 2007 brought him criticism. Also controversial in 2010 are his statements on the integration of Islam, in which he supports, among other things, the statements in Thilo Sarrazin's book "Germany Abolishes Itself". A year later, he criticized the then Federal President Christian Wulff (CDU) in an open letter and, in his speech on the 20th anniversary of German reunification, questioned his statement that Islam and democracy need not be a contradiction in terms.
Far removed from the controversial position on the integration of Islam, Giordano repeatedly warned throughout his life of the dangers of a growing right-wing extremism in Germany. The pugnacious publicist died in Cologne on December 10, 2014 at the age of 91.