Frank Schirrmacher (5 September 1959 – 12 June 2014) was a German journalist, literature expert and
essayist
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...
, writer, and from 1994 co-publisher of the national German newspaper ''
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'' (; ''FAZ''; "''Frankfurt General Newspaper''") is a centre-right conservative-liberal and liberal-conservativeHans Magnus Enzensberger: Alter Wein in neuen Schläuchen' (in German). ''Deutschland Radio'', ...
''.
Education
After studying
German studies
German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, German hi ...
,
English studies
English studies (usually called simply English) is an academic discipline taught in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education in English-speaking countries; it is not to be confused with English taught as a foreign language, which ...
, and
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
in
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
and
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, Schirrmacher joined the FAZ as editor of the
feuilleton
A ''feuilleton'' (; a diminutive of french: feuillet, the leaf of a book) was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art criti ...
(literature and arts section) in 1985. In 1988, he received his
doctorate
A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...
for a work about
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...
at the
University of Siegen
The University of Siegen (german: Universität Siegen) is a public research university located in Siegen, North Rhine-Westphalia and is part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, a society of Germany's leading research universities. The Univers ...
. Several years later, ''
Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'' criticized him for
self-plagiarism
Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and thought ...
in his dissertation—asserting that most of the text had already been used as his
magister thesis and in a
Suhrkamp
Suhrkamp Verlag is a German publishing house, established in 1950 and generally acknowledged as one of the leading European publishers of fine literature. Its roots go back to the "arianized" part of the S. Fischer Verlag.
In January 2010 the ...
book publication—, as well as for other inconsistent statements about his biography.
Editor and publisher of FAZ
In 1989, he succeeded
Marcel Reich-Ranicki
Marcel Reich-Ranicki (; 2 June 1920 – 18 September 2013) was a Polish-born German literary critic and member of the informal literary association Gruppe 47. He was regarded as one of the most influential contemporary literary critics in the fi ...
as the director of the editorial staff of the FAZ's arts supplement – Feuilleton. In 1994, he succeeded
Joachim Fest
Joachim Clemens Fest (8 December 1926 – 11 September 2006) was a German historian, journalist, critic and editor who was best known for his writings and public commentary on Nazi Germany, including a biography of Adolf Hitler and books about ...
as one of the five publishers of the newspaper, responsible for the Feuilleton, Science and other parts. Under Schirrmacher's direction FAZ coverage of
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
and
popular culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...
was expanded.
As the press boomed around 2000, Schirrmacher expanded the Feuilleton supplement, recruiting journalists from other newspapers. A few years later, however, he was forced to reduce the number of pages in the Feuilleton and for the first time in the history of the FAZ laid off employees.
Public debates
Schirrmacher often influenced the public discussion in Germany of controversial topics such as the debates about
genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including t ...
and
brain research
''Brain Research'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal focusing on several aspects of neuroscience. It publishes research reports and " minireviews". The editor-in-chief is Matthew J. LaVoie (University of Florida).
Until 2011, full reviews were ...
and about the low
birth rates
The birth rate for a given period is the total number of live human births per 1,000 population divided by the length of the period in years. The number of live births is normally taken from a universal registration system for births; populati ...
in Germany and
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. Newsweek named him one of Germany's leading intellectuals and
Ray Kurzweil
Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, inventor, and futurist. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and e ...
called Schirrmacher one of the "big thinkers".
Frank Schirrmacher's roasting of
Martin Walser
Martin Walser (; born 24 March 1927) is a German writer.
Life
Walser was born in Wasserburg am Bodensee, on Lake Constance. His parents were coal merchants, and they also kept an inn next to the train station in Wasserburg. He described the e ...
's novel ''
Tod eines Kritikers'' in 2002 caused a stir in the German press. Schirrmacher claimed the book, which was seen as a
roman à clef
''Roman à clef'' (, anglicised as ), French for ''novel with a key'', is a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship ...
centering on Schirrmacher's predecessor Reich-Ranicki (a German literature critic of Jewish ancestry), contained
anti-semitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
passages. He had reviewed the book before it came out, so the publishers changed the novel before publishing it, the first time a
book review
__NOTOC__
A book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is merely described (summary review) or analyzed based on content, style, and merit.
A book review may be a primary source, opinion piece, summary review or scholarly revie ...
had this effect in German history.
In his 2004 book ''
Das Methusalem-Komplott'', published in 14 languages and selling more than 1 million copies in Germany, Schirrmacher prognosticated the ageing of society as a result of low birth rates and calling for an "uprising of the old". He received the
Goldene Feder award for this book. In 2006, ''
Minimum
In mathematical analysis, the maxima and minima (the respective plurals of maximum and minimum) of a function, known collectively as extrema (the plural of extremum), are the largest and smallest value of the function, either within a given ran ...
'' was published, which became a bestseller too. The title refers to Schirrmacher's assertion that the
family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
was dissolving as the smallest cell of society, resulting in diminution of social relationships to a minimum. To prove the superiority of the family, he cites the event of the
Donner Party
The Donner Party, sometimes called the Donner–Reed Party, was a group of American pioneers who migrated to California in a wagon train from the Midwest. Delayed by a multitude of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–1847 snowbound in th ...
, resorted to cannibalism. Critics claimed that he exaggerated the statistics and that he supported a conservative view of the family. Through a PR campaign which included publishing some passages in
Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
and
Bild-Zeitung
''Bild'' (or ''Bild-Zeitung'', ; ) is a German tabloid newspaper published by Axel Springer SE. The paper is published from Monday to Saturday; on Sundays, its sister paper ''Bild am Sonntag'' ("''Bild on Sunday''") is published instead, which ...
, the book caused another media debate about the topic.
In a 2006 interview with Schirrmacher, Nobel laureate
Günter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grass (born Graß; ; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature.
He was born in the Free City of Da ...
admitted to have served in the Waffen-SS as a young man. Grass made the admission in a conversation about his new autobiography, ''
Peeling the Onion
''Peeling the Onion'' (german: link=no, Beim Häuten der Zwiebel) is an autobiographical work by German Nobel Prize-winning author and playwright Günter Grass, published in 2006. It begins with the end of his childhood in Danzig (Gdansk) when ...
'', saying he had been drafted at the age of 17 into the Waffen-SS—the combat force of the SS—in the final months of World War II.
signandsight
/ref> The interview stirred up a worldwide debate and forced Grass' publisher to publish the book earlier than intended.
Honours
Among other awards and honours, Schirrmacher received the International Corinne Book Prize, and in 2007 he was awarded the "Kulturpreis Deutsche Sprache" which is among the highest cultural prizes in the German-speaking world.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schirrmacher, Frank
1959 births
2014 deaths
German newspaper editors
German journalists
German male journalists
German newspaper journalists
20th-century German journalists
21st-century German journalists
German essayists
Heidelberg University alumni
Alumni of the University of Cambridge
University of Siegen alumni
German male writers
German male essayists
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung people