Gustavo Bernardo José Hiltermann (born 1 May 1914 in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

, died 15 July 2000 in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

) was a Dutch journalist, jurist, political commentator, publisher and, since receiving his Ph.D. in 1972 with a dissertation on 'Eastern Europe and the German partition', also a historian.

Given names

Hiltermann was born from Dutch parents in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. As told by himself his parents wanted to name him ''Gustaaf Bernard Jozef'' but Argentinian law only allowed Spanish given names. Hiltermann never accepted it when people referred to him by his full name and he was often called ''Geebeejee'', after the abbreviation of his given names.

Career

He worked for some time for De Telegraaf. In 1942 he resigned from the newspaper because the Germans forced him to publish an antisemitic article. Afterwards he became one of the founders of

Elsevier Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as '' The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', ...

. Between 1952 and 1965 he was owner and director of the

Haagse Post ''HP/De Tijd'' is a Dutch language monthly opinion magazine published by the Audax Groep. Its editorial offices are in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Alongside ''De Groene Amsterdammer'', ''Vrij Nederland'' and ''Elsevier'', it is one of the most influe ...

of which his wife Sylvia Brandts Buys was the editor. Later he was the head editor of the sixth edition of the Winkler Prins Encyclopedie.

"De toestand in de wereld"

He became nationally famous with his weekly commentaries on international politics in the AVRO radio show item ''De toestand in de wereld, door mr. G.B.J. Hiltermann'' ( en, The state of the world by mr. G.B.J. Hiltermann}) which was aired from October 1956 till 22 November 1999, which were noted for his

pro-western The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.

viewpoints.

References

1914 births 2000 deaths 20th-century Dutch historians Dutch radio personalities Dutch publishers (people) Utrecht University alumni Elsevier (magazine) editors Dutch expatriates in Argentina {{netherlands-bio-stub