Günter Gaus

Günter Gaus (23 November 1929 – 14 May 2004) was a prominent German journalist-commentator who became a diplomat and (very briefly) a regional politician in Berlin. Once he had moved on – as he probably assumed, permanently – from the worlds of print journalism and television, in 1976 Günter Gaus joined the Social Democratic Party. The party's leader (and former chancellor), Willy Brandt, was a close political ally and a friend. Gaus let it be known that he had resigned his party membership towards the end of 2001, after Chancellor Schröder had incautiously – and "without consulting the party" – pledged "unconditional/unlimited solidarity" (''"bedingungslose/uneingeschränkte Solidarität"'') with the United States of America during the build-up to that year's United States invasion of Afghanistan.

Life

Provenance and early years

Gaus was born and grew up in Braunschweig where his parents, Willi and Hedwig Gaus, owned and ran a successful fruit and vegetable retail business. Alongside the conventional greengrocer merchandise there was a complementary specialist section with a focus on exotic fruits. Many years later his journalist daughter would tell an interviewer that wartime experiences of innumerable nights spent in bomb shelters and, in particular, of the destructive English air attack of 15 October 1944, would have a lasting impact on the child. Gaus was born a couple of months too early to avoid more active participation in a war. Shortly before it ended he was sent for two weeks as part of a large schoolboy contingent to the Netherlands "to dig trenches" (intended, it would appear, to serve as "tank traps"). He was then assigned to walk the streets of his home town and the surrounding countryside in the company of other equally bemused reluctant soldiers "equipped with anti-tank weaponry and pistols". He nevertheless avoided any more personal "enemy encounters".

School years and war

May 1945 saw a return to peace and the start of a period of military occupation. Magdeburg, a short distance to the east, was administered as part of the Soviet occupation zone (relaunched in 1949 as the German Democratic Republic / East Germany) but Braunschweig found itself under British occupation. Günter Gaus was able to complete his schooling close to his parents' home at the confusingly named "Gymnasium Gaussschule" (secondary school). In 1947 he became editor-in-chief of "Der Punkt", one of the first "schoolboy newspapers" in post-war Germany. He then found time, in 1949, to pass his ''Abitur'' thereby opening the way to university admission. Gaus had already resolved to become a journalist, and before progressing to university he undertook what amounted to an informal internship with the ''Braunschweiger Zeitung''.

Student years

In 1950 he enrolled at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where he studied Germanistics and History. Soon after his arrival he switched to a course in journalism. His own autobiography and other sources make little mention of his university career, beyond reporting that as a student he was already undertaking regular journalistic assignments, so that as soon as he had finished his time at the university, his transfer into full-time journalism was exceptionally seamless.

Journalism

His first permanent appointment to an editorial office came just two years after his admission as a student to Munich University. In 1952 he joined the Freiburg-based '' Badische Zeitung''. He moved on after four years to the ''Deutsche Zeitung und Wirtschaftszeitung''. During this period he came to the attention of the pioneering media magnate Rudolf Augstein who assiduously – and in the end successfully – sought to recruit him for a job as a political editor at Der Spiegel in Hamburg. Still not quite 29, Günter Gaus made the move to West Germany's leading centre-right political weekly in 1958. In the words of one admirer he turned Spiegel into the "Strafbataillon des deutschen Journalismus" (''loosely, "punishment battalion of German journalism"''). Although this appointment lasted only for three years, his association with Der Spiegel, together with his close personal and professional friendship with the publication's proprietor, would become lifelong. In 1961 he moved on again, this time joining ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' which, despite its Munich base, is one of the few daily newspapers with a powerful reach throughout (and beyond) Germany. Gaus worked for ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' as the newspaper's political editor between 1961 and 1965.

Marriage

During his time with ''Deutsche Zeitung und Wirtschaftszeitung'', Gaus married Erika Butzengeiger at Munich in 1955. A couple of years younger than her husband, Erika Gaus is a daughter of the former bank manager, . She succeeded in keeping out of the limelight that frequently surrounded her husband. The couple's daughter, Bettina Gaus, was born towards the end of 1956 and has followed her father into a career as a high-profile political journalist.

Television

On 10 April 1963, the German public television broadcaster ZDF transmitted the first episode of the series called "Zur Person – Porträts in Frage und Antwort". To paraphrase a later tribute from Rudolf Augstein, the show quickly became the medium whereby Günter Gaus launched himself on a completely new and very public career as a television interviewer, and before there were even talk shows (at least in Germany). The programmes were described in the series title as "portraits in questions and answers". Each programme was devoted to a single individual. The interviewee of the launch episode was Ludwig Erhard, the minister for economic affairs, who later became chancellor, widely celebrated by his admirers as an author of West Germany's post-war "economic miracle". By the time the series came to an end, Gaus had interviewed more than 250 personalities, many from the world of politics, though representatives of the arts and philosophy were also enticed into the studios. Aside from Erhard, some of the programme's best remembered subjects were Franz Josef Strauss, Christian Klar, Hannah Arendt, and Rudi Dutschke. Many of the interviews are remembered as classics of their kind, and repeats of them still run on German television more than fifty years later. The design of the television studios was deliberately minimalist, with nothing visible except a dark background, behind two armchairs containing two people. The focus was on the interviewee. When Gaus was seen at all, it was generally only from behind, so that he acquired the oft-repeated soubriquet "Germany's best-known back of the head". He also quickly acquired a reputation as a remarkable television interviewer. His questions were sharp and analytical: not infrequently they seemed disarmingly naive. One reviewer wrote: "After almost every interview, you really have the feeling of now knowing a person better about whom you previously only knew this and that: just as if you had read a detailed biography."

Gaus was employed as director of television and radio programming with the Südwestfunk between 1965 and 1968. He did not abandon journalism completely, however. In an article he wrote at this time for the conservative weekly Christ und Welt he offered the judgement that Helmut Kohl, at that time a youthful but conspicuously ambitious leader of the centre-right CDU (party) in the regional parliament at Mainz, looked like a man who might one day make it to the chancellorship. His prescience did not go unnoticed. A few years later Hannelore Kohl, who had evidently noticed the effect the article had on her husband, and who in the opinion of most commentators never relished the possibility of becoming the wife of a German chancellor, accosted Gaus with a three word accusation, "Sie sind schuld" (''"It's your fault"'').

Return to ''Der Spiegel''

During the mid-1960s he produced a number of well-received books on the political situation in West Germany at that time; and in 1969, having successfully persuaded him back to ''Der Spiegel'', Rudolf Augstein installed Günter Gaus as editor-in-chief.Der Spiegel