Alan Posener (born 8 October 1949 in
Hampstead,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
) is a
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
-
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
. He is the son of the architectural historian
Julius Posener
Julius Posener (4 November 1904, Lichterfelde – 29 January 1996, Berlin) was a German architectural historian, author and higher education teacher.
Coming from a bourgeois-Jewish background, son of the painter Moritz Posener and a daughter of t ...
.
Biography
Posener is the son of a liberal German-
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...
ish family, while his mother is of
Scottish-
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
ancestry. He grew up in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
,
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
and Germany. He studied
German studies and English at the
Free University of Berlin
The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...
and the
Ruhr University of Bochum. During this period he served as Executive of the Communist Students Association and the
Maoist
Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...
Communist Party.
On graduation, Posener worked as a teacher at the Kant-Gymnasium (Berlin) and at the Martin Buber Comprehensive School in Berlin-Spandau. He left the teaching profession, as he says, because of "boredom".
Journalism
In 1987 he wrote the Rowohlt monograph on
John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
. This was followed by monographs on
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
,
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
,
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
,
Franklin Roosevelt, and finally
Mary
Mary may refer to:
People
* Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name)
Religious contexts
* New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below
* Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...
, the mother of
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...
. Posener also wrote a biography of the relationship of John F. and
Jackie Kennedy
Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis ( ; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was an American socialite, writer, photographer, and book editor who served as first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of President John F. Kennedy. A po ...
.
From 1999 to 2004, he was a writer at and then editor of ''
Die Welt
''Die Welt'' ("The World") is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE.
''Die Welt'' is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group. Its leading competitors are the ''Frankfurter All ...
''. From 2004 to 2008, he was chief of commentary for ''
Welt am Sonntag
Welt, welts or variants may refer to:
Media
* ''Die Welt'' (''The World''), a German national newspaper
** '' Welt am Sonntag'' (''World on Sunday''), the Sunday edition of ''Die Welt''
* ''Die Welt'', former weekly newspaper in Vienna, Austria
...
''. He now works as a correspondent for politics and society. When, in 2005, the
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
authorities proposed renaming Kochstraße as
Rudi Dutschke
Alfred Willi Rudolf "Rudi" Dutschke (; 7 March 1940 – 24 December 1979) was a German sociologist and political activist who, until severely injured by an assassin in 1968, was a leading charismatic figure within the West German Socialist Stu ...
Strasse, he opposed the proposition. Posener stated that:
In May 2007, Posener used his
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...
at ''
Welt Online
Welt, welts or variants may refer to:
Media
* ''Die Welt'' (''The World''), a German national newspaper
** ''Welt am Sonntag'' (''World on Sunday''), the Sunday edition of ''Die Welt''
* ''Die Welt'', former weekly newspaper in Vienna, Austria
* ...
'' to attack the editor of the tabloid "''
Bild''," Kai Diekmann, accusing him of "hypocrisy" because the newspaper "serves the lowest instincts." The comment was removed a few hours later after colleagues at the
Axel Springer publishing house , which is the publisher of both titles, had noticed it. Rival newspapers later printed their own critical commentaries on the tensions evident at Axel Springer Verlag.
In 2009 he published his book ''"Pope Benedict's crusade"'', in which he criticized
Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the soverei ...
's "
crusade" against the Enlightenment. An expanded and retitled version, now also available as a paperback, appeared in 2011 under the punchier title "Der gefährliche Papst" (''"The Dangerous Pope"''). Building on his criticism, he now also stirred controversy by spelling out a more general thesis: "Religion ist schlecht für den Menschen" (''"Religion is bad for humanity"'').
Since 2009, Posener has conducted a weekly debate with
Alexander Görlach on religious and ethical questions in ''
The European''.
References
External links
Profile at ''The Guardian'' newspaper
{{DEFAULTSORT:Posener, Alan
1949 births
Living people
People from Hampstead
German journalists
German male journalists
German newspaper journalists
German bloggers
German male writers
Male bloggers
Die Welt people
Journalists from London