Jürgen Todenhöfer (born 12 November 1940) is a German author, journalist, politician, and executive.

Early life and education

Todenhöfer was born in

Offenburg Offenburg ("open borough" - coat of arms showing open gates; Low Alemmanic: ''Offäburg'') is a city located in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With nearly 60,000 inhabitants (2019), it is the largest city and the administrative capital ...

in what is now the current German state of

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

, and studied law at the universities of

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

and

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

. He graduated as a

doctor of law A Doctor of Law is a degree in law. The application of the term varies from country to country and includes degrees such as the Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D. or S.J.D), Juris Doctor (J.D.), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and Legum Doctor (LL ...

in 1969 and worked as a judge from 1972 on.

Politics

Todenhöfer became a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) in 1970 which he left on 12 November 2020, his 80th birthday, to found a new political party and was a member of the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Common ...

from 13 December 1972 to 20 December 1990 (five election periods) where he represented

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in three ...

and was affiliated with the pejoratively named "

Stahlhelm-Fraktion ' (German, 'Steel Helmet Faction') is the hard-line or right-wing faction of a political party in Germany, most notably the German CDU. The term refers to the hawkish, i.e. pro-military positions often taken by such groups and comes from the ' ...

." He also acted as party spokesman for development policy and arms control. He was vice chairman of the executive board of German media company Hubert Burda Media until 2008. He is considered to be a pacifist although he pointed out that he is not. He participates in the Bundestag election 2021 with his own party, Team Todenhöfer. He is a Christian.

Journalism

In 1980 he visited

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

- occupied

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

and started to raise money for refugees. Todenhöfer is one of the most prominent German critics of the US-led wars against Afghanistan and against Iraq in 2001 and 2003, respectively. He claims that during the war in Iraq the Bush administration was deceiving the public and that the US war in Iraq has killed several hundred thousand Iraqi civilians. He has visited Iraq several times and did original research for his book ''Why do you kill, Zaid?'' Following the

International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals f ...

's arrest warrant against the Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, he sent an open letter to the Prosecutor General of the ICC,

Luis Moreno-Ocampo Luis Moreno OcampoMoreno Ocampo's surnames are often hyphenated in English-language media to mark Moreno as a surname, not a given name. (born 4 June 1952) is an Argentine lawyer who served as the first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Co ...

. He asked for the reasons which led the prosecutor to indict the Sudanese dictator but not the US president

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

or the British prime minister

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

, seeing that neither Sudan nor the US have recognized the International Criminal Court. In June 2019, he was shot in the back with a rubber bullet by an Israeli sniper in a protest.

First western journalist to visit ISIS

In the summer of 2014 Todenhӧfer sent a message on

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

to more than 80 German ISIS soldiers asking whether he could visit the ISIS fighting cadre. His goal was to understand the motivations of ISIS. On 9 September, Abu Qatadah, a 31-year-old German and an important person in ISIS media, answered the message. They had

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

discussions for several months. Finally, Todenhӧfer received a document guaranteeing his safety. In October 2014, Todenhӧfer was the first western journalist to travel to ISIS-controlled territory. He was accompanied by his filmmaker son, Frederic. Todenhöfer wrote that he stayed with an ISIS soldier who was armed with a

Kalashnikov rifle A Kalashnikov (Калашников) rifle is any one of a series of automatic rifles based on the original design of Mikhail Kalashnikov. They are officially known in Russian as "Avtomát Kaláshnikova" ( rus, Автома́т Кала́шник� ...

. The soldier told him that he was sure to return home alive because ISIS wanted to be accepted as a state, so he had the guarantee of safety from their leadership. In other words, violation of the guarantee would mean violation of this state. Todenhӧfer spent most of his time in

Mosul Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second larg ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

but he could have visited ISIS-controlled cities in Syria such as

Raqqa Raqqa ( ar, ٱلرَّقَّة, ar-Raqqah, also and ) (Kurdish: Reqa/ ڕەقە) is a city in Syria on the northeast bank of the Euphrates River, about east of Aleppo. It is located east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. The Hellenistic, ...

and

Deir ez-Zor , population_urban = , population_density_urban_km2 = , population_density_urban_sq_mi = , population_blank1_title = Ethnicities , population_blank1 = , population_blank2_title = Religions , population_blank2 = ...

Interview with al Nusra commander

In 2016 Todenhöfer filmed an interview with an alleged Syrian rebel commander near Aleppo. The commander, said to be with the al-Qaeda affiliated group the Al-Nusra Front (later Jabhat Fateh al-Sham), claimed to have American support and said his group opposed humanitarian aid to civilians. Whether the commander was truly a Nusra fighter was later questioned and the authenticity of the video disputed.Christoph Reuter
Momentous Syria Interview Under Fire
'' Der Spiegel'' 1 October 2016 Todenhöfer did not respond to questions about his interview.

Major works

* ''Wer weint schon um Abdul und Tanaya?'' (2003) * ''Andy und Marwa. Zwei Kinder und der Krieg'' (2005) * ''Warum tötest du, Zaid?'' (2008) Why do You Kill, Zaid? * ''Why Do You Kill?: The Untold Story of the Iraqi Resistance'' (2008) * ''Teile Dein Glück'' (2010) * ''Du sollst nicht töten: Mein Traum vom Frieden'' (2013) * ''10 Tage im Islamischen Staat'' (2015) Ten Days in the Islamic State

Bibliography

Notes

External links

Jürgen Todenhöfer's webpage

Jürgen Todenhöfer on Facebook

Facebook.Teile-dein-Glück
* * ttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21703819 "Marwa's story: 10 years since the bomb fell" BBC article, 12 March 2013. {{DEFAULTSORT:Todenhofer, Jurgen 1940 births Living people People from Offenburg People from the Republic of Baden Members of the Bundestag for Baden-Württemberg German political writers German male non-fiction writers German pacifists Lutheran pacifists Historians of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Historians of the Iraq War War correspondents of the Iraq War German war correspondents Writers on the Middle East Members of the Bundestag for the Christian Democratic Union of Germany Jurists from Baden-Württemberg 20th-century German judges