Kay Weniger (born 1956) is an Austrian writer of books on media issues. He published an eight-volume encyclopaedia on international film people.

Biography

Weniger is the son of the German stage and film actress and the Austrian stage actor . They left Berlin for Hamburg when he was one year old. Weniger studied the history of art, history and archaeology at the

Hamburg University The University of Hamburg (, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen''), the Hamburg Colon ...

, and gained his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

with a

thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

titled ''Wiederaufbau- und Neubauplanung in Hamburg 1945 bis 1950. Städtebauliche Kontinuität oder Wandel?''.

Career

Weniger has worked as an editor for several German newspapers, including ''

Die Welt (, ) is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE. is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group and it is considered a newspaper of record in Germany. Its leading competitors are the ...

'' in

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

and '' Welt am Sonntag'' in Hamburg. Initially a specialist in travel, he soon focused on media issues and wrote a huge number of articles on film and film people. In 2001 he published the eight-volume encyclopaedia "''Das grosse Personenlexikon des Films''". It contains more than 6100 biographies of all kinds of men and women active in the international film business. In 2008 he published another reference book, "''Zwischen Bühne und Baracke''". It contains some 500 biographies on people in theatre, film and the music business who suffered under National Socialist persecution and terror in Europe between 1933 and 1945.

Works

* ''Das große Personenlexikon des Films. Die Schauspieler, Regisseure, Kameraleute, Produzenten, Komponisten, Drehbuchautoren, Filmarchitekten, Ausstatter, Kostümbildner, Cutter, Tontechniker, Maskenbildner und Special Effects Designer des 20. Jahrhunderts''. 8 Bände. Schwarzkopf und Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, . * ''Zwischen Bühne und Baracke. Lexikon der verfolgten Theater-, Film- und Musikkünstler 1933 bis 1945''. Mit einem Geleitwort von Paul Spiegel. Metropol, Berlin 2008, . *

External links

Interview with Weniger
(2003) 1956 births Journalists from Hamburg Living people German male non-fiction writers University of Hamburg alumni {{Germany-writer-stub