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Rolf Hosfeld (22 June 1948 – 23 July 2021) was the Academic Director of the Lepsiushaus, a Research Center for Genocide Studies in
Rolf Hosfeld (22 June 1948 – 23 July 2021) was the Academic Director of the Lepsiushaus, a Research Center for Genocide Studies in Potsdam
Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...
Germany, and worked as an independent writer and historian.
Life
After graduating the Johannes Althusius Gymnasium inBad Berleburg
Bad Berleburg (, earlier also Berleburg) is a town, in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is one of Germany's largest towns by land area. It is located approximately northeast of Siegen and northwest of ...
, Hosfeld was trained in journalism at the newspaper ''Westfälische Rundschau''. He studied German language and literature, political science, modern history, and philosophy in Frankfurt and West Berlin, completing an M.A. in West Berlin in 1976 and going on to earn a doctoral degree there. His doctoral dissertation on Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; ; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was an outstanding poet, writer, and literary criticism, literary critic of 19th-century German Romanticism. He is best known outside Germany for his ...
is widely considered to have paved the way for a new, postmodern
Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting the wo ...
approach to Heine, on whom he has continued to publish.
Hosfeld has worked as a lecturer at Free University of Berlin
The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...
, editor of the reviews ''konsequent'' and ''omnibus'', editor at a Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
publishing house, member of the editorial board of the monthly Merian Merian may refer to
People with the surname
* Merian family, Swiss patrician family from Basel
* Matthäus Merian the Elder (1593–1650), Swiss-German engraver and publisher
* Matthäus Merian the Younger (1621–1687), Swiss painter
* Maria Siby ...
, deputy editor-in-chief of the monthly ''Der Feinschmecker'', chief editor of the feature pages of the Hamburg weekly ''Die Woche'', editor-in-chief of the book series ''Kulturverführer'', and as a film and television producer in Berlin. He has produced some fifty films, directing fifteen himself, among them a four-part series on fascism
Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...
as a pan-European phenomenon and a three-part series on post-1945 civil wars in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...
.
Hosfeld has been member of the Verband deutscher Schrifsteller (VS, the German Writers’ Union) since 1982 and has served on the board of directors of the Peter Weiss Foundation for Art and Politics since 2002. In addition to extensive journalism, essays, and travel writing, he has produced numerous scholarly articles, films, and television and radio programs, as well as some twenty books on modern culture and modern and contemporary history. Since 2004, he has been active essentially as an independent author and historian.
His history of the Armenian genocide
The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily t ...
(2005) continues to generate broad public discussion. His most ambitious project to date has been a four-volume History of the Germans 1815-2007, with accompanying DVDs by Hermann Pölking. Besides this he has published a history of the GDR and a biography of the Jewish-German writer and satirist Kurt Tucholsky
Kurt Tucholsky (; 9 January 1890 – 21 December 1935) was a German journalist, satire, satirist, and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser (after the Kaspar Hauser, historical figure), Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wr ...
. The social-democratic Friedrich Ebert Foundation
The Friedrich Ebert Foundation (''German: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V.; Abbreviation: FES'') is a German political party foundation associated with, but independent from, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Established in 1925 as t ...
awarded him its prize “Das politische Buch” (the political book) in 2010 for his book ''Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography'' (German title: ''Die Geister, die er rief. Eine neue Karl-Marx-Biographie''), that has already been translated into several languages.
Rolf Hosfeld lived in the countryside near Potsdam and died July 2021.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hosfeld, Rolf 1948 births 2021 deaths 20th-century German historians German journalists German male journalists 21st-century German historians Academic staff of the Free University of Berlin 20th-century German male writers Writers from Potsdam