Guido Knopp
{{short description|German journalist and author (born 1948)}}
Image:Guido Knopp by Stuart Mentiply.jpg
Guido Knopp (born 29 January 1948 in Treysa, Hesse) is a German journalist and author. He is well known in Germany, mainly because he has produced a great number of TV documentaries, predominantly about the "Third Reich" and National Socialism, but also about other topics, such as Stalinism.
Life and work
After earning his doctoral degree in history and political science, Knopp worked as a newspaper editor at the Welt am Sonntag and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In 1978 he took up employment at the German TV station ZDF. Since then, he has produced many documentaries about the Nazi dictatorship like Hitlers Helfer ("Hitler's Henchmen"), Hitler-Eine Bilanz ("Hitler-taking stock") or Die SS: Eine Warnung der Geschichte ("The SS: A warning from history"), but also, for example, Vatikan (about the power of the popes) or Kanzler: Die Mächtigen der Republik (about Germany's post-war federal chancellors).[http://www.mdr.de/riverboat/738077.html MDR TV] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070630175121/http://www.mdr.de/riverboat/738077.html |date=30 June 2007}} "Knopp, Guido: Porträt" (Knopp, Guido: A Portrait), 2003. Knopp hosts a weekly German television program, usually broadcast on Sundays, called History. In 1999, he produced a series called 100 Jahre – der Countdown, which sums up the whole 20th century, year by year, and is still sometimes broadcast during holidays by the Phoenix television station.[http://www.phoenix.de/100_jahre_der_countdown/12742.htm Phoenix TV, 100 Jahre – der Countdown] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080125035710/http://www.phoenix.de/100_jahre_der_countdown/12742.htm |date=25 January 2008}} For the publication of his book Top Spies – Traitors in the Secret War (1994), Knopp worked with the German Federal Intelligence Service and several retired spies to present their personal story and explain their work to a broad public.[https://www.amazon.de/dp/3442127254 "Top Spione. Verräter im geheimen Krieg"], amazon.de; {{ISBN|3-442-12725-4}}
Knopp's history films are often criticised for presenting the Third Reich too superficially and for "editing history" to play down the role of the German public in building and supporting Hitler's regime.[http://www.tagesspiegel.de/magazin/wissen/gesundheit/;art300,2214451 Der Tagesspiegel], tagesspiegel.de. 25 September 2006.[http://www.zeit.de/2004/10/Steam_Punk Die Zeit], zeit.de. October 2004. Accessed 5 May 2022. He was condemned for rewriting history by leaving out the role of the Wehrmacht (former German Army) in the cruelties of World War II."Alle waren Opfer" ("Everyone was a victim"). No. 48/2006, Die Zeit, 23 November 2006."Unter Wölfen" ("Amongst Wolves"). Spiegel Magazine, 28 November 2006. In 2004, a group of international historians warned that documentaries like the ones produced by Knopp could reduce important historic facts to mere infotainment.[http://www.whoswho.de/templ/te_bio.php?PID=1780&RID=1 German Who is Who]
In 2003, Knopp pleaded for Konrad Adenauer to be featured in the Unsere Besten list of greatest Germans, compiled by ZDF-TV.[https://archive.today/20120908095327/http://www.kas.de/proj/home/pub/94/1/year-2008/dokument_id-11578/index.html "Die Botschaft von Hambach – Verpflichtung für heute!", speech of Guido Knopp.], quote: "Das ZDF, mein Sender, hat im Herbst des Jahres 2003 nach dem besten Deutschen der Geschichte gefragt. Ich habe für Konrad Adenauer gekämpft, weil er den geschlagenen demoralisierten Deutschen nach dem Krieg ein neues Selbstbewusstsein gegeben hat." ("The ZDF, my station, was asking in autumn 2003 for the best German in History. I fought for Konrad Adenauer, because he gave the defeated demoralized Germans new self-consciousness after the war.") In 2004, he received the Goldene Kamera and the Bavarian and European TV award for his work. He teaches journalism at the Gustav-Siewerth-Akademie in Weilheim-Bierbronnen (Baden-Württemberg) and lives in Mainz. His publishing house is the German Random House group (Bertelsmann group).[http://www.randomhouse.de/author_new/author.jsp?per=3576 Short biography], randomhouse.de. Accessed 5 May 2022. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080215200319/http://www.randomhouse.de/author_new/author.jsp?per=3576 |date=15 February 2008}} In 2008 Knopp worked on a movie about failed Hitler assassin Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg.[http://www.jungewelt.de/2008/01-21/048.php Marktschreier des Tages: Tom Cruise/Guido Knopp (Pitchman of the Day: Tom Cruise/Guido Knopp)], JungeWelt.de. 21 January 2008.
Published books
- (1998) Hitler's Henchmen. Sutton Publishing. {{ISBN|0-7509-3781-5}}
- (2001) Hitler's Holocaust. Sutton Publishing. {{ISBN|0-7509-2700-3}}
- (2002) Hitler's Hitmen. Sutton Publishing. {{ISBN|0-7509-2602-3}}
- (2002) Hitler's Children. {{ISBN|0-7509-2732-1}}
- (2003) Hitler's Women. Routledge. {{ISBN|0-415-94730-8}}
- (2007) Die Wehrmacht: Eine Bilanz. C. Bertelsmann Verlag. {{ISBN|978-3-570-00975-8}}
- (2008) Hitler's Warriors. The History Press. {{ISBN|978-0-750-9260-1-0}}.
- (2002) In German Die SS: Eine Warnung der Geschichte. ("The SS: A historical warning") {{ISBN|3-570-00621-2}}, In Swedish SS - ondskans redskap ("SS - the tool of evil") {{ISBN|9789185377244}}
- (2007) In German Göring – Eine Karriere ("Göring - A career") {{ISBN|3-570-00891-6}}
See also
Footnotes
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External links
- {{DNB portal|115725229|TYP=}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20110718040141/http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/26/0,1872,1020218,00.html ZDF-History] {{in lang|de}}
- {{IMDb name|461368}}
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Category:People from Schwalmstadt
Category:Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany