Quick Facts
Biography
Henryk Marcin Broder (born 20 August 1946, self-designation Henryk Modest Broder) is a Polish-born German journalist, author and TV personality, known as the most outspoken personality in the German-Jewish community.
Broder is known for polemics, columns and comments in written and audiovisual media. He wrote for the magazine Der Spiegel as well as its online version and the daily Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. Since 2010, he has been writing for Die Welt. He is co-editor of Der Jüdische Kalender (The Jewish calendar), a compilation of quotes and texts relating to German Jewish culture, published annually. Besides his numerous publications, he appears as a frequent guest on German TV talk shows. In 2010 and 2011 he produced and starred, alongside Egyptian-German writer and political scientist Hamed Abdel-Samad, in the satirical TV series Entweder Broder – Die Deutschland-Safari ("Either Broder – The Germany Safari") on ARD.
Broder is especially interested in Vergangenheitsbewältigung, Islam, Israel and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He sees a close relationship between German criticism of Israel's policies and Antisemitism, a view criticized by, among others, the French-German columnist Alfred Grosser.
Life
Born in Katowice, Silesia, Poland, Broder moved to Cologne with his family in 1958. Both of his parents were survivors of Nazi concentration camps. In Cologne, he studied economics, law and psychology but failed to graduate. Together with fellow student and nascent writer Fred Viebahn, whom he had known since high school times, he founded and edited two short-lived radically liberal quarterlies ("PoPoPo" and "Bubu/Eiapopeyea"). In the late 1960s he took over the St. Pauli-Nachrichten together with the journalist Michel Roger Lang, a then highly successful tabloid newspaper in Hamburg, along with Günter Wallraff, Stefan Aust and the photographer Günter Zint, in order to agitate the working class of the city with a combination of leftist articles, nude photography and lonely hearts ads.
In the 1970s, he wrote for the satirical magazine Pardon. From 1979 to 1981 he published, together with fellow journalist Peter Finkelgruen, the periodical "Freie Jüdische Stimme" ("Free Jewish Voice"). In 1981, he left Germany to work in Israel for a while, but continued to write for high-level periodicals as Die Zeit, Profil, Die Weltwoche, and Süddeutsche Zeitung. In the 1980s he also hosted the television talk-show Leute, along with Elke Heidenreich, which ran on Sender Freies Berlin; one of their guests was African-American poet Rita Dove, who had just won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize and is married to Fred Viebahn, Broder's old friend from Cologne.
Broder wrote a series of books which dealt with the relationship between Germans and Jews, respectively the growing German Jewish community. Together with Eike Geisel, Broder published essays, books and a documentary about the Jüdischer Kulturbund (Jewish Cultural Union), a previously unknown chapter of Jewish German cultural life during the Third Reich. He wrote books about foreign policy with special regard to Israel, Islam and the growing German Jewish community.
Ever since Operation Entebbe, Broder grew more and more critical of the German approach towards Israel and what Broder sees as appeasement towards Islamic threats. In Broder's opinion, Anti-Zionism is in essence anti-Semitic.
Broder's trademark is his polemical, blunt and quick-witted style. He publishes hate mail and heated exchanges between him and critics on his website. The result of some of Broder's polemics were a series of lawsuits, some won and some lost by him. Many of Broder's writings for outlets such as spiegel.de and welt.de are archived at the Achse des Guten blog which he, together with two other prominent German journalists, operates as a collaborative platform for the unfettered expression of about two dozen of his colleagues.
Broder is married to a publisher, and they have a grown daughter. He lives in Berlin.
Awards
- 1986 Preis des 5. International Publizistikwettbewerbs Klagenfurt
- 2005 Schubart-Literaturpreis
- 2007 Goldener Prometheus for Broder's online journalism, especially the way he treated the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
- 2007 Ludwig-Börne-Preis
Works
- Wer hat Angst vor Pornographie? Ein Porno-Report, Melzer, Darmstadt 1970
- As co-author: Die Schere im Kopf. Über Zensur und Selbstzensur, Köln 1976
- Danke schön. Bis hierher und nicht weiter. Mit Beiträgen von Detlef Hartmann, Ulrich Klug, Uwe Maeffert, Ulrich Vultejus, Konkret Literatur-Verlag, Hamburg 1980
- Der Ewige Antisemit. Über Sinn und Funktion eines beständigen Gefühls, 1986
- Fremd im eigenen Land. Juden in der Bundesrepublik, 1987
- Ich liebe Karstadt und andere Lobreden, 1987
- with Geisel, Eike: Premiere und Pogrom. Der Jüdische Kulturbund 1933–1941. Texte und Bilder, Siedler, Berlin 1992 ISBN 3-88680-343-0
- Erbarmen mit den Deutschen, 1993
- Schöne Bescherung! Unterwegs im Neuen Deutschland, 1994
- Volk und Wahn, Goldmann, München 1996
- Die Juden von Mea Shearim, 1997
- Die Irren von Zion, Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 1998
- Jedem das Seine, Ölbaum Verlag 1999
- www.deutsche-leidkultur.de, Ölbaum Verlag 1999
- Kein Krieg, nirgends: Die Deutschen und der Terror, Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2002
- A Jew in the New Germany, University of Illinois Press, Champaign, 2003
- Hurra, wir kapitulieren – Von der Lust am Einknicken, wjs Verlag, 2006
- Kritik der reinen Toleranz, wjs Verlag, Berlin 2008
- Vergesst Auschwitz! Der deutsche Erinnerungswahn und die Endlösung der Israel-Frage, Albrecht Knaus Verlag, Munich 2012
Audio
- Ach So! Gad Granach und Henryk Broder on Tour, CD, Ölbaum-Verlag, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-927217-40-9