Bucerius, Gerd

Born on May 19, 1906 in the city of Hamme in the province of Westphalia of the German Empire in a Protestant family. He studied at the school in Essen , Hanover , since 1922 - in Hamburg . Until 1922, his father Walter Bucerius ^[4] was the mayor of Hanover , then transferred to the management of Hugo Stinnes AG für Seeschiffahrt und überseehandel in Hamburg ^[5] .

He graduated from high school in Hamburg in 1924. In 1924 he began studying law at the university in Freiburg-in-Breisgau , Hamburg and Berlin . In 1928 he passed the first, and in 1932 the second legal state exam ^[6] .

After passing the exam, he worked as a judge in the cities of Altona , Kiel and Prez for free and worked as a judge in Flensburg for money. In 1933–1946, he worked as a lawyer in his father’s law firm in Altona . In 1934 he defended his thesis for the title of Doctor of Laws at the University of Hamburg on the topic "The moment of unilateral loss of property rights of seized and liquidated goods, presented for comparison in the law of the British, American and German confiscations of World War ". The research supervisor was Professor of State Law Albrecht Mendelsohn Bartholdi ^{[5] [7]} . In 1937, he defended the Jewish shipowner from Hamburg, Arnold Bernstein ^[8] , one of the first victims of arization ^[9] , in a demonstration process conducted by the First Prosecutor of Hamburg Heinrich Yauch ^[10] . In 1932 he married a Jewish woman Dette (Gretel) Goldschmidt.

The Wehrmacht called him into military service in 1940 for only two months ^[5] .

From 1943 to 1945, he worked as Deputy General Director and Legal Adviser at Diago-Werke Moeller & Co. in Hamburg. This company in the last years of the war built barracks and barracks and used Jewish prisoners of concentration camps for correctional labor ^[11] .

From June 14, 1945 he was a confidant of the British military administration in Hamburg, he ran the newspaper Hamburger Zeitung ^{[12] [13]} .

On February 14, 1946, together with Lovis H. Lorenz, Richard Thungel ^[14] and Ewald Schmidt di Simoni ^[15] , he received permission from the British occupation authorities to publish the weekly newspaper Die Zeit . In 1949-1951 gradually acquired a controlling stake in the publishing house of Henry Nannen ^[16] and became also the publisher of the magazine Stern .

In 1951-1957 the distribution of Die Zeit share capital among partners took place, Gerd Bucerius became the sole owner of the publication. Unprofitable Die Zeit was a publisher's passion for many years before his death and was financed by Bucerius from the profits of Stern magazine. Against the editorial position, launched a successful color supplement to Die Zeit - ZEIT magazin magazine - the first color tab in Germany. Long-term correspondence with the Die Zeit editor-in-chief, Marion Dengoff, has become a model of professional correspondence ^[17] .

On July 1, 1965, he established, together with Richard Gruner ^[18] and John Yar, Sr. ^[19] Gruner + Jahr GmbH ^[20] , the second largest newspaper concern in Germany. On January 1, 1973, he transferred his stake in the company to the Bertelsmann media concern, was the temporary chairman of the newly created company Gruner + Jahr .

December 15, 1971 founded the foundation ZEIT-Stiftung , after his death became the owner of the state of the publisher. In 2000, the foundation opened the Bucerius Law School ^[21] - the first German private law university in Hamburg, in 2001 - the Gerd Bucerius Institute of Contemporary German History and Society at Haifa University ^[22] , in 2002 - the Bucerius Kunst Forum ^[23] . The 70,000 euros fund was distributed as the Gerd Bucerius Prize "Free Press of Eastern Europe" .

In 1972, the newspaper came out of the Bertelsmann media concern, and Bucerius founded the Zeitverlag publishing house ^[24] . In 1977–1982 the publishing house was headed by Dieter Stolz. Since 1985, the publishing house has been managed by Bucerius' friend Hilda von Lang ^{[25] [26]} (until 1990, together with Helmut Schmidt , who was a co-publisher). In 1988, he founded with 55% stake in ZEIT-TV-GmbH . Since July 1, 1996 Die Zeit belongs to the Holtzbrinck-Verlagsgruppe publishing group ^[27] .

On October 11, 1932, he married Detta ("Gretel") Goldschmidt (1910-1970), a Jew. She emigrated to England in December 1938. December 19, 1945 the couple divorced. On April 12, 1947, he married Gertrude Ebel Muller (1911-1997), known as Ebelin.

On June 26, 1946, he joined the group of burgomaster Rudolf Petersen ^[28] in the Christian Democratic Union of Germany . February 8, 1962 left the party after the so-called case of Höllenfeuer . The reason was the article “Brennt in der Hölle wirklich ein Feuer?” In the magazine Stern , which on February 7 “hurt Christian sentiments” of the united faction of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union in the Bundestag ^{[29] [30]} . He fell out with Chancellor Konrad Adenauer because of his attitude to Eastern politics, especially his attitude to the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961.

In 1946 he was appointed by the occupying authorities as a member of the Hamburg parliament ^[31] . In 1946-1947 he was a member of the advisory council ^{[32] of the} British occupation zone . In 1948–1949 he was a member of the Economic Council ^{[33] of} Bizonia in Frankfurt am Main . In the Economic Council of Bizonia, he was the Chairman of the Committee for the Alignment of Financial Capabilities of the Federal States ^[34] .

From September 2, 1949 to February 8, 1962 was a member of the Bundestag . During the first term, he was chairman of the Social Committee of Berlin, from November 10, 1954 to July 3, 1957 - chairman of the Bundestag commission on the Jon Otto affair .

He insisted in the autumn of 1956 in the period of the weakness of the Eastern bloc to take advantage of this and transfer the capital of Germany to Berlin. It was decided that the second residence of the President of Germany would be in Berlin, and the Bundestag would be assembled in the newly built Reichstag . At the initiative of Bucerius, the question of the capital of Germany remained open ^[35] .

From February 26 to November 15, 1946 was a non-partisan member of the Senate of Hamburg ^[36] . After the state elections in 1946, he was nominated as a senator for cultural affairs by the Christian Democratic Union, but did not become one.

In 1952-1957 was the federal representative to promote the economy of Berlin .

On May 15, 1986, the Hamburg Parliament ^[31] named Gerd Bucerius an honorary citizen of the city ​​of Hamburg . On the centenary of May 18, 2006, the cross street between Speersort and Curierstraße in Hamburg, located to the west of the Die Zeit building, is named Buceriusstraße ^[37] .

In 2006, the German postal company Deutsche Post AG issued a commemorative stamp on the centenary of the birth of Gerd Bucerius.

In 1956, he received the Big Officer Cross , and in 1986, the Big Cross with a star and shoulder strap .

In 1990, he was awarded the Medal of Ludwig Erhard ^[38] for merits in a socially oriented market economy .

• Gerd Bucerius. Zwischenrufe und Ordnungsrufe: zu Fragen d. Zeit . - Berlin : Siedler, 1984. - 383 p. - ISBN 3-88680-034-2 .
• Gerd Bucerius. Nippons neue Vasallen: warum uns Japan schlagen wird / From: Die Zeit , No. 9, 1981. - Hamburg : Zeitverlag, 1981. - 10 p.
• Gerd Bucerius. Der Adenauer: subjektive Beobachtungen e. unbequemen weggenossen . - Hamburg : Hoffmann und Campe, 1976. - 110 p. - ISBN 3-455-00736-8 .
• Gerd Bucerius. Der angeklagte Verleger: Notizen z. Freiheit d. Presse . - Munich : Piper, 1974. - 171 p. - ISBN 3-492-00392-3 .
• Gerd Bucerius. Die Illustrierten und die Massengesellschaft . - Düsseldorf : Troost-Werbeagentur, 1962. - 14 p.

• Zeit-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius Foundation
• Gerd Bucerius Prize "Free Press of Eastern Europe"
• Institute for the Study of Modern German History and Society named after Gerd Bucerius

• Gero von Boehm ^[1] . Gerd Bucerius. 22. April 1983 // Begegnungen. Menschenbilder aus drei Jahrzehnten . - Munich : Collection Rolf Heyne, 2012. - p. 18-26. - 751 s. - ISBN 978-3-89910-443-1 .
• Ralf Dahrendorf . Liberal und unabhängig. Gerd Bucerius und seine Zeit . - Munich : CH Beck Verlag, 2000. - 301 p. - ISBN 3-406-46474-2 .

• Gerd Bucerius (German) . Einfache Suche . Catalog of the German National Library . The date of circulation is June 9, 2013. Archived June 10, 2013.
• Der Nachlass von Gerd Bucerius (German) . Stiftung . Foundation ZEIT-Stiftung . The date of circulation is June 9, 2013. Archived June 10, 2013.
• Bucerius, Gerd (German) . Geschichte der CDU . Konrad Adenauer Foundation . The date of circulation is June 9, 2013. Archived June 10, 2013.

1. ↑ de: Gero von Boehm