“I think about death, but I do not think about the end,” he used to say in conversation. Beyond the 90 he could sneer before. “When death comes, I’m just not there.” And plunged into his each next project, confident as ever.
Now he was there, George Weidenfeld, Lord Weidenfeld of Chelsea in the County of Greater London, as the final visitors came and abducted him at the biblical age of 96 years. In the early morning of January 20, 2016 he died.
With Weidenfeld the European and transatlantic scene loses a distinctive bridge between societies and states, a culture saturated philanthropist who until the end for the future planned restless with nimmermüdem vigor and commitment. It was, in his own words, his motto.
The three loyalties of Lord Weidenfeld
A Jewish cosmopolite , fled with 18 years from Austria, planted in England and came to high honor, but remained faithful to the German cultural space in the heart, while with lifelong roots in Jerusalem and Israel, the deepest of his “three loyalties” – George Weidenfeld was always more than the sum of its parts.
What he touched, whether as a BBC employee still at war, as a publisher and founder of charitable institutions or political forums with a global reach, showed the manuscript of a admonisher of genius foresight.
success accompanied him on all the stages, but no one has become less rested on its laurels as Weidenfeld to be even if he loved it, loved and with theatrical aplomb held in his Apartment in Chelsea, overlooking the English stream, the River Thames, courtyard. A grand seigneur full courtesy of the old school, generously and women inclined, of course, needed the experience of three marriages, before he took the fourth attempt with Annabelle Whitestone, the last partner Arthur Rubinstein, the happiness compatible love.
“The proper study of mankind is man”
He was fascinated people with talents, which he sought to elicit and to retain them; Creating friendships was his greatest passion. With Alexander Pope, the great wordsmith of the 18th century, it was agreed: “The proper study of mankind is man” – the proper study of mankind is man
Arthur George Weidenfeld was born on 13 September 1919 in Vienna, the only child of Max and Rosa Weidenfeld; the father worked in the supervisory board of an insurance company. It was a grand bourgeois house where conviviality, music, especially opera, classical literature and languages duties to soil formation.
Helmut Kohl’s dictum of “grace of late birth “presented Weidenfeld like upside down: He was grateful for the grace of early birth, because he was born shortly after the end of World War I, absorb the crises and fractures in adolescent 20th century as it as a contemporary score in itself , It inculcated in him alertness and sensitivity, and he learned – as he called on the occasion of the awarding of the Prize for Journalism in the house of Axel Springer publishing in 2015 his young listeners – as could be “a firm and courageous attitude in crises of existential importance” .
Between his family and the Nazi racial fanatics and master race there could be no compromise, and so came Weidenfeld after the “Anschluss” with a paper of the British Jewish Refugee welfare and 16 shillings and sixpence in my pocket a month before his 19th birthday in London. A miracle was it right that he use his contacts the parents could lead to later that indeed severe teamed up in a strange milieu when he, the articulate young people, with French, Italian and English in his armor.
insert for Christians in Syria and in Iraq
The friendly reception in a deeply religious Protestant family donated in Weidenfeld an almost symbiotic relationship to Christianity , the Jewish-Christian dialogue was to become a signature tune of his work. Even in his last two years of life, he sat down for the persecuted in Syria and Iraq Christians – 2000 Catholic families will find thanks to the financial support Weidenfeld and institutional sponsors refuge in Poland and other countries of the EU
Read “The IS belongs in the lowest circle of Hell”, an interview conducted by Dirk Schümer end of 2015 with Lord Weidenfeld.
It was like a big Thanks, that owed the former refugee the human spirit which he himself had found in a Christian hostel.
At the German service of the BBC, as well as the intelligence network of the government itself Weidenfeld made due to its multilingualism soon a name – also as a brilliant voice imitator of Adolf Hitler. You entrusted him with contacts to the various European governments in exile in London, and so he made, inter alia, first acquaintance with Charles de Gaulle, the then leader of the Free French.
the fundus of these experiences he brought after the war as a dowry in the publishing cooperation with Nigel Nicolson one, the son of the great essayists and Diaristen Harold Nicolson and his wife, the writer Vita Sackville-West. Early in 1949 raised their two young entrepreneurs, by Harold Nicolson and financially supported, the publisher Weidenfeld & amp; Nicolson from baptism -. Today one not to miss, brand in the British publishing scene, even if the house 1991 went to the Orion Publishing Group and now operates under the larger umbrella of Hachette
But the logo “Weidenfeld & amp; Nicolson” has been retained, particularly in the division’s non-fiction and biographies, especially autobiographies. Also acted Weidenfeld until recently as an honorary director of he co-founded the publishing house.
The offer from Israel
But its story began for him with a moral dilemma: Chaim Weizmann, president of the newly founded state of Israel in 1948, invited him to be his chef de cabinet in Jerusalem. The Nicolson let him go, for a year – so that it does not ought to have accused of having turned down a role in the founding of Israel for the rest of his life. But afterwards Weidenfeld himself had to decide – he went back to his contract as a publisher, he never regretted. Weizman, however, was out of tune; It took years before the friendship was restored between them.
affable, with the golden touch of contacts and an unshakable confidence Weidenfeld hurried its steep Way above, as a publisher personality sui generis. Nigel Nicolson wrote in the memory book “A Long Life” (1998): “He had the greater robustness of us, a sharper mind, more daring and the gift of persuasion, both for business as well as friendships thoughts came to shove. he was a great fighter. ” And could the big names bind with their memoirs to the publisher, including Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle, Golda Meir, Lyndon B. Johnson, Moshe Dayan, Harold Wilson, Henry Kissinger, Shimon Peres.
In his own, already published in 1995 by HarperCollins in New York memoirs,” Remembering My Good Friends “, Weidenfeld moved with minute serenity trace his ascent by which he made no bow to his amorous excursions this Usance of flirting, she too is a form of advertising to exchange and agreement. So you read something like: “I always had a romantic predilection for beautiful ambassadors, especially when paired elegance and political understanding with them.”
When asked about great turning points of its publishing activities, he called the three loved: Isaiah Berlin’s essay “The Fox and the Hedgehog” (1954), a brilliant philosophical Capriccio to Tolstoy’s views of history; Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” (1959), a groundbreaking Verlegertat that course Nigel Nicolson cost his House of Commons seat, his constituency damn him for “immorality”; and “The Double Helix”, the autobiography of the discoverer of DNA, JD Watson (1981).
No fox hunting, not a sport
The bandwidth of Weidenfeld interests is thus indeed sketched only briefly. Always associated themselves with him socializing with the search for themes and ideas and the matching authors. Weidenfeld was never “clubbable” in Establishment sense – no fox hunting, not a sport, not fritter away in the Countryside. Socializing was always means to an end: unterzuhaken and so long to influence a man who seemed important to him, until the hoped-for result was in book form
He. could wait and lie in wait, had most famously in the case of the Polish Pope John Paul II. Weidenfeld lucky enough to belong to the circle of three to four privileged who annually for “shirt-sleeved pronunciation” in the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo homed. He tried 15 years to John Paul II. To move, to make a book to preserve his legacy.
Long periods of procrastination, then the disease, hindered the maturation of this project. Then, shortly before his death, the Pope took the time for “Memory and Identity – calls on the threshold between the millennia” (2005), a moving Memorandum for posterity. It was also a very personal triumph for George Weidenfeld and his singular perseverance in the face of the tangled corridors of Vatican diplomacy.
The Bridge Builder
After 1991 and the sale of the publisher to the Orion Group began for George Weidefeld his second life – that of building bridges in the rugged landscape of international diplomacy. The fruits of his global awareness he sat since a the foundation of institutions, with the aim to promote peaceful dialogue and educational initiatives across all borders.
So he inaugurated as a cooperation between the University of Oxford and ten other elite centers of teaching and research around the world to promote scientific and human exchanges. Even more numerous were his trusts at institutions in England, the USA, Israel and Germany as well as his collaboration with well-known companies, such as in Germany, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the human resources consulting firm Roland Berger and the Axel Springer SE. The WeltN24 group, he was also connected to the end as a columnist.
With the “Club of 3″, inaugurated in 1994, a forum of discussion between France, Great Britain and Germany, George Weidenfeld succeeded the first major foundation in the international conference Culture field, annual symposia with participants from politics, business, media and other supporting professional groups. Several “offshoot”, the “Europe-China Media Exchange” or “Ameurus” increasing dialogue around the US and Russia, soon made the summary of all these inspired by Weidenfeld activities necessary, which with the founding of the “Institute for Strategic “
p id => was consummated. “Dialogue highly honored, but England George Weidenfeld has honored with special awards. The Adelung for Sir, 1967, followed by 1976, the transport as Lord to the Upper House. Here, the so into the British Establishment Interwoven never had its corporate identity as observers, yes, lost as outsiders.
“Most Exciting, Most Exciting”
Again and again he drew from his love for his German origin – to his “big German Kulturidealismus” as he once called it. Member of the persecuted Jewish minority, he could “never anti-German” be. Even more: He was wearing a deep admiration for the physical and moral structure of power in Germany after the Second World War and saw in names like Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel a chain of impressive stability
<. p id="p38" class="text prefix_1 artContent"> A solitaire, so pulled George Weidenfeld its orbit, distinctive, unique, irresistible enthusiasm. “Most Exciting, Most Exciting”, he used everything fascinated him, to greet, with always young heart. Stimulator, Mentor, motor – his reputation will endure, “Aere perennius”, to say it with Horace, more durable than ore
.
No comments:
Post a Comment