Roger Willemsen: Moving sadness Free in Hamburg – SPIEGEL ONLINE

“I want to leave people happier than I have encountered it”: with these words quoted the journalist Manfred Bissinger his friend Roger Willemsen in mourning Free in Hamburg.

emotional farewell from author and intellectual Willemsen, who died of cancer on February 7 at the age of 60 years, several hundred mourners arrived at the Ohlsdorf cemetery. Among the guests were celebrities like the Greens-Politkerin Claudia Roth, the actor Iris Berben, Katja Riemann and Matthias Brandt and Host Eckart von Hirschhausen.

Willemsens life principle was “the love of the truth,” Bissinger said in his eulogy. In all speeches, the high analytical capabilities of virtually tireless intellectuals seemed to, but also his great empathy, his ability to reliable friendship and love and always the horizon widens encounters with him. What did his willingness to pinpoint constructive criticism entirely enclosed.

Willemsen had won reputation, particularly with essayistic travel books ( “The ends of the world”). Recently landed started with his book “The House” (2014) about the Bundestag a bestseller. On television, he was particularly in the nineties with the ZDF talk show “Willemsens week” a name.

Willemsens action in Afghanistan was like a ray of light was

Before the hall was a small table of the Afghan women’s association, three photographs showed Willemsen in his work in Afghanistan. In the mourning listing the family had asked for donations to the association.

The Chair Nadia Nashir described in her speech the passionate commitment Willemsens for the construction of wells and hospitals as well as for girls’ education. “As a ray of light” was his work for the people of Afghanistan and for the Afghan people in Germany, said Nashir.

The author and publisher Werner Köhler recalled the last months of terminally ill Willemsen, who had already retired from the public. The former world travelers have since also taken leave of life by once again visited him important sites, Köhler said. These museums have heard a zoo with his beloved monkey and a trip to Norway, to sit on a fjord.

violinist Isabelle Faust played on the half hour ceremony, the Chaconne from Bach. At the end rang off the line Keith Jarrett Meditation “Blame It On My Youth”. And who was, could still take a flourishing daughter Willemsen from the foot of the coffin home: a pot with ranunculus – Willemsens favorite flowers

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