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German commentator dies

June 13, 2014

Germany is mourning the death of one of its leading publishers and newspaper commentators. Frank Schirrmacher died after a heart attack, aged 54. He had co-published the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung over two decades.

https://p.dw.com/p/1CHf5
Frank Schirrmacher Herausgeber FAZ
Image: picture-alliance/Eventpress Hoensch

Schirrmacher's sudden death on Thursday was described by President Joachim Gauck as the loss for Germany of a "remarkable journalist" whose elegant "voice of wisdom" would be missed.

Born in Wiesbaden in 1959, Schirrmacher began his career at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) as a cultural journalist after completing his dissertation on Franz Kafka. From 1989 until 1993 he edited the FAZ's literary and science section, before becoming co-publisher in 1994.

Fellow co-publisher Berthold Kohler said Schirrmacher's passing was a "terrible loss" for the national daily, which has a print and electronic circulation of about 370,000.

Schirrmacher, with his ideas and energy, had often provided impulses for the newspaper's development, Kohler said, on topics such as genetic technology and electronic digitalization.

Media trail-blazer

A member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's team, German culture minister Monika Grütters said Schirrmacher, like few others in his generation, had recognized future issues and prompted trail-blazing debates.

Social Democrat Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said Germany had lost a "great intellectual", editorial visionary and insightful interpreter of emerging trends.

Josef Haslinger, who heads the German branch of the authors' association PEN, described Schirrmacher as an "extraordinary critical thinker," who opened up the FAZ and its readership to many controversial topics.

The influencial US blogger Jeff Jarvis tweeted that Schirrmacher had been a "giant" of German journalism.

Greens co-leaders Simone Peter and Cem Özdemir said Schirrmacher had shaped Germany's media landscape through his passion for language and editorial diligence.

Warning on digitalization's impact

Schirrmacher was also an author of bestsellers.

His 2004 book the "Methuselah Conspiracy" dealt with the issues of demographic aging in society.

In "Ego" published last year, he warned that digitalization was eroding true human identity and asserted that "conveyor-belt" egoism had come to dominate the social system.

ipj/jm (dpa, AFP)