Korn, Karl

Journalist, Writer

Born: 20.05.1908 in Wiesbaden

Died: 10.08.1991 in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe

Korn grew up in Goebenstraße in the Westend district. He studied philology in Frankfurt am Main and graduated in 1932. From 1932-34 he was a "Lecteur d'allemand" in Toulouse. He then became an editor at the "Berliner Tageblatt" (1934-37), then at the literary magazine "Neue Rundschau". In 1940, he was features editor at the weekly newspaper "Das Reich", a renowned National Socialist newspaper. Here he published an approving review of the propaganda film "Jud Süß".

He got into trouble because he criticized a painting that Hitler wanted to give away at the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich. He was forced to withdraw from public life while his salary continued, but according to recent research, this was not a dismissal or a professional ban, as he himself portrayed it. In 1941, he was called up for military service. In 1944, he became an author for "Das Reich" again.

After being released from French captivity, he went to Berlin in 1946 and to Mainz in 1948 to work for the "Allgemeine Zeitung". In 1949, he founded the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" with others, became its features editor and co-editor until 1973. As a literary critic, Korn was an early advocate of authors such as Alfred Andersch (1914-1980), Heinrich Böll (1917-1985) and Wolfgang Koeppen (1906-1996). He took a critical look at the development of the German language and collected his articles on the subject in "Sprache in der verwalteten Welt" (1959). In 1980, he published the biography "Zola in seiner Zeit".

He described his childhood in Wiesbaden and the surrounding area in the autobiographical books "Die Rheingauer Jahre" (1955, new 1986) and "Lange Lehrzeit. Ein deutsches Leben" (1975), an essay "Wiesbaden, eine Heimkehr" appeared in the travel book "Über Land und Meer" (1977). His texts on Wiesbaden are often quoted because of their social-historical accuracy.

From 1956-70 Korn was chairman of the main committee of the film rating agency. He was a member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry.