Löwenthal, Gerhard

Journalist

Born: 08.12.1922 in Berlin

died: 06.12.2002 in Wiesbaden

The son of a Jewish merchant, Löwenthal had to leave school in 1938 and trained as an optician. He and his father were briefly imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, but were released thanks to influential relatives. His grandparents died in Theresienstadt concentration camp. He himself survived in an optical factory in Berlin that was vital to the war effort.

After the end of the war, he graduated from high school and in 1946 began studying medicine at what would later become Humboldt University in East Berlin. He vehemently resisted being co-opted by the communist FDJ. After being attacked and threatened because of this stance, he left for West Berlin and became one of the first students at the newly founded Free University (FU).

He found his first job as a reporter and deputy program director at RIAS Berlin and then worked for five years at the OECD in Paris. In 1963 he was permanently employed by ZDF, where he presented the "ZDF-Magazin" until the end of 1987. His central topic was human rights violations in the GDR, which he denounced passionately and with caustic criticism. This earned him a reputation as a relentless "anti-communist". For the West German left, on the other hand, he was the conservative irritant par excellence, especially as he became increasingly critical of Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik. As a retiree, he continued to go public with his topic in right-wing conservative newspapers (e.g. "Junge Freiheit" and "Deutschland-Magazin").

Löwenthal was involved in the "Bund Freies Deutschland" and "Konservative Aktion" as well as on the board of trustees of the "Institut für konservative Bildung". He was honorary chairman of the "Courage for Ethics" congress and chairman of the "Germany Foundation".