Name Klaus Rohl Education Free University of Berlin | Role Journalist | |
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Similar People Bettina Rohl, Ulrike Meinhof, Stefan Aust | ||
Anja Röhl liest aus "Die Frau meines Vaters"
Klaus Rainer Rohl (born 1 December 1928 in Trockenhutte, Free City of Danzig) is a pre-eminent German journalist and author, best known as founder, owner, publisher and editor-in-chief of konkret, the most influential magazine on the German political left from the 1960s to the early 1970s. He has since become critical of communism and leftist tendencies.
Contents
- Anja Rhl liest aus Die Frau meines Vaters
- Journalism
- Pedophilia accusations
- Change of course
- In films
- Publications
- References
Journalism
Known as "K2R", he founded the left-wing monthly magazine Studentenkurier in 1955. In 1957, the magazine was renamed konkret and rose to prominence in the 1960s as the primary magazine of the Auserparlamentarische Opposition and the German student movement. He had previously founded a weekly newspaper about and for the Hamburg sex trade, St Pauli Nachrichten. After the Communist Party of Germany was banned as unconstitutional in West Germany in 1956, he became a clandestine member of the then illegal party as an act of support.
He was married to Ulrike Meinhof from 1961 until the spring of 1968, before her descent into left-wing terrorism. Their marriage produced two daughters, Regine and Bettina Rohl, who became an author critical of communism and far-left extremism. Ulrike later co-founded the Red Army Faction, also known as the RAF or the Baader-Meinhof Gang, together with Andreas Baader.
Pedophilia accusations
Articles in konkret openly advocated sex with minors. His marriage with Ulrike was the second marriage. From his first marriage he also has a daughter Αnja Rohl, who in May 2010 accused him of sexual harassment against her.
Change of course
As a consequence of the radicalization in the late 1960s, and subsequent leftist terrorism, he turned away from Marxism and gave his magazine a more moderate tone. This led to a power struggle between Rohl and those who supported the use of violence against the government (particularly his former wife), and his home in Hamburg was attacked in 1969 by Ulrike Meinhof and some konkret staff members. In June 1970, after Ulrike's command, Monica Berberich and Marianne X. took Rohl and Ulrike's daughters from Holtkamps' house (where Ulrike's sister, Wienke had hidden the children), in order to transfer them in Gibellina commune in Sicily where other left-wing families and communists lived. According to Jutta Ditfurth, Ulrike's biographer, Ulrike believed she would win the children custody case from Rohl which meant that Wienke would take kid's custody. Finally journalist Stefan Aust, a long-time friend of Rohl abducted the children after Peter Homan misinformed him that Ulrike was about to send children to a Jordanian boarding house where other children of refugees used to live. By that time Klaus Rainer Rohl was on holiday in Italy. Aust delivered him the girls in an apartment near to Plaza Navona. Rohl and his daughters lived under constant police protection for some time, fearing a supposed attack or abduction by RAF members. Rohl was also supporting BKA's investigation providing information about Meinhof's past, places where she could be hiding etc.
The magazine konkret was dissolved in 1973. The year before, he had joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany. For some years, he then published the moderate leftist magazine das da. From 1981 to 1984, he published the left-wing magazine Spontan. However, from the mid-1980s, his political views gradually changed towards liberal conservatism. He has been a member of the German liberal party, the Free Democratic Party of Germany, since 1995. He has been active in Liberale Offensive, the right-wing faction of the party that tried to revive the national liberal tradition represented by Gustav Stresemann, Thomas Dehler and Erich Mende, among others. He has also been a regular columnist for the newspaper Junge Freiheit. He earned a doctorate in history at the Free University of Berlin under the supervision of Ernst Nolte in 1993, with a dissertation on cooperation between Communists and National Socialists against the Social Democratic Party (Nahe zum Gegner, published as a book in 1994). He has written several books critical of communism and the far-left.
His partner since the early 1970s has been Danae Coulmas, a Greek diplomat and author.
In films
He was portrayed by Hans Werner Meyer in the 2008 film Der Baader Meinhof Komplex.