Bernd Dost

Bernd Dost (born May 16, 1939 in Dortmund - died February 14, 2015) was a German journalist, filmmaker, writer and publisher. He produceed documentaries for ARD, Germany’s leading Public TV Station, and wrote articles for Stern magazine and the Münchner Merkur and Münchner Abendzeitung, two daily newspapers. His documentary works are socio-critical and deal with major topics such as environmental protection, human rights and psychology. As a documentary film maker, Bernd Dost has worked with various people like Jane Goodall, the Anti-psychiatry pioneer Ronald David Laing or the writer Carl Amery. His novels include elements of surrealism, transgressional fiction and postmodernism and deal with mass media, religion and psychology. He was the brother of theater and film actress Roswitha Dost.[1]

Biography and work

Youth

His father, Josef Dost, was a foreman, and his mother, Elisabeth "Elli" Dost, a writer. During the Second World War Bernd Dost experienced the bombing of Dortmund, was subsequently evacuated and grew up in Hemer in the Sauerland. From a very early age he was interested in a career as a writer and journalist.

He graduated from secondary school in 1957 in Iserlohn, then studied both German and English languages and literature as well as psychology in Marburg and Munich. He worked his way through university, performing a wide assortment of jobs. For example, as a trainee, he worked for the Westfälische Rundschau in Iserlohn and in his Munich days was involved in the student magazine Profil. He was also hired intermittently by the Insel Film company as an Assistant Script Editor.

Journalism

Bernd Dost elected to be self-employed early in his career but soon experienced financial difficulties associated with the Werbefilm-Studio, a company he co-founded with Canadian Richard Archer. The Studio did not last long, but through Archer, Dost met the Editor-in-Chief and founder of the Münchner Abendzeitung (AZ), Werner Friedmann. Dost then wrote local stories and captions for the legendary photos of attractive local young women by glamour photographer and friend Kurt Huhle. This early "cheesecake" photography was published in the well-read AZ gossip column by Hannes "Hunter" Obermaier.

It was at this time that the Münchner Merkur became aware of Bernd Dost and hired him to write substantive reports. His successful affiliation with the newspaper ceased at the end of 1966 because of artistic and political differences with the main editorial office.

The professional breakup resulted from an article Bernd Dost had written portraying the fate of impoverished Josefine Countess Wrbna-Kaunitz, a trustee of the estate of and confidante of the Wittelsbacher family, who had been snubbed by members of Bavaria’s royalty. In this affair, known as the "BAURA scandal" he championed the people who felt they had been duped by the legal staff of the President of the Bavarian Parliament, Rudolf Hanauer, a member of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) party. Under the presidential banner, plots of land were apparently sold illegally. Dost’s defense of those claiming "foul" was too politically sensitive for the Münchner Merkur, particularly with its close ties to the CSU and he was soon looking for another job.

He then went to Hamburg to write for Stern magazine with a very ambitious, if not ambiguous personal recommendation: "We can confirm that he is a very quick-witted journalist with an extremely clear opinion of his own." Together with Heiko Gebhardt he soon became one of the young journalists featured at the magazine by chief editor Henri Nannen. Dost’s work was also held in high esteem by editors Peter Neuhauser and Manfred Bissinger.

Film making

In May 1968 Dost was sent to Paris to report on the student revolts as backup correspondent. After a period in Paris, he began his career as a documentary filmmaker in Munich. But, while working in the business program of the Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavaria’s public Radio and TV complex), he seldom saw eye to eye with the editor-in-chief (and later TV director) Wolf Feller, an intimate friend of the Bavarian Prime Minister, Franz Josef Strauss, about the political content of their work. Nevertheless, he learned much in the fields of visual and drama arts that led to his writing, editing and directing TV documentaries. Dost established good friendships with cartoonist Dieter Hanitzsch and editor Brigitte Schroedter and good relationships with colleagues Wolfgang Kahle, Thilo Schneider, Dietmar Ebert, Karl Neumann, Henric L. Wuermeling, Jürgen Martin Moeller, Meggy Steffens, Christel Hinrichsen, and with Rudolf Mühlfenzl, the somewhat baroque, liberal editor-in-chief.

In 1978 Bernd Dost married Caroline von Harder, a businesswoman, who headed the PR department of the Beck clothing store in Munich and who set up a mail order business of her own selling decorative household accessories. Their daughter Franziska Dost studied TV journalism and later, European Ethnology in Berlin.

Fiction

In 1998 Bernd Dost founded the Vedra Verlag in which he first published his own novels under the pseudonym of R.B. van Mattruer and later other books under his own name plus an extensive collection of short stories by Elisabeth Dost (Elli Dost). In the same year he wrote the book "Schiffe Versenken", a vivid novel set in the world of harbours, smugglers and thieves, using the language of the dockers and seamen and elements of Low German ("Platt") which you still can hear in Hamburg today (example: "Ich werd euch nun, min Deern un' min Jung, verklaren, wie's mit mir und Ronja weiterging.").

His next book "Tote leben länger" describes the media hype created around a man in coma who was found in a corn field covered with wounds and suffering from a brain injury, while the TV talk show host Buck Blohm tries to present him as the returned and incarnated Jesus Christ. The book is outlined as a crime thriller though the actual story deals in a sarcastic way with conspiracy theories, tasteless politicians, bizarre journalists and other ominous characters all suddenly interested in the body of the unknown more-dead-than-alive man.

With "die zornigen" (the enraged) Bernd Dost wrote his most transgressive/transgressional novel, telling the story of a small group of common people who "just can't take it anymore" and who turn to actions of terrorism against the mass media system.

"The book "die zornigen" is an infectious story of people who want to change our world. It throws a bridge of ideas stemming from the French Revolution over the dropouts of ´68 across to the raging opponents to the merciless globalization of today. The story revolves around three people: Roger, the hesitating journalist, Cat, the aggressive nurse and Sol, the charismatic social worker. They among others, comprise "the enraged" - more enraged than ever, in view of the menacing annihilation of our pride, our freedom, our culture after 9/11." (press text)

In 2004 Dost wrote the surreal and tragicomic book "Mensch Frankenstein". The fantastic, mystical novel is the story of an honest, belligerent human creature born in a subway in the San Francisco, who is arrested and made to fit in with the rules of the predominant form of society; he receives a character mask and then a sculpted plastic body armour and rises to become a successful monster in the world of politics and industry. Self-revelation, the love of a couragoues woman and the encounter with a mystic in Zurich save "Frankenstein the Man" and allow the natural true being to re-emerge. The US Administration sentences the creature, whom it regards as a danger to the state, and disposes of it in a branch of Guantánamo.

Bernd Dost last novel is called "Der Zug ohne Wiederkehr" (The train of no return). The novel clearly continues the humanistic and humanitarian ideas of "the enraged" and "Mensch Frankenstein". It was published in 2008.

Filmography / Bibliography

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Books

Non-fiction

Fiction

("Schiffe Versenken" and "die zornigen" are illustrated by Russian painter and manga artist Aljoscha Klimov.)

Poetry

References

  1. ↑ "onlinefilm.org - Bernd Dost - Film / Funk". onlinefilm.org. Retrieved 15 March 2015.

External links

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