Klaus Huhn

Huhn at a book-reading in 2011

Klaus Huhn (born 24 February 1928[1]) is a sports journalist and writer, and a former sports administrator.[1] Huhn worked for the East German mass-market daily newspaper, Neues Deutschland, and was chairman of the Sports Journalists Sub-Association within that country's important Union of Journalists.

As a writer he concentrates on the great names from the German Democratic Republic (GDR)'s sporting history, and writes largely for the "GDR nostalgia" readership.[2]

He has written several books about the cycling legend Gustav-Adolf Schur, and was employed as the ghost writer for Schur's autobiography.[3] The book's objectivity was questioned by one reviewer who described it as "shameless propaganda".[3]

Life

Huhn was born into a Communist family, in Berlin, where his father was a clerical worker. Huhn attended secondary school in Berlin and in Saalfeld.[1]

In 1946 he joined the Deutsche Volkszeitung, the central organ of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in the Soviet occupation zone.[4] In 1954 he took a correspondence course in journalism at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig and in 1983 he was at the German College of Physical Culture, also in Leipzig, with a doctorate in pedagogy.

In 1995 it was revealed, by the German weekly magazine Focus that Kuhn had worked for the secret police the Stasi.[2] Kuhn had joined the organisation in 1960 as an "unofficial employee" (Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter), taking the code name "Heinz Mohr".[5] He since claims "not to remember having signed anything".[5] Kuhn received gifts, on his 60th birthday, for his work with the Stasi.[2]

Further reading

References

  1. 1 2 3 Klaus Gallinat. "Ullrich, Klaus (eigtl.: Klaus Huhn) * 24.2.1928 Sportjournalist" (in German). Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur: Biographische Datenbanken. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 Journalist Klaus Huhn war Stasi-Spitzel. In: Focus Magazin. Nr. 45 (1995), 6. November 1995.
  3. 1 2 Reinsch, Michael (20 March 2001). "Held der Beinarbeit ..... Heilige Sattelzeiten: Gustav-Adolf Schur radelt in seiner Autobiographie über Hölzchen und Stöckchen". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (online). Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  4. ↑ Benning, Kristen (1997), Die Geschichte des SED-Zentralorgans Neues Deutschland von 1946 bis 1949. Die Waffenlieferanten "im Kampfe gegen die Reaktion und ihre Verwirrungsmanöver" [The history of SED's official journal Neues Deutschland from 1946 to 1949: Arms suppliers "in the struggle against reactionaries and their strategies of distraction"] (in German), Münster: LIT Verlag
  5. 1 2 Brinkbäumer, Klaus; Ludwig, Udo; Mascolo, Georg; Purschke, Thomas (1999-11-15), "Die Quelle ist zuverlässig" [The source is dependable], Der Stern (in German) (46), retrieved 2015-07-18
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