Niklaus Meienberg

Niklaus Meienberg (11 May 1940 – 22 September 1993) was a Swiss writer and investigative journalist.

Meienberg lived in Zürich and published 14 books in his lifetime. His works were primarily about recent Swiss history. His texts are used as exemplars in Swiss journalism schools.

Meienberg's best works were compiled in the book St. Fiden Paris Oerlikon. This book was republished in 2005/06 as part of the series Schweizer Bibliothek (a series of 20 of the most important Swiss books).

Life

Meienberg was born 1940 in St. Gallen. After five years in the convent school in Disentis, the 20-year-old went to the U.S. for one year. In New York City he worked as a clerk for the Federation of Migros Cooperatives and in Vancouver, Canada, as a bulldozer driver.

On his return to Switzerland, he was ready to study. As a main subject, he chose history (at the University of Fribourg, then at the ETH Zurich and later thanks to a stipend, in Paris). During his years of study he reportedly was a member of a reactionary secret society. In Paris he experienced the riots of May 1968.

He finished his studies in Fribourg with the title of a „lic. phil.“ and the licentiate work De Gaulle und die USA von 1940 bis 42 (De Gaulle and the USA from 1940 to 42).

From 1966 on, he was a Paris correspondent for the Weltwoche, for five years. Starting in 1971, he reported for the Swiss national television’s culture show Perspektiven (“Perspectives”) and lots of productions for the Swiss national radio’s transmissions, such as the satirical transmission Faktenordner („Facts Folder“). Meanwhile, he became a freelancer for the Zurich newspaper Tages-Anzeiger and the Tages-Anzeiger's magazine Magazin (today named Das Magazin.)

After 1976, he was banned from writing for the Tages-Anzeiger because of his criticisms of both Swiss history and contemporary Switzerland. The longtime ban was imposed by publisher Otto Coning against the editorial staff's wishes.

In 1977 had to go to court because of scenes of his movie Die Erschiessung des Landesverräters Ernst S. (English meaning: “The execution of the national betrayer Ernst S.”) and because of a planned theatre play about Ulrich Wille. Meienberg, who was represented by leftist Moritz Leuenberger, a later member of the Bundesrat (Swiss Federal Council), won the process against the two sons of Wille.

From 1982 to 83, Niklaus Meienberg was head of the Paris Bureau of the German magazine Stern. Afterwards, he was a freelancer for the weekly newspaper WOZ and acted as a writer.

In spring 1987, he wrote a critical and heavy discussed biography of Ulrich Wille and his family for the Weltwoche. During fall of the same year, it was published as a book with the title Die Welt als Wille und Wahn (literally: “The World as Will and Delusion”). The German title is a play on words: “Wille” is not only a German word for “will”/”intention”, but means the surname of Ulrich Wille, too. The title in turn seems to be a reference to German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer’s (1788–1860) main work “Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung” (“The World as Will and Representation”, sometimes also known in English as “The World as Will and Idea”)

Meienberg's penmanship found a lot few other sophisticated word-plays, too: In "Die Erschiessung des Landesverräters Ernst S." he calls the traitor's execution "Tells Geschoss" (Tell's projectile"), because the executor shot through the betrayer's eye, like Tell shot through an apple, and the macabre punchline is as follows: in German, the "eyeball" is literally called "eye apple". Even Meienberg's book's titles attest a liking for word jokes (e.g. "The make-believing of true facts" that inverts "Die Vorspiegelung falscher Tatsachen", which is a set phrase in the world of German-speaking courts and jurisdiction.)

The above-mentioned report is partially based on photographs of unpublished letters that Wille wrote to his wife. The exclusive photographs were taken by Meienberg without permission - they were exposed as pieces of scenery in an exhibition. In the Afterword, Meienberg, admitted this fact as follows:

The guard commanding supervisor of the local museum Meilen never had flipped open the book, but was happy that its content pleased me and photographer Roland Gretler that much, and didn’t mind me excerpting any passages of the text or Roland Gretler integrally photographing a few dozens of pages.

Meienberg committed suicide on 22 September 1993.[1]

In the media, the suicide of Meienberg caused a big echo. The Austrian writer Erich Hackl thinks, Meienberg killed himself, because he was no longer able to cope with the direction of the world. A doctor would trace this back to untreated depression. In his last letters Meienberg called himself an “expiring model” (of a journalist?), original text: “auslaufendes Modell”.

Niklaus Meienberg's literary remains are conserved in the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern, that amongst others also conserves the literary remains of famous names like Albert Einstein, Hermann Hesse, Patricia Highsmith and Adolf Muschg.

In 1998, Meienberg's former lover, Aline Graf, published a book with the title Der andere Niklaus Meienberg (The other Niklaus Meienberg), in which she describes the eight years she was his lover. She writes rather negatively about him, says that he had held her too tight and his body had looked like a cockchafer grub. Graf was invited to talk shows, gave interviews, had a big media presence. Her book received rather bad reviews in Switzerland's papers and magazines, only in Germany were some positive voices. Her style was found dirty and polluting, she was supposed to being keen on media presence.

The Swiss, that defended Meienberg, were disgusted and angry. Graf wanted to leave the country to recover in the Netherlands for a while.

Famous voices on Niklaus Meienberg

Awards

Films

Books

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ de Roulet, Daniel (2007). "Le Journalisme Aime La Morale, La Littérature Préfère L'Ironie". In Quinche, Florence; Rodriguez, Antonio. Quelle éthique pour la littérature? (in French). Labor et Fides. p. 243. ISBN 978-2-8309-1225-8. Retrieved 2 June 2009.
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