Alan Posener
Alan Posener (born 8 October 1949 in London) is a British-German journalist. He is the son of the architectural historian Julius Posener.
Biography
Posener is the son of a liberal German-Jewish family, while his mother is of Scottish-English ancestry. He grew up in England, Malaysia and Germany. He studied German studies and Anglican culture at the Free University Berlin and the Ruhr-University Bochum. During this period he served as Executive of the Communist Students Association and the Maoist Communist Party active.
On graduation, Posener worked as a teacher at the Kant-Gymnasium (Berlin) and at the Martin Buber Comprehensive School in Berlin-Spandau. He left the teaching profession, as he says, from "boredom".
Journalism
In 1987 he wrote the Rowohlt monograph on John Lennon. This was followed by monographs on John F. Kennedy, Elvis Presley, William Shakespeare, Franklin Roosevelt, and finally Mary, the mother of Jesus. Posener also wrote a biography of the relationship of John F. and Jackie Kennedy.
From 1999 to 2004, he was a writer and then editor of "Die Welt." From 2004 to 2008 he was chief of commentary for "Welt am Sonntag." He now works as a correspondent for politics and society. When in 2005 the Berlin authorities proposed renaming Koch Road as Rudi Dutschke Strasse, he opposed the proposition. Posener stated that:
| “ | as Rudi Dutschke thought nothing of, "capitalism and consumerism, liberalism and parliamentarism," it was no coincidence that his fellow Horst Mahler (then a member of the same CP as Posener) ended up in the NPD | ” |
In May 2007, Posner attacked in his blog at Welt Online the editor of the tabloid "Bild," Kai Diekmann, accusing him of "hypocrisy" because the newspaper "serves the lowest instincts." In 2009 he published his book called "Pope Benedict's crusade" in which he criticized Benedict XVI crusade against the Enlightenment.
Since 2009, Posener has held a weekly debate with Alexander Görlach on religious and ethical questions in the "European newspaper."