“Writing is always possible,” Rolf Lamprecht replied in November to warm words about two of his snappy reviews in the “Political Book” of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Because of an eye condition, he had been dependent on technical aids for reading for a long time, but writing – no problem! Even more: Writing is part of his intellectual existence, it fascinates him “thinking writing, writing thinking,” wrote (!) Lamprecht once. He also had a wealth of quotations on the writing process at hand, from Montaigne to Max Frisch and Philip Roth.
It was only at the end of February that the journalist, who had written enthusiastically and enthusiastically since his youth, had to “hoist the white flag” because, at the age of 91, reading a 500-page book was too much for him. The waiver fell to the former mirror-Correspondents in Karlsruhe, book author and longtime SZ employee infinitely difficult. Lamprecht died on Thursday at his home in Neusatz, Baden.
He had yet to experience the images of the devastated cities of Ukraine, which reminded him of the ruins in his hometown of Berlin. There Lamprecht had developed his basic pacifist attitude, his critical liberality, his wit and his pictorial and punchline-rich language. Violence in any form remained anathema to him, and he enjoyed discourse with those who thought differently. It was a stroke of luck for him and for the political culture that Rudolf Augstein’s search for a correspondent in Karlsruhe fell on the astute, hardworking Lamprecht.
After studying at the German University for Politics and after working for Berlin daily newspapers, it became a new satirical magazine in the 1960s pardon went to Frankfurt. As deputy boss, he worked with legends such as Robert Gernhardt, Chlodwig Poth, FK Waechter and Gerhard Kromschröder. The latter won him in the fall for a catalog for a pardon-Exhibition.
The rule of law and civil rights were his domain
The versatile Lamprecht found his calling in 1968 as an observer for the Federal Constitutional Court, the Federal Court of Justice and the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office. As the founding and honorary chairman of the justice press conference, he became an authority of his own kind, a role model for journalists. For almost half a century he wrote numerous texts, interviews and essays about “Karlsruhe”. In 1992 he bundled his central concerns “rule of law, transparency, civil rights” in a dissertation on the “dissenting opinion” at the Federal Constitutional Court. A verdict is not an act of higher justice, but the solution to a problem in a case, determined “by the zeitgeist or by the biography of a majority of judges”. With his books, the legal critic also became a sought-after speaker. At the age of eighty, he witnessed the presentation of his book “I’m going to Karlsruhe”, a history of the Federal Constitutional Court, in Berlin. Its President Andreas Vosskuhle said at the time that Lamprecht had been “the measure of all things in the Federal Republic as a legal journalist for many decades”.
Rolf Lamprecht could have celebrated his 70th wedding anniversary with his wife Eva, their three daughters and their families at the end of April.