Your message came through Facebook Messenger just before midnight. I had reviewed a talk show she was a guest on but focused on the right twist of the show, and now she was worried that people who hadn’t seen the whole show might believe that she, too, was on the show Format approximated the prevailing AfD-friendly discourse. I only saw your message that morning, and a short, very friendly dialogue developed. She wrote: “I realize that it sounds like I’m offended. But when I think about it, then that’s also true: I AM offended.”
She was absolutely right, and I immediately set about adding to my text and pointing out her special role. Then another message came: No, please don’t! That really looks like “ordered”. Swam over it.
But by then I had long since changed it.
She wrote: “Oh – too late, I see. All right – thanks!”
Bettina Gaus was not only distinguished by her exactness of intellect and enormous knowledge, but also by her specific manners. She was very open, but she knew how to soften sharpness with humor.
In a perfect world she would have held the major posts in German journalism, directed and shaped the papers. But the industry tends to be provincial for complicated historical reasons, and foreign countries are seldom a career-making topic.
Bettina Gaus was born in 1956, her father Günter was a diplomat, editor-in-chief of mirrors and the legendary presenter of the series “Zur Person”. After studying in Munich, she became editor of Deutsche Welle and later reported for the taz from Africa. Her knowledge of the world, of Africa, but also the USA, South America and Asia could hardly be surpassed. It had a political dimension for her, it was an expression of the power imbalance that is also reflected in journalism: “The less power someone has, the more he or she knows about those in power. Anyone who is interested in politics in Africa knows the situation Much better in Europe and the USA than the other way around. In this country, by the way, we are more precisely informed about the United States than the people there are about us. “
Instead of railing and complaining, she trusted her sense of humor
She wrote that in her farewell column for the, which is still well worth reading today tazwho she has been with since 1990. There she warns against underestimating the powerless, not wanting to know anything about them, that would lead to catastrophe. But what is the equivalent to reporting in Germany? Who are the powerless? Always those who call themselves such? Bettina Gaus took care of fresh questions; she was not responsible for the delivery of ideologically tested text modules.
Her curiosity is particularly evident in her books, which are always worth reading. In the beautiful “In Search of America” she follows in the footsteps of the great John Steinbeck. She surprises her audience with sometimes bizarre short portraits and her own thoughts. She once complained that today goods are only transported in containers and you can no longer see what is being produced in the respective region. Years before Donald Trump’s rise, she was already registering the country’s drifting apart. But she doesn’t rail or complain, but trusts in her humor when a certain Joanne Mangels, the racist director of a local history museum, tells her that the biggest problem in the country is the blacks.
Gaus writes: “At some point I’ll have enough. I smile at her very lovingly and say: ‘By the way, my husband is black.’ I have temporarily lost the divorce. Joanne Mangels opens her mouth. Closes it again. Opens it again. Closes it again. Then she gathers and uses her last strength to strike back: ‘You Germans finally killed the Jews.’ Interesting note at this point in the conversation. I reply, ‘Right. And we are ashamed of that to this day.’ The conversation ends frostily. “
Bettina Gaus wrote her remarkable columns to the very end, which almost every time sparked debates. In the middle of the federal election campaign, she settled accounts with Annalena Baerbock and recommended the Greens to replace the top candidate. Her last column was on the sidelines of the imageAffairs about love in the workplace. Gaus defended himself against the idea that women are always the victim in such relationships, and reported on her good experience with such a love affair.
With her death, which occurred a few days ago but was not announced immediately at the request of the family, the German public suddenly became more serious, narrow-minded and dark. It is a German day of mourning.