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Karl Holzamer was director of ZDF from 1962 to 1977.
Photo: Georg Meyer-Hanno / dpa
Due to new research into the involvement of its founding director Karl Holzamer (1906 to 2007) in National Socialism, ZDF has changed the biographical information on the station's website.
The public broadcaster also published an investigation into the CV of the first broadcaster boss, who was in office from 1962 to 1977.
According to ZDF, the founding director "made false statements about his biography during the Nazi era".
Holzamer is said to have concealed a temporary membership in the SA - that was the paramilitary combat organization of the Nazi party NSDAP - and reduced his NSDAP membership from 1937 to 1945 to an entitlement that he received in 1937 and allegedly dissolved independently in 1939.
The current ZDF director Norbert Himmler said: "The overall picture that Karl Holzamer drew of himself does not stand up to the historical truth." ZDF, faced involvement in the Nazi regime, "which he partly concealed and partly reinterpreted".
Essential aspects not truthful
According to the ZDF, it carried out the investigation itself and then made the findings available to the historian Martin Sabrow for scientific classification.
In his expert opinion it says: »After 1945, Karl Holzamer did not truthfully present essential aspects of his political and ideological attitude during the Nazi period.«
Elsewhere it says at the same time: The assessment of Holzamer's political burden is subject to the provisional nature.
»Further-reaching studies would be required to substantiate them completely, which would take a closer look at Holzamer’s political attitude and journalistic career during the Nazi era and in particular his work as a radio reporter and war correspondent – and on the other hand Holzamer’s own dealings with his past after 1945 Allied and German authorities as well as in his private and public self-testimonies.«
This year, ZDF is celebrating the start of its own broadcast 60 years ago.
During the preparations, the ZDF company archive had checked the biographical information, as the broadcaster further explained.
Deviations were found.
As a result, internal research was commissioned, in which, in addition to the ZDF archive, holdings from state archives such as the Federal Archives were also used.
According to ZDF, new information and facts emerged that affect Holzamer's membership.
ZDF wants to report on the case in the main news program "Today" at 7 p.m. and "Today Journal" later in the evening.
hpi/dpa
