Paul Spiegel was born
in Warendorf, in north-western Germany, in 1937. His family fled the Nazi
persecutions to Belgium, where Paul was hidden by Catholic farmers. After WW2
Spiegel returned with his mother to Germany and was reunited with his father, a
survivor of Nazi concentration camps. His sister Rosa, was murdered at Bergen
Belsen concentration camp.
Paul Spiegel started his journalistic career with the weekly Allegemeine
Juedische Wochenzeitung in the 1950s becoming an editor in 1958 until 1965, when
he became assistant to the secretary-general of the Central Council of Jews in
Western Germany. In 1973 he was editor-in-chief of Mode und Wohnen ("Fashion and
Living"), but then he worked in the PR department of the Rhineland Savings Bank
until 1986. Spiegel became a vice-president of the Jewish Council in 1993, and
president in 2000. During his years of leadership, the members of the Jewish
community of Germany grew from 30,000 to about 100,000.
In 2003 Paul Spiegel
signed with the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder an agreement according to
which the Jewish community of Germany received a equal status with the main
Christian churches in Germany and brought about a substantial increase in
government financing of the community. Paul Spiegel welcomed Pope Banedict XVI
during his official visit to the synagogue of Koeln in 2005.
Paul Spiegel received
numerous awards, including the Order of Merit of the State of Nordrhine-Westphalia
in 1993, the Federal Order of Merit 1st Class in 1997, the Heinrich-Albertz
peace prize in 2001, and Doctor honoris causa of the Heinrich-Heine University
of Duesseldorf, in 2004.
HFG
Links:
Spiegel – Internationale Künstler- und Medienagentur
