Kurt Seinitz

Kurt Seinitz     (journalist, author)
Born	7 January 1947 Vienna
Nationality	Austrian
renowned Austrian journalist and author

Kurt Seinitz is a renowned Austrian journalist and author. He is the chief foreign editor at the Austrian tabloid Kronen Zeitung aka Krone where he has worked for five decades.

Background

After matriculating from high school, Kurt Seinitz began a university course studying journalism and economic and social history, but left in 1967 to work for the Austrian daily newspaper Express. In 1971 Seinitz moved to the Krone where he remains a columnist.

Doyen at the Krone

Kurt Seinitz has been traveling the world for the Krone for 50 years, interviewing world leaders and analysing connections between events from a foreign policy perspective.

What a Century

“What a Century – A Guide to the World in Chaos”

In September 2022, Seinitz presented his latest book "Was für ein Jahrhundert – Ein Leitfaden durch die Welt des Chaos" (“What a Century – A Guide to the World in Chaos”) in the Salzburg City Library in Lehen.

"What a Century" was given this five-star review on Amazon:

A casually written ride without academic rambling through the ups and downs of current world history with historical references. The 200-page book is easy to read in two days. Since the last decade, we have slid into a new “world disorder” (Kissinger). A new low after the financial and fault crisis, the euro crisis, yet another isolationist, populist and protectionist new US president Trump started a trade and tariff war with China and also questioned the transatlantic relationship (NATO). Trump instigated the storming of the US Capitol, a day of US shame, an attack on democracy and a deepening division in US society between Republicans and Democrats, also as a result of growing inequality.

But that's not all. Since 2020, the global coronavirus pandemic has brought us lockdowns, supply chain interruptions and production losses, so that even globalisation is being called into question or at least relocations of production facilities are being considered (“decoupling” discussions).

Last, but not least, the unexpectedly worst event since 24 February 2022, a rude and paranoid Putin leaves behind a battlefield in Ukraine with his troop invasion; the war is not yet over. Putin was displeased that Ukraine opted for the Western system of values (democracy and freedom) and thus renounced his idea of the “Great Russian Empire.” Putin fears democracy and has now turned Russia into a “pariah state” that is no longer compact.

The European peace order, which had existed for over 80 years, was destroyed in one fell swoop with his troop invasion. A shock for peace-loving Europeans. An end to the most recent CSCE/OSCE/Helsinki peace order (basket 3: Non-interference, respect for human rights and territorial limits; renewed with the “Budapest Memorandum” 1997).

Seinitz takes a closer look at all these phenomena, garnished with personal encounters, with Gorbachev (“glasnost”/openness and “perestroika”/restructuring), with Yeltsin (who fell into his arms drunk) but also with Putin. His Orthodox Patriarch Kirill encourages Putin and speaks of the “holy war,” as was the case in the Syrian war years ago. The commandment "Thou shalt not kill" does not appear to exist in Russian Orthodoxy. The vengeful Putin also did not forget Obama's unwisely taunting words in 2014, who described Russia - still suffering from the phantom joke of a large empire - as a mere regional power and, moreover, Putin acted from a position of weakness.

We also learn what the name Fukuyama S.47 is all about, who was completely wrong with his claim of the “end of history” at the turn of 1989. There have been and are turning points in history, and now again with a new “world disorder” (Kissinger) (printing, enlightenment, industrialisation, Internet, information explosion combined with new problems, such as fake news, hate on the Internet, scientific denial, conspiracy theories). The traditional forms of political organisation have all been tried out (communism, socialism, fascism, theocracy). In my opinion, Karl Marx sums up the problem in a nutshell:

“All revolutions have only proven one thing so far, namely that many things can be changed, just not people.

“Also mentioned briefly: Phil. Liessmann (shaken future prospects); Huntington (“Clash of Civilisations”); Ludwig Erhard (“prosperity for all” - social market economy, social liberalism); Piketty (capital, growing inequality - stagnating real wages, exorbitant returns on assets); Stockman-Reagan's chief adviser (“trickle down theory,” a myth of the neoliberals, according to prosperity would trickle down to the poor); it's about oppressed, illiberal democracies - Orban (gerrymandering, journalist obstruction, mafia-like structures, state assets in foundations Outsourced from state access, enemy image of Soros), Erdogan destroys free journalism; A meeting between Lech Walesa/Seinitz (Polish Solidarnosc/Danzig Shipyard); Ischinger/ Ex-Nato Gen.: Democracies feel increasingly helpless and overwhelmed.

The rise and fall of the USA is extensively reported and the false US wars are explained in more detail (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan as 9/11 retribution Al Qaeda/Bin Laden). The American Age (stroke of genius 140 billion Marshall Plan 1948 for eh. enemies. Trump's successor Biden is once again strengthening transatlantic relationships, however, what is the American isolationism gene all about).

China's rise to become the No. 1 world power (personal interviews), Confucianism, collectivism, individualism unknown. Mao liberated China - but caused a great deal of disaster with the Cultural Revolution. Liberalisation under Deng Xiaoping, revisionist Xi Jinping strengthens China, threatens Taiwan; Uyghur shame;

Seinitz interview with Zhou Enlai and Zemin.

Middle East - mother of the crises in the Islamic world; migration crisis; Africa; Gaddafi gave Seinitz a peppermint candy, but first grabbed a holster and laughed, after Seinitz was startled. Iran, theocratic torpor - visit to Khatami and the atomic bomb.

Unfortunately, Latin America is a bit underexposed only striped (Bolsonaro, Amazon, churches). Hunger, South Africa, climate crisis.

The book concludes with a somewhat poor search for the new order (pandemic, war, climate) and Seinitz rightly warns against the half-educated and ignorant and pleads for a new enlightenment.

Beware China!

In March 2008, "Vorsicht China!: Wie das Reich der Mitte unser Leben verändert" ("Beware China! How the Middle Kingdom is changing our lives") was published.

Beware China! was reviewed on Amazon as follows:

Read Kurt Seinitz's second book, I'm impressed by his profound knowledge of world politics and also read his newspaper articles.

 

A Document by Kurt Seinitz

Title	Document type	Publication date	Subject(s)	Description
Document:PanAm-Rätsel LOCKERBIE: Es war Südafrika!…so wie bei Olof Palme	Article	6 October 1996	Bernt Carlsson Olof Palme Pan Am Flight 103 Eugene de Kock Craig Williamson CCB	"It would have been easy for South African secret service agents, who had infiltrated Sweden's anti-apartheid movement, to exchange Carlsson's tape recorder in a hotel room against one containing the bomb. And then placing it inside one of those 'ubiquitous' Samsonite suitcases, so beloved by the peripatetic Bernt Carlsson."

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References

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