Between 2008 and 2017, Daniel Haufler was editor of the opinion section of the Berliner Zeitung. He has now died in Washington at the age of 61.
Daniel Haufler (1961–2023)His Richard Edinger
The spring sun was slowly sinking in the garden area of Café Einstein on Kurfürstenstrasse, but we were far from done with the gossip about colleagues, football and analyzing the world situation. Daniel has been working as a desk clerk at the German embassy in Washington for almost a year, so for a few weeks now he has been able to observe diplomatic events at close range when war has started. There was much to talk about, but this time it was my turn to listen. Daniel made it clear that there was a much larger picture of the war going on in Ukraine – one that today’s debates didn’t even come close to depicting. And then we switched back to gossip, touching on the private at best, which I regret now. I would have liked to know so much more, Daniel. Too late, our colleague Daniel Haufler died on Monday evening in Washington DC at the age of just 61 after a brief but serious illness.
“We make the opinion”
I got to know Daniel Haufler in the late 90s when our paths literally crossed. He joined the daily newspaper taz as an editor just as I was leaving. No basis for a lasting friendship actually, which then grew through continuous encounters. We didn’t start working together until 2010. Daniel was the editor of the opinion section of the Berliner Zeitung, which I joined as an author for the Dumont editorial team. Between 2012 and 2017 we worked closely together almost every day.
“We form the opinion”, we would probably have said back then in the jargon of day-to-day business. I first learned what that meant from Daniel. More than editing comments, “making” the Opinion Page consisted of brainstorming and finding the right authors for the editorials, in which the authors should, whenever possible, be open to being surprised by their own thoughts. Daniel was a patient copywriter who saw it as his job to make the arguments of others come out vividly.
As different as we often wrote and thought politically about a subject, we were unanimous in our understanding of what distinguishes a good text from a bad text. It was not uncommon for Daniel to come into my office with a stern, friendly look to indicate that I would have to do some more work on the text and argument. He did it gently but relentlessly – and most of the time he was right. Daniel was an attentive conversation partner for many in the editorial office. For several years he was a member of the editorial board, which is so important for the internal stability of a newspaper. Daniel Haufler is dead, and I would have loved to tell him that the years of working closely with him were among the happiest of my journalistic career.
A passionate American
Daniel was an endurance man, he regularly competed in the Berlin half marathon, which was always evident in his sovereign attention. Born in Mainz in 1961, Daniel studied German, history and constitutional law in Munich and Berlin. At the latest after a stay as a media fellow at Duke University in Durham/North Carolina, the history and politics of the USA also became his professional passion. During the US election campaign that led to Barack Obama’s second term in office in 2012, together with Olivia Schoeller (today Nikel) and Damir Fras, he wrote an up-to-date internet blog, which eventually resulted in the publication of the book “Your Mission, Mr. President” (Campus Verlag ) flowed. Analysis, digressions, the much bigger picture. Daniel’s gift was to precisely compare the events of daily political events with historical and sociological context.
One person who benefited from the friendly bond is Daniel’s later taz colleague Ulrike Hermann, the two have known each other since their time together at the university. Ulrike Hermann trusted Daniel’s keen sense of thought leadership and text dramaturgy, he was always the first reader and advisor with regard to her extremely successful non-fiction books on politics and economics. Oh Daniel, you are missing. Not just you.