Eike Christian Hirsch

Eike Christian Hirsch (6 April 1937 – 7 August 2022) was a German journalist, author and television presenter. He was host of a talk show and author of a biography about Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The main themes in his books were religion, humour and German language.

Biography Hirsch was born in Bilthoven, Netherlands, on 6 April 1937 and grew up in Göttingen. His playmates were the children of the family of Werner Heisenberg among others, and a classmate was a son of Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker.

Hirsch studied theology and philosophy in Göttingen, Heidelberg, and finally in Basel with Karl Barth. Höchstes Gut und Reich Gottes in Kants kritischen Hauptwerken als Beispiel für die Säkularisierung seiner Metaphysik (Highest good and Kingdom of God in Kant's main works as an example of the secularisation of his metaphysics). Up to 1996, he was an editor in sound broadcasting at the NDR and headed the "Religion and Society" department. He wrote books on questions of faith and the German language. He also wrote a series of humorous word definitions, Deutsch für Besserwisser (German for know-it-alls), which were first published in Stern magazine, and later collected into book form.

Hirsch lived in Hanover.

Awards In 1986, Hirsch was awarded the Kassel Literary Prize, for grotesque humour for his amusing interpretation (Der Witzableiter oder die Schule des Lachens, 1985). In 1992, he received the Lower Saxony State Prize (Niedersachsenpreis) for Journalism. In 2006, he received the donated by the Sparkasse Hannover.

Works