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Alexander Kluge, Pioneering German Filmmaker and Author, Dies at 94

His cross‑disciplinary approach reshaped postwar culture by opening space for auteur film on commercial television.

Overview

  • Publisher Suhrkamp, citing his family, said Thursday that Kluge died Wednesday in Munich at age 94.
  • A signatory of the 1962 Oberhausen Manifesto, he became a leading voice of New German Cinema with films like Yesterday’s Girl and Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed.
  • In 1987 he co‑founded dctp, which placed independent cultural and science shows in required third‑party windows on RTL and Sat.1, including Spiegel TV.
  • He studied law, worked at Frankfurt’s Institute for Social Research with Theodor W. Adorno, and apprenticed with director Fritz Lang before moving into filmmaking.
  • He stayed active into his 90s, publishing a 2024 book with artist Anselm Kiefer and earning major prizes across decades for his films and short fiction.