Veteran journalist falls silent
Veteran journalist and renowned author Joachim Pütz has died at the age of 74.
Pütz, who was affectionately known as Joe, died in the Katutura hospital on Thursday after an ambulance had picked him up at 14:00 from his quarters in Windhoek West, where he was found unconscious.
Pütz was one of the founding members of Namibian Sun in 2007 and served as sub-editor for many years.
He was born in Waal, Bavaria 1945 and moved to Namibia with his parents in 1951.
Pütz wrote his matric in Swakopmund in 1963, then graduated from the Deutsche Höhere Privatschule Windhoek (DHPS) and went to the University of Cape Town to study philosophy and psychology.
After graduation, he first worked as a business traveller in Namibia before accepting an offer from the editorial office of the Allgemeine Zeitung in the late 70s to appear as a reporter.
During this time, he was awarded the press prize of the then Namib Air (forerunner of Air Namibia) for his AZ reportage on the meat scandal (a director of the Meat Council had fallen to his death in the staircase of the Landbank building).
Later, Pütz worked in the editorial office of Windhoek Advertiser, served for a time the then South African news agency Sapa and received after independence a job at the newly constituted Namibian Radio and Television Station (NBC).
As a book author, Pütz made a better name than a journalist.
The “Dickschenärie - A Wörkschopmänjul for Südwester Deutsch”, Volume I and Volume II, is long gone.
He is also co-authored the Political Who's Who of Namibia, along with the late Heidi von Egidy, which was first published in 1987.
Eberhard Hoffmann
Pütz, who was affectionately known as Joe, died in the Katutura hospital on Thursday after an ambulance had picked him up at 14:00 from his quarters in Windhoek West, where he was found unconscious.
Pütz was one of the founding members of Namibian Sun in 2007 and served as sub-editor for many years.
He was born in Waal, Bavaria 1945 and moved to Namibia with his parents in 1951.
Pütz wrote his matric in Swakopmund in 1963, then graduated from the Deutsche Höhere Privatschule Windhoek (DHPS) and went to the University of Cape Town to study philosophy and psychology.
After graduation, he first worked as a business traveller in Namibia before accepting an offer from the editorial office of the Allgemeine Zeitung in the late 70s to appear as a reporter.
During this time, he was awarded the press prize of the then Namib Air (forerunner of Air Namibia) for his AZ reportage on the meat scandal (a director of the Meat Council had fallen to his death in the staircase of the Landbank building).
Later, Pütz worked in the editorial office of Windhoek Advertiser, served for a time the then South African news agency Sapa and received after independence a job at the newly constituted Namibian Radio and Television Station (NBC).
As a book author, Pütz made a better name than a journalist.
The “Dickschenärie - A Wörkschopmänjul for Südwester Deutsch”, Volume I and Volume II, is long gone.
He is also co-authored the Political Who's Who of Namibia, along with the late Heidi von Egidy, which was first published in 1987.
Eberhard Hoffmann
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