Bernd-Horst Sefzik
Adoptive Berliner Bernd-Horst Sefzik (1942–1994) made a name for himself as a photo journalist in the GDR and beyond. In the “Neue Berliner Illustrierte”, his reports contained striking images from across the globe.
In East Berlin, very soon after the end of the Second World War, the “Neue Berliner Illustrierte”, or NBI for short, was released as a replacement for the “Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung” which ceased publication in April 1945. The magazine enjoyed huge popularity up to German reunification. It came out weekly until 1991 and, in the 1970’s and 1980’s, had a circulation of around 800,000 copies per edition. Despite this wide circulation, the NBI was always quickly sold out.
“A glimpse of the world”
The NBI was characterised by wide-ranging topics and its easy reading quality, and consequently appealed to a broad readership. Articles focused on politics, culture and entertainment. The NBI also published novels in weekly instalments, there were puzzles and also a children’s page. The entire magazine and the foreign reports in particular were generously illustrated. In addition, there was a colour printed section which a lot of publications of that time did not always carry.The magazine brought a “glimpse of the world” into the living rooms of the people, who in the GDR did not have the opportunity for unrestricted travel, and this most certainly contributed to its popularity.
As a photo journalist, East Berliner Bernd-Horst Sefzik travelled throughout the world to illustrate foreign reports with powerful images. He travelled a lot in Eastern Europe, for example in Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia but also in remote areas of the Soviet Union. His reports were not limited to Europe either. Articles with striking images from Cuba, Vietnam and Iraq were also part of Sefzik’s repertoire. In so doing, he captured the rich tapestry of people’s lives and supplemented this with city and landscape shots.
About Bernd-Horst Sefzik
Born in Greifswald in 1942, Bernd-Horst Sefzik did his photographic training in Rudolstadt from 1958. After a year-long stint as a photographic reporter for “Das Volk” in Erfurt, he moved to East Berlin, where he initially spent four years working for “Junge Welt”. Following this, in 1968 Sefzik began a correspondence photography course at the Leipzig Academy of Fine Arts from where he graduated in 1973. In parallel to his studies, in 1968 he started his career at the “Neue Berliner Illustriertie” where he was employed until the magazine closed.
After German reunification, the NBI was no longer able to defend its position in the market and even the retitled “extra-Magazin” in early 1991 did not alter the fact that production had to be stopped in the same year. From 1992, Sefzik worked as scientific employee of Kunst- und Kultur GmbH Berlin. He lectured for a brief time in 1994 at the FH Hamburg until his premature death in the same year.