Ralph Giordano is a German writer and publicist. Giordano was born to a Sicilian father and a Jewish mother. Due to his Jewish heritage, he was soon persecuted by the Nazis during the Adolf Hitler regime. During World War II, his family survived the Holocaust by hiding in a friend's basement. After his experiences, Giordano became a communist, but soon grew estranged because of his dislike for Stalinism and exited the German Communist Party in 1957. In 1964, Giordano joined the WDR as a journalist and stayed there until 1988. Currently, Giordano is a freelance writer and has written numerous articles about his experiences in Nazi Germany, the dangers of Neo-Nazi movements, and sees Islam as a threat: in a New York Times interview, he vehemently opposed the construction of a new mosque in Cologne, citing German mosques as "a symbol of a parallel society", and calling the integration of German Muslims "a failure". 

March 23rd, 1923 in Hamburg  /  Died:   Dec 10th, 2014