Roland Gööck


Roland Gööck was a German editor and non-fiction author who, from 1954, was in charge of the publishers, Bertelsmann.

Life and career

Roland Gööck was born on 29 September 1923 in Felchta in Thuringia as the son of a priest. His ancestor bore the surname Jöök and came from the Baltic states.
Gööck's first book, the utopian crime thriller, Corix ist dagegen, appeared in 1948 under the pseudonym of Peter Roland.
s om 1954 to 1962 Gööck was Bertelsmann's chief presse officer. In the late 1950s, he published new editions of the works of Jules Verne and Robinson Crusoe and, in 1958, worked for Bertelsmann on a biography of Zarah Leander after the series of the same name in the Bild newspaper by von Max Pierre Schaeffer. In the early 1960s, followed editions by Karl-May-Büchern for Bertelsmann, Mosaik, Scherz and Phoenix, Heidi, late 1960s Onkel Toms Hütte and Wilhelm Busch’s Hausapotheke.
1962 saw the start of Gööck's non-fiction career. He proposed to Bertelsmann, to produce a large cookery book for Bertelsmann Lesering; in the first quarter of 1963 the book broke all edition records. After that, Gööck wrote more than 230 non-fiction books and illustrated books during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s under his own name but also under various pseudonyms, that were chosen for specific subject areas:
Roland M. Gööck, Lutz Adron, Pim Pinelli ', Peter Roland, Alexander Ettl, Alex Ettl, Roland Gek, Roland Gēks ', Rolf Jeromin, Peter Korn, Franz Mausener und Peggy Persson .
At Bertelsmann Gööck was called Sachbuch-Goethe, others described him as a Vielschreiber and Sachbuch-Alleskönner oder als „Tausendsassa“ und „ednagenmillionär“. In 1983, his 230 books had a combined total print run of 41st5 million, including the German non-fiction leader, Das neue große Kochbuch, Alle Wunder dieser Welt and Der Mensch in seiner Welt.
In addition to the versatility of the topics he worked on, speed of publication was also Gööck's specialty. For the first time at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Gööck and his team made sure that the first illustrated books reached the bookstores just four days after the closing ceremony. Further 'Gööck rush jobs' came out including picture books within only three days after the football and athletics world championships and the Olympic Games.
Gööck died on 2 October 1991 in Regensburg.

Publications

For most publications it is impossible to work out to what extent Gööck was the author, initiator, coordinator and/or editor. According to WorldCat there are currently 613 works in 951 publications and 21 languages, including German, English, Finnish, French, Italian, Croatian, Latvian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish; Portuguese, Swedish, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Hungarian.

Early titles