Heinz Helfgen

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Heinrich "Heinz" Johann Helfgen (born March 7, 1910 in Friedrichsthal ; † October 28, 1990 in Völklingen ) was a German journalist and travel writer .

Natural stone on the resting place of Heinz Helfgen in a forest cemetery on the Saar.

Life

From 1928 to 1930 Helfgen first studied theology in Rio de Janeiro and Vienna , then history in Vienna and Graz . From 1930 to 1933 he studied political science in Munich , where he obtained his doctorate. rer. pole. On January 27, 1933 he married Kunigunde Anna Maria Susanna Wagner.

According to the bicycle and cycle travel author Stefan Etzel, Helfgen is said to have been a member of the NSDAP since 1928 . From 1934 to 1935 he was a reporter; because he is said to have criticized the regime in a newspaper, he was imprisoned for over a year from 1935. After his release he worked as a freelance journalist until 1940 before he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and served as a war correspondent. In 1943 he was taken prisoner of war, from which he was released in 1946. Since 1947 he worked as an author and travel writer. After it was founded in 1973, he became a member of the conservative Free German Association of Authors .

Main work

Heinz Helfgen with his wife Kunigunde in Völklingen on the Saar in the 1980s

Helfgen became known for having circumnavigated the world from September 1951 to December 1953 on his own bike and with a start-up capital of 3.80 DM in his pocket .

His newspaper and travel reports were always a sensation in Germany during the economic miracle , which he staged in a mixture of Karl May romance, journalistic instinct and athletic performance.

His path led him through Austria , Yugoslavia , Greece , Turkey , Syria , Iraq , Iran , Pakistan , India , East Pakistan (later Bangladesh ), Burma , Thailand , Cambodia , Vietnam , Japan , USA , Cuba , Jamaica , Aruba , Venezuela and Brazil . The bike he used was a simple touring bike make " Patria WKC " with three gears. On his station in Cuba in 1953 he was guest of Ernest Hemingway for several days , whom he was able to interview.

Helfgen wrote a total of 157 sequels to his travelogues for the tabloid press of the time, and the book I cycle around the world , which he wrote , had a circulation of 600,000 copies in the 1950s. It was reissued in 1988. Helfgen died in 1990 after his two sons, Sigwart (+1942) and Ortwin (+1964), at the age of 80 in Völklingen (Saar) and left behind two daughters, Gudrun and Sigrun, who died on June 28, 2019. His wife Kunigunde died on March 25, 1994 in Koblenz am Rhein.

Heinz Helfgen before leaving for the North Pole

Works

  • I cycle around the world: from Düsseldorf to Burma . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh, 1954
  • I cycle around the world: Burma, Indochina, Japan, USA, Green Hell . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh, 1955
  • I cycle around the world . Revised new edition of the two-volume work. BVA, Bielefeld, 1988, ISBN 3-87073-032-3
  • I'm hitchhiking to the North Pole . Adventurous report of a one-man expedition with a car, bush plane, dog sled and rubber dinghy. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh, 1956
  • Track along the desert . Torch bearer publishing house Schmidt-Küster, Hanover, 1961
  • Between danger and mystery . Torchbearer Verlag Schmidt-Küster, Hanover, 1960
  • Hell journey to paradise . Torch-Bearer-Verlag, Hanover, 1964
  • Yellow monsoon . Publisher Andreas Zettner, Würzburg-Vienna, 1968

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinz Helfgen (1910–1990) Short biography, Ed. Stefan Etzel.
  2. ^ Jobst C. Knigge: Hemingway and the Germans , Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-339-10300-0 , pp. 108-110
personal data
SURNAME Help, Heinz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Helfgen, Heinrich Johann (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and travel writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 7, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Friedrichsthal
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 1990
Place of death Völklingen