Erich Murawski

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Erich Murawski (born August 12, 1894 in Ahlbeck on Usedom ; † October 11, 1970 ) was a German journalist , officer and archivist . From 1930 to 1933 he was editor of the magazine Pommersche Heimatpflege . After he was released in 1934, he went to the Wehrmacht as an officer , where he served as a press officer until 1945 , and from 1939 to 1944 he was head of the Wehrmacht propaganda department. From 1955 he built the military archive of theFederal Archives .

Life

Murawski was born in Ahlbeck on Usedom in 1894, attended the Schiller Realgymnasium in Stettin and then studied history, art history, literature and theater studies at the University of Munich and the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin . During the First World War he served as a war volunteer from August 1914 until the end of the war, most recently as a reserve lieutenant in Infantry Regiment No. 426 of the 88th Division

Weimar Republic

After the war Murawski took up his studies again and in 1921 at the University of Kiel with a thesis on the German theater, its organization and its audience to Dr. phil. PhD.

He first worked as a dramaturge at the Stadttheater Essen and from 1924 at a publishing house. In 1927 he became managing director of the Posen-West Prussia border service , a cultural and political institution financed from Reich funds.

In 1930 Murawski became head of the press office of the Pomeranian Provincial Union in Szczecin. His duties also included managing the journal Pommersche Heimatpflege , which appeared from 1930 to 1933.

time of the nationalsocialism

Murawski was a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA) before 1934 , but never a member of the NSDAP . After the National Socialists came to power in April 1934, Wilhelm Karpenstein , the Gauleiter of Pomerania, dismissed him without notice from his position at the Pomeranian Provincial Association.

Murawski then joined the Wehrmacht . In May 1934 he was hired as a press officer with military district II (Stettin) with the rank of captain . In October 1937 he was transferred to the Reich Ministry of War in Berlin ; later he was active in the high command of the armed forces .

Head of Department in the Office Group for Wehrmacht Propaganda

During the Second World War led Murawski the Department IIc (radio, Wehrmacht propaganda officers) in Group II (domestic propaganda and troop support) within the Department of Wehrmacht propaganda of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW). In April 1939 he had prepared plans to include the propaganda officers in the propaganda force , which came into effect on May 11, 1939 as guidelines for propaganda officers and also contained instructions for an intensification of the military component in local political propaganda.

In his dissertation on the propaganda troops of the Wehrmacht , the historian Daniel Uziel , who works at the Yad Vashem Memorial , describes Murawski as "one of the key people in the establishment and operational implementation of Wehrmacht propaganda". As part of his tasks for radio propaganda and troop entertainment in 1940/41, according to Uziel, Jewish property from Germany and Poland was also used to finance such radio broadcasts. Murawski's department WPr.IIc worked closely with the Gestapo and the Reich Security Main Office .

Further activities in World War II

During the western campaign in 1940, Murawski read the explanations of the Wehrmacht report on the radio every day . His book publication The Breakthrough in the West, Chronicle of the Dutch, Belgian and French Collapse (1940) was printed in large numbers. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1942 he commanded a propaganda company in the Crimea for several months , was recalled from his work there towards the end of 1944 as part of a reorganization of the Wehrmacht propaganda and commanded a small military unit on the Eastern Front.

In spring 1945 Murawski came in Küstrin in Soviet captivity. Soviet judges, who found out what propaganda functions he had held in the OKW, sentenced him to 25 years of forced labor in 1949 , so that he did not return to Germany until 1953 when he returned late . In the Soviet occupation zone , Murawski's The Breakthrough in the West and his comrade in the II Corps (1937) were placed on the list of literature to be discarded.

post war period

In 1955 Murawski was employed by the Federal Archives in Koblenz , where he set up the military archive department , of which he became the first director. In 1960 he retired as senior archivist. His work Der deutsche Wehrmachtbericht 1939–1945, a contribution to the investigation of intellectual warfare (1962), which - according to the then director of the Federal Archives Karl Bruchmann in his foreword - was mainly based on a documentary work by the former head of the department for Wehrmacht propaganda in OKW, Hasso von Wedel , was based, which he had made available for the Federal Archives. The historian Daniel Uziel sees “the uncritical approach to his subject” as the “main problem” of Murawski's study. Murawski died on October 11, 1970.

Fonts (selection)

  • The German theater, its organization and its audience. 1921 (dissertation).
  • As editor together with Erwin Stein: Pommern. The borderland by the sea. Deutscher Kommunal-Verlag, Berlin 1931.
  • Comrades in the II Corps . 3. Edition. Hessenland, Stettin 1937.
  • The breakthrough in the west, chronicle of the Dutch, Belgian and French collapse. Publishing house Stalling, Oldenburg 1940.
  • The German Wehrmacht Report 1939–1945. A contribution to the study of intellectual warfare. With a documentation of the Wehrmacht reports from July 1st, 1944 to May 9th, 1945 . Boldt, Boppard am Rhein 1962 (publications of the Federal Archives, Volume 9).
  • The military district II. In: Baltic studies . Volume 51 NF, 1965, ISSN  0067-3099 , pp. 99-114.
  • The conquest of Pomerania by the Red Army. Boldt, Boppard am Rhein 1969 (new edition with a different title: Der Kampf um Pommern . Lindenbaum-Verlag, Beltheim-Schnellbach 2010, ISBN 978-3-938176-22-1 ).

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ Daniel Uziel: The Propaganda Warriors. The Wehrmacht and the Consolidation of the German Home Front . Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, p. 74.
  2. ^ Daniel Uziel: The Propaganda Warriors. The Wehrmacht and the Consolidation of the German Home Front . Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, pp. 429-431.
  3. ^ Daniel Uziel: The Propaganda Warriors. The Wehrmacht and the Consolidation of the German Home Front . Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, p. 155f.
  4. ^ Daniel Uziel: The Propaganda Warriors. The Wehrmacht and the Consolidation of the German Home Front . Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, p. 209.
  5. ^ Daniel Uziel: The Propaganda Warriors. The Wehrmacht and the Consolidation of the German Home Front . Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, p. 387: "Murawski was one of the key persons in the establishment and operation of the Wehrmacht's propaganda".
  6. ^ Daniel Uziel: The Propaganda Warriors. The Wehrmacht and the Consolidation of the German Home Front . Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, p. 389.
  7. ^ Daniel Uziel: The Propaganda Warriors. The Wehrmacht and the Consolidation of the German Home Front . Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, p. 387.
  8. ^ Daniel Uziel: The Propaganda Warriors. The Wehrmacht and the Consolidation of the German Home Front . Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, p. 387f.
  9. ↑ Transcript letter M, pages 264-293 . In: polunbi.de , accessed on April 15, 2013 (from: German Administration for People's Education in the Soviet Occupation Zone, List of Literature to be Separated . Zentralverlag, Berlin 1946).
  10. ^ Karl G. Bruchmann : Foreword . In: Erich Murawski: The German Wehrmacht Report 1939-1945. A contribution to the study of intellectual warfare. Boldt, Boppard 1962, SV
  11. ^ Daniel Uziel: The Propaganda Warriors. The Wehrmacht and the Consolidation of the German Home Front . Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, p. 388: "The books main problem is it's uncritical approach to the subject."
  12. ^ Georg Tessin : Erich Murawski August 12, 1894– October 11, 1970. In: Baltic Studies . Volume 57 NF, 1971, ISSN  0067-3099 , pp. 99-100.
personal data
SURNAME Murawski, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist, officer and archivist
DATE OF BIRTH August 12, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Ahlbeck (Heringsdorf)
DATE OF DEATH October 11, 1970