Erwin Peter

Erwin Peter at the award ceremony at the Volgograd State University

Erwin Peter (* 1928 ) is an Austrian writer.

Life

Erwin Peter had a difficult childhood and grew up mostly in an orphanage. In the last days of the war he was drafted into the Waffen-SS as part of the so-called “Heldenklaus” (a propaganda campaign through which “volunteers” were recruited for military service shortly before the end of the war by means of psychological and physical pressure) and was soon taken into Soviet captivity . As a prisoner of war he was employed as a hard laborer in the construction of the Volga-Don Canal in Stalingrad until he was able to return home as a late returnee in the early 1950s.

After returning to Vienna , he worked for the Austrian Post as an express mail carrier. He later made up his Matura and works as a self-employed businessman.

writer

Erwin Peter he can look back on a rich literary work. More than 12 published works, many of them in collaboration with Soviet scientists, are dedicated to the problems and needs of the prisoners of war of both peoples and try to point out the absurdity of armed conflicts and their consequences on the basis of the most diverse, but somehow similar experiences and experiences.

This humanitarian activity is complemented by the almost annual trips that Erwin Peter and his wife Gertrude took to Russia. Russian organizations invite him to share his experiences with schoolchildren and local associations. In recent years he has organized meetings with war veterans' associations of both peoples and collected donations in kind and money for children's homes in Volgograd.

Honors

On May 12, 2008, the Volgograd State University awarded Peter an honorary doctorate as the first Austrian, honoring him for his unifying, humanitarian and reconciliation and understanding among former opponents.

List of works

• Stalin's Prisoners of War: Their Fate in Memories and According to Russian Archives (Hardcover), by Erwin Peter and Alexander E. Epifanow
• From Vorkuta to Astrachan ( hardcover ), Leopold Stocker Verlag , Graz 1998, ISBN 3702008144
• Blood and Tears , (published 2000, hardcover)
• Sunbeams in the Dark (The Post of German Prisoners of War in the Soviet Union, hardcover)
• Krems adDonau 1934-1937 (About Erwin Peter's time as a foster child, published 2005, hardcover)
• The SS combat group "Bohemia-Moravia" from April to May 1945 (published 2007, hardcover)
• Magadan - stairs to hell (literary processing of the estate of a young woman in Soviet captivity, hardback, published 2008)

Web links

• Literature by and about Erwin Peter in the catalog of the German National Library