Franz Ludwig Neher

Franz Ludwig Neher (born October 31, 1896 in Biberach an der Riss ; † July 29, 1970 in Riederau / Ammersee ) was a German author of company publications, books for young people and popular science books . He also published under the pseudonym Peter Hilten .

Life

In his youth, Neher lived in St. Gallen , Nürtingen , Stuttgart , Munich , Lausanne and Zurich . When the First World War broke out in 1914, he was a prospective student at the Technical University of Munich . He volunteered for the Bavarian Army and initially served in the 7th Field Artillery Regiment "Prince Regent Luitpold" . In 1917 he was a student pilot at the Schleissheim airfield .

After the First World War he attended the Technical University in Munich again and did an internship at the Dutch aircraft company Fokker in 1922 . He then worked as a commercial pilot in Europe and overseas until 1933. In an article on Neher's 60th birthday it is stated that in addition to his work as a test and commercial pilot, Neher was also a railway engineer, racing boat driver, naval officer and sales representative in several European, Asian and South American countries as well as North Africa and the USA.

In 1933 Neher was arrested and sent to Dachau concentration camp for 18 months . There he worked briefly in the prisoners' library. After his release he worked as a freelance writer from 1935. During the Nazi era, he published several books for young people and popular science non-fiction. Also published Neher as wage-author of nine propaganda biographies of the Luftwaffe General on behalf of the Reich Marshal Hermann Goering issued Groschenheft series Our fighter pilots (Berlin 1943), The in Landserstil representations held can be of trivial literature assign and show the prolific writer Neher as "Nazi propagandists" . During the Second World War , Neher was also a technology instructor in the Air Force .

After the end of the war, some of his books in Berlin and the Soviet occupation zone belonged to the " literature to be sorted out ", which was to be removed from libraries and bookshops. Neher continued to work as a writer in the Federal Republic of Germany. From the beginning of the 1950s, he also worked as a journalist and author on the subject of space travel . From 1951 to 1962 he worked as a press officer for the Society for Space Research , in which he was also a temporary member of the board. Neher was also the ghostwriter of Walter Dornberger's memoir V2 - The Shot into Space (Esslingen 1952). On behalf of Wernher von Braun , he tried to popularize his space concept in the form of a novel in 1952. A story written by Wernher von Braun himself about a Mars project served as the basis. The book People Between the Planets was published in 1953 and received mixed reactions. Der Spiegel found it boring , and the literary scholar Helga Abret later complained about weaknesses in dramaturgy and language.

Mostly, however, he published "popular" technology books, "scientifically" designed company publications and scripts for television documentaries. Anniversary publications, written as commissioned work, in which the Nazi era was completely ignored or dealt with only briefly appeared particularly numerous. In 1955, Der Spiegel classified Neher's work as “public relations” for large-scale industry and cited him as an example of surreptitious advertising based on a television script he had written . In 1952 he took a job as a train driver on long-distance routes for the Deutsche Bundesbahn in order to be able to write a realistic book about the railroad. When, after the introduction of general conscription in 1956, the military and war became permissible topics in books for young people again, Neher also published a new book for young people's war book called Der Schweigene Kreuzer (Donauwörth 1958).

Neher had been married to Maria Neher-Winter since 1934 , who ran the Nazi propaganda work Führer, Volk und Tat under the pseudonym F. Zinner-Biberach . History and Shape of the Nation (Munich 1934).

Works (selection)

• Roentgen: novel of a researcher . Braun & Schneider, Munich 1936
• One flies! Franckh, Stuttgart 1937
• The miracle of flying. Pechstein, Munich 1937
• The invention of photography. Franckh, Stuttgart 1938
• To fly. Bruckmann, Munich 1939
• Copper, tin, aluminum. Goldmann, Leipzig 1940
• The picture in Roxy's Bar. Franckh, Stuttgart 1940
• The Apotheke zum Kleeblatt. Franckh, Stuttgart 1940
• Iron. Franckh, Stuttgart 1941
• Monsoon. Franckh, Stuttgart 1949
• People between the planets. The novel of space travel. Bechtle, Esslingen 1953
• F21. A book from service on the railroad. Franckh, Stuttgart 1953
• Attention - curve! Franckh, Stuttgart 1956
• Lifelines of technology. Franckh, Stuttgart 1958
• The missing cruiser. Auer Cassianeum, Donauwörth 1958
• A century of Junghans. Schramberg 1961.

literature

• Neher, Franz Ludwig. In: Who is who? 16 (1969/70), vol. 1, p. 905

Web links

• Franz Ludwig Neher in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)
• Literature by and about Franz Ludwig Neher in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Franz Ludwig Neher at Open Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Neher, Franz in Kürschner's German Literature Calendar. Nekrolog 1936-1970 . Gruyter, Berlin 1973
2. ↑ Westermanns Monatshefte 111 (1970), Augustheft, p. 118.
3. ↑ Ulrich Troitzsch : History of technology in research and in non-fiction literature during National Socialism. In: Steffen Richter, Herbert Mehrtens (eds.): Natural science, technology and Nazi ideology. Frankfurt a. M. 1980, pp. 215–242, here: p. 241, note 66.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Franz Ludwig Neher 60 years. In: Weltraumfahrt-Raketentechnik 7 (1956), issue 4, p. 125.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Who is who? 16 (1969/70), vol. 1, p. 905.
6. ↑ Torsten Seela: The camp library in the Dachau concentration camp. in: Dachauer Hefte 7 (1991), pp. 34-46.
7. ↑ Neher is the author of issues 3, 4, 8, 16, 27, 32, 33, 36 & 38, see. List of individual issues in: Friedrich Griese: Oesau (Our fighter pilots; 2), Berlin / Herrlingen 1943, inside back cover.
8. ^ Heinz J. Galle: Groschenhefte. The history of German trivial literature. Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1988, pp. 137, 187.
9. ^ ^{A b} Michael J. Neufeld: Creating a Memory of the German Rocket Program for the Cold War. In: Steven J. Dick (ed.): Remember the Space Age. Washington DC 2008, pp. 71–88, here: p. 78.
10. ↑ Neher, Franz Ludwig in Walter Habel (Ed.): Who is who? 12th edition of Degeners Who is it? Arani, Berlin 1955, p.
11. ^ Eisen (1941), 100 und 1 Landung (1942) and the Fuehrer, Volk und Tat (1934) of his wife Maria Winter, which was wrongly assigned to him , s. Department for popular education in the city council of Berlin (ed.): Directory of the literature to be sorted out. Berlin 1946, p. 140; also The miracle of flying (1937) and flying (1939), s. German administration for popular education in the Soviet zone of occupation (Ed.): List of the literature to be sorted out. Berlin 1946, No. 8354; Second addendum. Berlin 1948, No. 5555.
12. ↑ ^{a b} Heinz-Hermann Koelle : Experience report of a professor of aerospace at the Technical University of Berlin 1965-2000  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 2.4 MB)   , Berlin 2003, without pagination
13. ^ Rainer Eisfeld : Moonstruck: Wernher von Braun and the birth of space travel from the spirit of barbarism. Springe 2012, p. 189.
14. ↑ ^{a b} Helga Abret: literature and technology. Von Braun's “Mars Project” and Neher's “People Between the Planets”. In: Hans Esselborn: Utopia, anti-utopia and science fiction in the German-language novel of the 20th century. Würzburg: 2003, pp. 118-132.
15. ^ Karlheinz Steinmüller: Designable futures. Futurology and Science Fiction. Gelsenkirchen 1995, p. 124f.
16. ↑ Review. In: DER SPIEGEL 37/1953 v. September 9, 1953, p. 29.
17. ^ Review in Zeitschrift für Württembergische Landesgeschichte 23 (1965), p. 295.
18. ↑ ^{a b} Dieter Baudis, Horst Handke, Rudolf Schröder: The entrepreneur in the view of West German company and economic history. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 11 (1963), Issue 1, pp. 78-103, here: p. 98.
19. ↑ for example 50 years of Friedrich Deckel. Munich 1953; Fifty years of Knorr-Bremse, 1905–1955. Berlin 1955; 100 years of Anker carpets. Düren 1955; Ganahl - 160 years in the service of the cotton industry, 1797–1957. Feldkirch 1958.
20. ↑ Schleich advertising. The insertions. In: DER SPIEGEL 20/1955 v. May 11, 1955, pp. 42-45.
21. ↑ Der Spiegel 15/1952: Franz Ludwig Neher
22. ↑ Review in: Bücherei und Bildung 11 (1) (1959), p. 376f .; Wolfgang Promies: German children's and youth literature after 1945. In: Hans-Gerd Schumann (ed.): Germany 1945–1949. Darmstadt 1989, pp. 169-188, here: p. 183; s. a. Hans Peter Richter : The war in the youth book . In: The Time No. 12 BC March 22, 1963.