Günther Wolff

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Günther Wolff (born January 4, 1901 in Gansgrün in Vogtland; missing in September 1944 near Tallinn ) was a German publisher who came from the youth movement . His publishing house Günther Wolff - The Young People from Plauen , together with Voggenreiter-Verlag, is the most important publishing house of the Bündische Jugend .

Life

Günther Wolff got involved in the newly founded German National Youth Association in 1919 and then joined the Young National Association that had split off from it. After graduating from high school in 1920, he founded the “Vogtland Youth Newspaper”, which he renamed “ Das Junge Volk ” three years later . In 1925 he took over a mail order company in Plauen for the sale of equipment to wandering youth. From 1926 to 1929 he studied economics in Jena and graduated with a degree in economics. In 1930 the publishing house and mail order company moved into a building on the Altmarkt in Plauen.

In autumn 1932 Wolff came into contact with Eberhard Koebel , the founder of the youth association dj.1.11 . Wolff made it possible for Koebel to publish the youth magazine Der Eisbrecher in his publishing house. Koebel had to discontinue his previous periodical Das Lagerfeuer due to lack of demand after he had announced his accession to the Communist Party of Germany in the spring of 1932 . But that didn't stop Wolff from working together; However, he pointed to the seizure of power of the Nazis out that Koebels communist commitment under the new conditions was not conducive. In the spring of 1933 Koebel broke away from the KPD and even offered the Reich Youth Leadership , under certain conditions, to transfer his groups to the "young people" of the Hitler Youth . This was rejected, and at the end of the year Koebel fell into the sights of the Reich Youth Leadership, which accused him of decomposing the Hitler Youth and had him arrested in January 1934.

Wolff promised himself that the Third Reich would revalue the group's youth and, with it, strengthen his publishing house. After initial success, however, he found that he was boycotted by the Hitler Youth. This was also due to the fact that the Hitler Youth had been founded in Plauen, but their local leaders lost their influence on the organization after Baldur von Schirach was appointed Reich Youth Leader , which they blamed on Günther Wolff, among others. After Koebel's arrest and release, who sustained serious injuries while attempting suicide, he fled to England via Sweden. He officially had to cease working for the publishing house Günther Wolff, but the publisher kept in touch and published Koebel's articles under a pseudonym .

On June 30, 1934, the day of the so-called Röhm Putsch , after a rally by the Hitler Youth at which there had been polemicism against him - shop windows had already been smashed into him earlier - Günther Wolff was in his home from HJ around midnight - and members of the SS mistreated, as did Jochen Hene , the editor of the "Eisbrecher", and the author Paul Rudel . Wolff was taken to the police station, but released in the morning because of an arbitrary act. On the same night, SS members murdered the 20-year-old former Hitler Youth leader Karl Lämmermann , certainly at the instigation of the same Plauen Hitler Youth leaders who harassed, mistreated and taken Günther Wolff to the police station, and with the approval of Gauleiter Martin Mutschmann . The motives have not yet been fully clarified.

The persecution of Wolff - he was arrested several more times - and the harassment against his companies dragged on until 1938, when his publishing house was closed because of the continued orientation towards the Bundestag. Wolff was therefore sentenced to 15 months in prison. The indictment against him and his sister Susanne states, among other things: “The cultural Bolshevik tendency of the literature published by Günther-Wolff-Verlag was due to the fact that the former Reichsführer of the dj.1.11, Eberhard Koebel, called“ tusk ”, in In 1932 he joined the KPD and, in this way, influenced the federal members subordinate to him. ”In 1940, Günther Wolff was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a medical soldier.

Publishing program

The Günther Wolff publishing house primarily served its clientele, which was very young. That is why the core of the publishing program comprised presentations of the youth associations, manuals for the group leaders, song books and youth magazines. In addition, there were regional historical titles dealing with the Vogtland region and books about the German minority in Eastern Europe.

The affiliated mail order company “St. Georg ”(formerly“ Dürerhaus zu Plauen i. V ”) offered the whole range of articles required by youth groups. From 1932 or 1934 at the latest, Kohten and yurts were added to the range. The sale of these tents was banned again in 1935.

literature

  • Wolfgang Hess: The Günther-Wolff-Verlag in Plauen and the Bundische Jugend in III. Rich. Vogtland-Verlag, Plauen 1993, ISBN 3-928828-08-8 .
  • Fritz Schmidt: The men on the other side are threatened with murder. Case studies on the threat and murder of young people on the move in the Third Reich: Karl Lämmermann and Günther Wolff in connection with June 30, 1934, Helmut Hirsch and Gerhard Lascheit. 2nd Edition. Achim Freudenstein, Edermünde 2005, ISBN 3-932435-12-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reichsführer of the SS, Leitheft Verlagwesen , II. The development since 1933. e. Bündische publishers. March 1937
  2. ↑ Quoted in: Fritz Schmidt: Murder threatens the men on the other side . Edermünde 2005, p. 32
personal data
SURNAME Wolff, Günther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publisher
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Goose green
DATE OF DEATH after September 1944