Georg von Hatzfeld

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the cathedral dean in Münster see Georg von Hatzfeld (cathedral dean) .

Information station on Heligoland

Georg von Hatzfeld (born April 19, 1929 in Bad Godesberg , † August 2, 2000 in Munich ) was a German publisher.

Live and act

The son of the poet Adolf von Hatzfeld , from the Hatzfeld house, hit the headlines in 1950 when he and his fellow Heidelberg student René Leudesdorff started a rescue operation for the island of Helgoland . In addition to Leudesdorff, some sources also name Hubertus Prince zu Löwenstein , who himself was named for von Leudesdorff and v. Hatzfeld started the action after a few days.

At that time, Heligoland was a training target for the bombing of the Royal Air Force . The population was evacuated and housed in northern German towns. Hatzfeld and Leudesdorff, financially supported by Die Zeit , went to Heligoland on a December night, hoisted the European flag and the German flag and spent about two weeks on the island , with a brief interruption due to a storm surge warning . Although they pursued different goals - Leudesdorff was more interested in the unification of Europe, Hatzfeld in the reunification of Germany - both were convinced that the armament of the superpowers had to be prevented. The occupation ended on January 3, 1951 and had consequences: On March 1, 1952, the island was handed over to the Federal Republic of Germany and the cleansing of the remains of the war and occupation began. Around 170,000 tons of bombs , grenades , mines and torpedoes were recovered, but duds can still be found on the island today .

For this first German pacifist action after the Second World War , Leudesdorff and von Hatzfeld received the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class.

A film by Kurt Denzer and Thorsten Schmidt is dedicated to the action of the two students .

Georg von Hatzfeld is buried in Bad Godesberg .

Works

• Georg von Hatzfeld, Rainer Wallraf (Ed.): Munich, as it writes and eats. Munich: v. Hatzfeld 1965
• Gerhard Neureiter, Eberhard Zwink, Georg von Hatzfeld: Salzburg, where? Munich: Schumacher-Gebler 1969
• Richard Kerler, Georg von Hatzfeld: Where in Munich? Munich: Schumacher-Gebler 1969

literature

• Angelika von Hatzfeld: And suddenly you are alone. Hamburg; Vienna: Europa 2003 ISBN 3-203-78033-X
• Dr. Elisabeth Deinhard: Adolf von Hatzfeld: Mensch und Werk , Turin 1982, Corso di Laurea in Lingue e Letteratura straniere, Universita 'degli Studi di Torino Facolta' di Magistero, Tesi di Laurea.

Movie

• Who liberated Heligoland? Bomb target in peacetime, a film by Kurt Denzer and Thorsten Schmidt, FBW rating: valuable