Gerhard Baumann (publicist)

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Gerhard Folkert Baumann (born September 19, 1912 in Upgant-Schott ( East Frisia ); † 1996 ) was a right-wing German publicist and employee of several intelligence services .

Life

Until 1939

Gerhard Baumann was the son of the main teacher Andreas Friedrich August Baumann. As early as 1931, when he was a schoolboy, he was head of the Aurich local group of the NS student union , then the subordinate leader of the Hitler Youth . He joined the NSDAP before 1933 . 1935–1938 Baumann studied history, German and newspaper studies at the University of Munich under Karl d'Ester . In 1935, Baumann was appointed head of the press department for the Munich student leadership. After an internship at a weekly newspaper, he passed the editor's examination in 1936 . In addition, he became head of the "Specialist Science Newspaper Science" and temporarily of the "Office of Science" in the National Socialist German Student Union .

In 1936 Baumann published a narrow book on Jewish and ethnic literary studies in the Franz-Eher-Verlag , an attack against the linguist Eduard Engel on a “racial” basis. In it Baumann denied the Jewish angel's right and ability to judge German things: “It is therefore absurd if we wanted a Negro, a Jew, a mulatto, etc., just because he, as was once possible, the German Acquired citizenship, now also see it as a German ”. Engel died impoverished in 1938. He is said to have committed suicide as a result of the public attacks. In 1937 Baumann received his doctorate “ summa cum laude ” on “The reorganization of the German press according to National Socialist points of view” (published as “The organizational structure of the German press” ). From January 1939 Baumann was press chief of the NS-Reichsdozentenbund .

In World War II

In 1940, after the death of his first wife, Baumann volunteered as a tank destroyer and was last lieutenant in the reserve . In 1941 his book Foundations and Practice of International Propaganda was published , in which numerous anti-Semitic passages can be found and which was favorably discussed in the Völkischer Beobachter . After being wounded , he completed his habilitation in 1943 while he was in a convalescent company with a thesis on the “fight for freedom of the press 1813–1819” , but without being awarded the venia legendi , since the training sample was judged to be unsuitable. On May 4, 1945 he was taken prisoner by the United States.

After 1945

Political activity

After 1945, Baumann went through eight internment camps as a prisoner of war before he was released. Baumann acted as managing director in the interest group of former members of the Wehrmacht Association of Homecomers , which was founded in 1950 . After a brief interlude at the right-wing German Union , which was founded in 1949 , Baumann became a member of the short-lived German Party (DP), in which he became regional manager of Bavaria and in 1953 ran in vain as a candidate for the Bundestag in the Bavarian constituency 227 (Nuremberg) .

In the following decades, Baumann belonged to the right wing of the CSU . For years he was a member of their military policy working group . He was also a member of the armaments industry PR association Gesellschaft für Wehrkunde as well as the Working Group for Democratic Circles (ADK). The ADK was a "dubious CDU apron organization" that was financed from a reptile fund of the Adenauer government.

In addition, Baumann kept in contact with numerous extreme right-wing associations and circles in Germany. He was a member of the right-wing conservative Bund Deutscher Publizisten (from 1966), the right-wing society for free journalism (GfP), the right-wing extremist Deutsche Kulturwerk Europäische Geist (DKEG), in which he was press officer, and the Jagsthausen Circle , a discussion group for the military, Intelligence agents and journalists. In 1989 he joined the right-wing New German National Association , which was founded in 1988 by former CDU politician Harald Rüddenklau and ex-ambassador Horst Groepper in order to achieve reunification . In 1981, Baumann was listed as a "right-wing extremist writer" in the constitution protection report after he had received the "Golden Ring of German Literature" from the DKEG.

Professional activities

Baumann, who remarried in 1946, did not manage to create a permanent, secure financial basis for himself and his family of four by working as a publisher and journalist. Baumann had to stop building a scientific archive that began in 1947 with the currency reform in 1948 . From 1948 to 1950 he then worked as the publishing director of the non-denominational Christian News Service (CND). In 1949 Baumann founded the Materndienst Verlag Heimatpresse , which supplied 14 newspapers, but had to sell the publisher again in 1952. In 1955 the founding of a publishing house specializing in defense policy failed due to a lack of funds. From 1959 to 1966 he published the magazine War Generation in Our Time , which was funded by the Federal Press Office . From 1960 to 1971 Baumann was editor-in-chief of the magazine Soldat im Volk , the organ of the Association of German Soldiers (VdS), a restorative interest group of former professional soldiers. In 1962 he published the short-lived security policy compendium of Wehrpolitischer Digest International with the publisher Frid Muth , also a former student of d'Ester and "proven propagandist of the Nazi regime" .

Baumann also offered his articles to changing press organs until the 1990s, most of which were related to military policy or the right-wing spectrum. His works have appeared in the semi-state foreign news agency Deutsche Korrespondenz as well as in the newspapers and magazines Rheinischer Merkur , Die Politische Demokratie , Die Bundeswehr ( German Federal Armed Forces Association ), Wehrkunde ( Society for Defense and Security Policy ), Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau , Political Studies ( Hanns- Seidel Foundation ) and in Germany Magazine , the organ of the national conservative Germany Foundation . From 1958 onwards, Baumann provides paid analyzes and information to the Federal Ministry of Defense (“ Psychological Warfare ” section), the Federal Press Office, the CSU, the Hanns Seidel Foundation and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation . He also gave numerous lectures, for example for the Working Group on Democratic Circles and the right-wing extremist Deutsche Kulturwerk Österreich .

From the beginning of the 1970s, Baumann wrote for the military policy information and its supplement The Red Letter by publisher Lothar Lohrisch , who headed a so-called Information and Documentation Center West and also edited the Edition E series. The association and the publishing house were founded in 1960 by the Federal Intelligence Service to influence public opinion. After the CSU politician Franz Handlos , a member of the Defense Committee of the German Bundestag , took over the military policy information , Baumann became the chief editor of Der Rote Brief . The information service, which appeared irregularly, was considered to be well informed and also contained secret background information. In the Red Letter from the beginning of the 1980s to at least the end of 1989, Baumann also used intelligence information that he secretly received from the former BND department head Kurt Weiß (1916–1994). The only 60 subscribers therefore included Der Spiegel , various arms companies and embassies, including those from Eastern Bloc countries .

Secret service work

Baumann emphasized again and again that he was a journalist and not a secret service man, for example in 1965: "I have never worked in an intelligence service and will never be". But that was not the truth. Baumann had already become an agent of the SS security service in 1938 during the Nazi era . In the post-war period he was an occasional whistleblower for the Gehlen organization until the end of November 1948 . From 1955 to 1991 he was an unofficial employee of the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution . And from 1970 Baumann was listed as a “special press association” (code name “Bally”) at the BND.

In 1956 Baumann had also supposedly been recruited by the secret service of the office of the French Prime Minister . Baumann did not know that he in fact in " false flag " from the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry for State Security had been recruited and there as " IM was led Black". In June 1985 the Stasi rewarded Baumann by making him " Knight of the Legion of Honor " at the Grand Hotel Dolder in Zurich . Until 1990 he reported to the HVA about right-wing organizations, about his contacts with the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution and passed on the information and documents that Kurt Weiß had obtained from the BND. He also provided internal information from the Ministry of Defense, the Federal Press Office, the CDU / CSU parliamentary group , the Defense Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee . The politicians skimmed off by Baumann included Michaela Geiger (CSU), Ursula Krone-Appuhn (CSU), the CSU Minister Hans Klein , the Defense Minister and later NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner ( CDU ), the head of the planning staff in the Federal Ministry of Defense Hans Rühle ( CDU) and the SPD defense expert Karl Wienand .

After the reunification, Baumann's MfS files were found. Baumann himself learned the truth about his clients in May 1991 from officials of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and was deeply shocked by the "machinations of the Mielke rabble". The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office started investigations against him, Kurt Weiß and the BND Vice President Paul Münstermann , who had given Weiß access to numerous BND documents. Weiss died in January 1994 before the indictment was completed (December 1994). The investigations against Münstermann were delayed until his retirement in August 1994. The trial against Baumann before the 3rd criminal senate of the Bavarian Supreme Court was set for June 21, 1995. But Baumann was no longer able to negotiate because of a lung cancer , from which he died a few months later. The criminal proceedings were therefore discontinued on March 14, 1996.

Publications (selection)

Baumann published some of his articles and brochures under changing pseudonyms, such as Gerd Folkert and Andreas Friedrich . Some appeared anonymously.

  • Jewish and national literary studies. A comparison between Eduard Engel and Adolf Bartels . Munich: Rather publisher, 1936.
  • The organizational structure of the German press. Birkeneck Castle [b. Freising, Obb.], 1938.
  • Basics and practice of international propaganda. Essen: Essen publishing house, 1941.
  • The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Pfaffenhofen (ad Ilm): Ilmgau-Verlag, 1968.
  • The soldier between the revolting youth and the establishment. Pfaffenhofen (ad Ilm): Ilmgau-Verlag Ludwig, 1969.
  • Safety. German peace policy in the alliance. Darmstadt: Fundus-Verlag, 1970.
  • Right of defense and conscientious objection. Pfaffenhofen (ad Ilm): Ilmgau-Verlag Ludwig, 1971.
  • Security conference. Pfaffenhofen (ad Ilm): Ilmgau-Verlag, 1973.
  • Claim and Reality. Munich: Working Group Germany and CSU Foreign Policy, 1975.
  • The non-aligned movement. Concepts - Analysis - Outlook. (Research report / Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung; 19) Melle: Knoth, 1982.

literature

  • Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. 2nd Edition. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-462-02715-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Carl Mass (arrangement): East Frisian gender book. Vol. 5. (= German Gender Book; 134) Limburg ad Lahn 1963, p. 307.
  2. ↑ a b c d Gerd Simon : The war as the coronation of science. Part 1. o. O. [1990], p. 23 note 1 ( PDF 800 kB, accessed on September 28, 2013).
  3. ↑ a b cf. Hans Bohrmann: When the war was over. From newspaper studies to journalism. In: Wolfgang Duchkowitsch et al. (Ed.): The spiral of silence. On dealing with National Socialist newspaper science. Münster 2004, pp. 97–122, here: pp. 102, 108.
  4. ^ A b Karl-Heinz Fix (arrangement): The minutes of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Vol. 3: 1949. Göttingen 2006, p. 503.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. Cologne 1998, p. 359f.
  6. ↑ Stefan Stirnemann: "I did a fine business". A word about Ludwig Reiners, the classic art of style. In: NZZ am Sonntag v. December 16, 2007.
  7. ↑ Gerhard Baumann: Jewish and national literary studies. Munich: Eher Verlag, 1936, p. 25.
  8. ↑ Gerd Simon et al .: Chronology of training and elite education in the 3rd Reich. Focus: SS. O. O. [Tübingen] 2008, p. 28f. ( PDF 655 kB, accessed on September 28, 2013).
  9. ↑ Bettina Mooro, Dirk Neugebauer: Hubert Max (1909-1945). In: Arnulf Kutsch (ed.): Newspaper scientist in the Third Reich. Seven biographical studies. Cologne 1984, pp. 127–167, here: p. 159, note 78.
  10. ↑ a b c German party: The crown sparkles. In: Der Spiegel No. 22 v. May 27, 1952, pp. 6-9.
  11. ↑ Martin Schumacher: Member of the Bundestag - Die Volksvertretung 1946–1972 , p. 64 (accessed on September 28, 2013).
  12. ^ A b c Secret Services: For Strauss personally. In: Der Spiegel No. 50 BC. December 12, 1994, pp. 30f.
  13. ↑ a b BStU (ed.): The German Bundestag 1949 to 1989 in the files of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) of the GDR. Report to the German Bundestag in accordance with Section 37 (3) of the Stasi Records Act. Berlin 2013, p. 44 ( PDF ( Memento of November 8, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) 12.8 MB, accessed on September 28, 2013).
  14. ↑ Quote: Tim Schanetzky : Adenauerzeit (part 4). When the journalists got cheeky . In: Die Zeit Nr. 44 of October 22, 2009 (accessed October 1, 2013); Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. Cologne 1998, pp. 247-249.
  15. ↑ Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. Cologne 1998, pp. 243f., 367f.
  16. ↑ a b c Andreas Förster: How the Stasi penetrated the BND via the far right. In: Berliner Zeitung v. June 21, 1994 (accessed September 28, 2013).
  17. ↑ Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. Cologne 1998, pp. 369-372
  18. ↑ Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. Cologne 1998, pp. 360, 363.
  19. ↑ a b Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. Cologne 1998, p. 366f .; s. a. Federal Archives : B 145 Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, Part 2: Dept. III: Interior, inventory description.
  20. ^ Hans-Dieter Bamberg: The Germany Foundation e. V. Studies on the forces of the “democratic center” and conservatism in the Federal Republic of Germany . Meisenheim am Glan 1978, p. 332; Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. Cologne 1998, pp. 129, 309f., 360.
  21. ^ Günther Volz: DAF entertainment. Colorful evenings for the workers . In: Pfälzer Tageblatt v. January 15, 2009, p. 20.
  22. ↑ Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. Cologne 1998, p. 365; Hans-Dieter Bamberg: The Germany Foundation e. V. Studies on the forces of the “democratic center” and conservatism in the Federal Republic of Germany . Meisenheim am Glan 1978, p. 261f.
  23. ↑ Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. Cologne 1998, pp. 240, 249, 366-368, 373, 376.
  24. ↑ Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. Cologne 1998, pp. 129, 265-272, 308.
  25. ↑ Quote: Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. Cologne 1998, p. 364.
  26. ↑ Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. Cologne 1998, pp. 365-371.
  27. ↑ BStU (ed.): The German Bundestag 1949 to 1989 in the files of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) of the GDR. Report to the German Bundestag in accordance with Section 37 (3) of the Stasi Records Act. Berlin 2013, pp. 50, 54.
  28. ↑ a b Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. Cologne 1998, pp. 351-365, 371-385.
  29. ↑ Quote: Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Undercover - The BND and the German journalists. Cologne 1998, p. 354.
  30. ^ Secret services: Fleurop for Amigos. In: Der Spiegel No. 17 v. April 21, 1997, pp. 66-69.
personal data
SURNAME Baumann, Gerhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baumann, Gerhard Folkert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publicist and secret service employee
DATE OF BIRTH September 19, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Upgant bulkhead
DATE OF DEATH 1996