Gustav Reder (railway engineer)

Gustav Reder (also Gustavo , born September 22, 1895 in Madrid ; † September 10, 1979 there ) was a German railway engineer , author and Nazi propagandist .

Life

Gustav Reder was born the son of the Madrid-based German wholesale merchant Gustav Reder and his wife Hulda (née Klingebeil). He first attended the German Realschule in Madrid and then the Realgymnasium in Goslar , where he graduated from high school in 1914. He then completed a six-month workshop internship at the locomotive manufacturer Henschel & Sohn in Kassel , followed by a practical locomotive driving service.

In 1915, Reder began studying engineering at the Technical University of Charlottenburg , but had to begin his military service in the First World War on November 4, 1916 . On June 2, 1919 he was demobilized and resumed his studies in Berlin, which he completed in 1921.

In the spring of 1921 he was given a position in the editorial team of the Association of German Engineers , after which he held the position of advertising officer for Eisenbahn-Verkehr AG . In 1923 Reder returned to Spain as a representative of this company , where he worked as an engineer for the railway material manufacturer Sociedad Española de Material Ferroviario from 1926 to 1930 and then ran his own book printing company.

On March 1, 1932, Reder joined the NSDAP . After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , he was given three official positions: he was press advisor to the German embassy in Madrid and as such a diplomat , press manager of the national group of the NSDAP in Spain and press chief of the Reichsbahnzentrale for German travel, representation Madrid .

In May 1936, shortly before the beginning of the Spanish Civil War , Reder was ordered back to Germany and worked there in the Spanish-language editorial team of the Transocean news agency , which was directly subordinate to the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels , before he left on April 12, 1940 took over the position of a research assistant in the cultural policy department of the Federal Foreign Office : In the radio department he was head of department HI, which is responsible for Spain, Portugal and Latin America . On April 1, 1942, Reder also became a liaison man for the Foreign Office at the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft . On June 1, 1944, he took over the management of Section III of the Broadcasting Policy Department of the Foreign Office, which was responsible for Spain, Portugal and Latin America.

After the end of the Second World War , Reder managed to return to Spain unmolested and under his own name: he was back in Madrid in September 1945, took a position at the railway manufacturer Ferrovias SA and worked as an author and technical translator .

Nazi propagandist

All three official functions that Reder held in Spain from 1933 to 1936 served the purposes of the Nazi regime. As head of the National Socialist group, Reder's duties were to provide German-friendly reporting in Spanish newspapers on behalf of the NSDAP / AO and the Propaganda Ministry, to distribute and coordinate National Socialist propaganda and to influence Spaniards whose statements were heard in the country. In addition, Reder, who had a staff of fifty employees, was also responsible for influencing radio, film and cultural life and had to keep an eye on Spain's media landscape, while at the same time he had the private life of German press representatives in Spain monitored and reported in detail reported about their living conditions, behavior, dealings and views. As press chief of the Reichsbahnzentrale in Madrid, Reder also reported to Joseph Goebbels; Here his task was to collect and evaluate information about people and publications that could become a focused goal of German influence in connection with travel activities. And in his diplomatic position as press advisor to the German embassy, ​​Reder coordinated Germany's open self-portrayal in Spain and administered the budget for propaganda activities.

Reder's work for the National Socialist regime differs so strikingly from his work as a railway writer, for which he is mainly known, that Claude Bowers , who was US ambassador to Spain from 1933 to 1939 , assumed after the war that Gustav Reder was only one The propagandist's pseudonym was.

Railroad author

Gustav Reder is best known today as the author of books on model railways and railways . Reder had a keen interest in miniature trains since his youth; The lack of recognition in Germany for this hobby - unlike in Great Britain , where the occupation with model railways was by no means considered a childish gimmick - displeased him so much that he published the book Die Modelleisenbahn - their mode of operation and their operation , published in 1925 wrote instructions for making your own railroads and accessories . It was the first book in Germany in which the technical basics, the systems and the operation of model railways were presented systematically and in depth.

In 1970 Reder published With Clockwork, Steam and Electricity - From Toys to Model Trains . It was a story of the early model railways and their manufacturers around the world from their beginnings to 1939. A comparable description had never existed before. The book is still considered a standard work on the early history of model railways, has been reprinted several times and has also been translated into other languages. It is also the work for which Reder is best known.

The world of the steam locomotive followed in 1974 , a presentation of the history of the steam locomotive from its beginnings to the emerging end of the steam drive on the railroad. In addition, Reder wrote a number of books on Spanish steam locomotives, which only appeared in Spain and are regarded there as basic works on Spanish railway history, articles for model railway and railway publications and a German-Spanish technical dictionary that has been published several times. In the English and Spanish-speaking countries, Reder has also been an authority on the history of Spanish railways since the 1950s, known as (Don) Gustavo Reder .

Reder's extensive archive of books, documents and photographs on topics related to railways and model railways was transferred to the Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles in 1986 and is located in the Museo del Ferrocarril de Madrid .

family

Gustav Reder married Martha Gadow on September 5, 1922. The marriage resulted in two daughters: Martha Reder (born February 15, 1924) and Beatriz Reder (born March 10, 1930).

Works

• The model railway. How they work and how they operate. In addition to instructions for making your own trains with accessories. Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Stuttgart et al. 1925
• Technical Spanish. Textbook and reference book for the Spanish language in the technical field with a detailed specialist dictionary. Girardet, Essen 1941.
• With clockwork, steam and electricity. From toys to model trains. Alba-Buchverlag, Düsseldorf 1970.
• Clockwork, Steam and Electric. A History of Model Railways. Allan, London 1972, ISBN 0-7110-0371-8 .
• The world of the steam locomotive. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1974, ISBN 3-280-00754-2 .
• The World of Steam Locomotives. Putnam, New York NY 1974, ISBN 0-399-11398-3 .
• Le monde des locomotives à vapeur. Société Française du Livre et al., Paris et al. 1974.
• Historia de la tracción vapor en España. Nóesis, Madrid 1995, ISBN 84-87462-52-9 (several volumes).

literature

• Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 3: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: L – R. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-71842-6 , p. 585 f.
• Peter Allen: On the old lines. Locomotives around the world. Cleaver-Hume Press, London 1957.
• Foreign Office / Historical Service (ed.): Biographical manual of the German Foreign Service. 1871-1945. Volume 3: L - R. F. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-71842-6 .
• Claude Gernade Bowers: My Mission to Spain. Watching the Rehearsal for World War II. Simon and Schuster, New York NY 1954.
• Carlos Collado Seidel : Fear of the “Fourth Reich”. The Allies and the elimination of German influence in Spain 1944–1958. F. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2001, ISBN 3-506-77515-4 (also: Munich, University, dissertation, 1998).
• Marion Einhorn: The economic background of the fascist German intervention in Spain, 1936-1939 (= writings of the Institute for History. Series 1: General and German History. Vol. 15, ISSN  0065-5236 ). The European Book, Berlin 1962.
• Cuthbert Hamilton Ellis: The Lore of the Train. Barnes & Noble, New York NY 1995, ISBN 1-56619-916-6 .
• Franz Spielhagen (pseudonym of Otto Katz ): spies and conspirators in Spain. According to official National Socialist documents. Éditions du Carrefour, Paris 1936.
• Patrick Bruce Whitehouse, Peter Christopher Allen: Round the World on the Narrow Gauge. Doubleday, Garden City NY 1967.

Web links

• El legado documental de Gustavo Reder - Presentation of Reder's archive estate in the Museo del Ferrocarril de Madrid
• Literature by and about Gustav Reder (railway engineer) in the bibliographic database WorldCat