Helmut Damerau

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Helmut Damerau (born October 15, 1906 in Saalfeld , Mohrungen district , † February 20, 2000 in Gröbenzell ) was a publicist and publisher .

Life

After graduating from the Heinrich-von-Plauen -Gymnasium in Elbingen , he joined the East Prussian provincial administration. From 1924 he was a temporary volunteer and later a reserve officer . In 1934 he became mayor in Prussian Holland and five years later district administrator in Heydekrug . In the NSDAP he became district leader . During the Second World War he took part as a company commander in the Polish and French campaigns as well as in the German-Soviet war . After the end of the war he was an American prisoner of war until 1948 . In the detention center of Garmisch-Partenkirchen he agreed with Henry Detloff of calving forward to start a newspaper, which is to represent the rights of German soldiers take effect. The general of the Waffen-SS Felix Steiner and Joachim Ruoff joined the founders.

In 1950 he joined the East Prussian Landsmannschaft in Coburg and worked as a writer. In 1951 the first edition of the German Soldier Newspaper (DSZ) appeared. After American friends had stopped their financial commitment in the winter of 1953 because of “ right-wing extremist tendencies in reporting”, it was subsidized by the Federal Press Office in Bonn with 11,000 DM a month for almost a year. In October 1954 he learned that the federal government wanted him to sell his Schild-Verlag , in which the DSZ appeared, to the Cologne publisher Stoph, which he refused. From 1959, the then Federal Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss tried to bring the DSZ under his control.

When the DSZ was printed by the Passau publisher Hans Kapfinger , Damerau was soon indebted to him. His freelance colleague Gerhard Frey helped him out of financial difficulties and later received half of the shares in DSZ. The DSZ was thereby the forerunner of the Deutsche National-Zeitung . Damerau was also the editor of the German Soldiers' Yearbook .

For many years Damerau was on the board of the Bavarian regional group, head of the political action committee and, as a board member, played a key role in setting up the facilities of the East and West Prussian Foundation in Oberschleißheim . Until his death he was a member of the board of trustees of the East and West Prussia Foundation.

literature

  • Helmut Damerau. In memoriam ; In: German Soldiers' Yearbook 48/49, 2000/2001 (2000) pp. 32–35
  • Wilhelm von Gottberg : set a literary monument. Helmut Damerau: The publicist and founder of Schild-Verlag has died. In: Ostpreußenblatt dated March 11, 2000 ( online version )

Web links

  • German National Newspaper. Mouthpiece of the people . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 1963, pp. 46-52 ( online ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karsten Reinecke: The "German National Newspaper and Soldiers Newspaper". An organ of the "homeless right" in the Federal Republic. Nuremberg 1970, p. 17.
  2. ^ Yearbook Extremism & Democracy 10 (1998), p. 185.
  3. ↑ Manfred Jenke: The national right. Parties, politicians, publicists. Colloquium, Berlin 1967, p. 153.
personal data
SURNAME Damerau, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publicist and publisher
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Saalfeld, district of Mohrungen
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 2000
Place of death Groebenzell