Hermann Freyberg

Hermann Paul Freyberg (born July 5, 1898 in Bielen ; † 1962 ) was a German writer and film director, who was especially popular as an author of adventure and detective novels.

Life

The Protestant Hermann Freyberg first attended the Realschule in Nordhausen and then the Oberrealschule and the seminar in Eisleben . In 1908 he traveled to Lüderitzbucht in German South West Africa . Later he wrote an alleged "factual report" about his time there, in which he describes the first finding of a rough diamond there. From the Second World War to 1952, Freyberg lived, with interruptions, in West and Central Africa as a big game hunter, diamond prospector, researcher and producer of cultural films. On the hunt, he specialized in elephants and buffalo , which he shot particularly in the former colonies of Belgian and French Congo and Angola . He also carried out research, for example into the okapi , the forest and giant gorillas in French Equatorial Africa , the pygmies , the kung bushmen in the Kalahari and the Maghena (leopard men in the hinterland of Gabon).

In the 1930s Freyberg lived in Berlin in the artists' colony in Wilmersdorf , where he was listed as "writer and film director" in the address directory. In 1934 he directed the film Badinga - King of the Gorillas . In 1942 he was the focus of the Nazi documentary film Mit Büchse und Lasso durch Afrika - A hunting expedition through the Congo area with African hunter Hermann Freyberg .

In the 1930s, Freyberg wrote adventure novels that were primarily set in Africa, but also numerous so-called dime novels . In general, the German tackle novels were set in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes in England, and the detectives had English names, which is why many of them were banned from 1939. In addition, Werner Bökenkamp, ​​an employee of the Rosenberg Office, stated disapprovingly in an article for the magazine “Bücherkunde”: “While the underworld has long been dug up and burned, a literary demimonde still lives in pennies in millions of books, novels and provincial papers and magazines up to mischief. (...) This spiritual weed is stubbornly resisting the efforts to eradicate it from the people's soil. ”However, since there was a demand for exciting literature, the Advertising and Advice Office for German Literature wrote a competition worth 100,000 marks for German entertainment and literature Crime fiction. In this competition, Freyberg won the second prize, endowed with 10,000 marks, for the crime thriller set in Cologne ... seems sufficiently suspicious .

In another detective novel by Freyberg, A Dead Breaks in from 1943, a criminal is sentenced to death. Even the father of the condemned man, a beekeeper, called the verdict good with the words: “It's a good thing! For the general public and also for himself. (...) Powerless pests were not tolerated in the bee colony. They were just eradicated. And so it had to be in a healthy human state. Just like that. Anyone who could not or did not want to fit in had to be wiped out so that the whole thing flourished and flourished. "

Four novels by his friend Axel Rudolph , who was sentenced to death and executed in 1944 for undermining military strength and favoring the enemy , appeared under Freyberg's name, since Rudolph had been excluded from the Reichsschrifttumskammer in 1939 .

Hermann Freyberg, who with Irma, geb. Ortenstein was married and, in addition to hunting, he also played the piano and figure skating.

Works (selection)

• Africa calls. Travel in the land of opportunity. Drei Masken Verlag, Berlin 1933.
• Among ivory and slave hunters. Edited by Victor Witte, Drei Masken Verlag, Berlin 1936.
• Injuna, the lord of the jungle . With drawings v. Karl Mühlmeister. Bertelsmann Gütersloh 1937.
• The bottle with the devil's stones. A factual report from the time of the first diamond discoveries in German South West Africa. Leipzig 1938.
• Treason in the desert. An experience from German South West Africa. With drawings by Karl Mühlmeister, Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1941.
• Coolies from Ping-Hu. Steiniger, Berlin 1942.
• Three crosses in Siberia. Steiniger, Berlin 1942.
• Three groschen for my life. An adventurous novel from the oil fields of Venezuela. New Becoming, Berlin 1947 (written by Axel Rudolph).
• Maghena. Condorverlag, Berlin-Frohnau 1948.
• People in the Congo. Travels and experiences in Central and West Africa. Eilers, Bielefeld / Bremen 1950.
• The elephant god. Fackelträger-Verlag 1951.
• The last year. Aufwärts-Verlag, Munich / Berlin 1951 (written by Axel Rudolph, published by Aufwärts-Verlag Maxim Klieber, Berlin 1943).
• Devil in leopard skin. Sponholtz, Hanover 1953.

literature

• Freyberg, Hermann Paul. In: Who is who? The German who's who. XII. 1955 edition, arani Verlag, Berlin 1955, p. 303.

Web links

• Literature by and about Hermann Freyberg in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Freyberg, Hermann Paul. In: Who is who? The German who's who. XII. Edition 1955.
2. ↑ Golf Dornseif: 100 years ago: First diamond discovery in DSWA. (PDF; 6.3 MB) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 4, 2013 ; Retrieved October 3, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ List of names of the residents of the artists' colony from 1927 to today. Retrieved October 3, 2013 . 
4. ^ Films with the participation of Hermann Freyberg. Retrieved October 3, 2013 . 
5. ^ Wilhelm Petrasch: The Vienna Urania. From the roots of adult education to lifelong learning. Böhlau, 2007, p. 232 , accessed on October 3, 2013 ( ISBN 978-3-205-77562-1 ). 
6. ^ ^{A b c} Carsten Würmann / Ralph Gerstenberg: Between entertainment and propaganda. The thriller in the Third Reich. Deutschlandfunk, May 29, 2007, accessed October 3, 2013 . 
7. ^ Rainer Schmitz: Five groschen for a life. Focus , accessed October 3, 2013 .