Hermann Okraß

Hermann Hinrich Julius Okraß (born November 27, 1905 in Geestemünde , † August 20, 1972 in Hamburg ) was a German journalist and newspaper editor at the Hamburger Zeitung . He wrote the only obituary for Adolf Hitler that appeared in a German newspaper .

Life

Okraß graduated from secondary school and had no journalistic or academic training at all before he was employed by the Hamburger Tageblatt , a local party newspaper of the NSDAP . Before that he worked as a businessman, accountant and bank employee. Since 1928 Okraß was a member of the SA , where he rose to Standartenführer , and from 1929 also in the NSDAP. For the party, he belonged to the Hamburg parliament in 1933 . In 1934 he took over the main editorial management of the Hamburger Tageblatt as "Gauverlagsleiter" . His special topics were the history of Hamburg and the history of the NSDAP Hamburg in particular. In the mid-1930s he wrote the National Socialist text “Hamburg stays red - The end of a slogan” on the Nazis' takeover in Hamburg. He was awarded the Dietrich Eckart Prize in 1937 . After taking care of the editorial work, he took over the management of the newspaper in 1941. Most recently he was editor-in-chief of the Hamburger Zeitung , a merger of the last three newspapers published in Hamburg. On May 2, 1945, the obituary written by Okraß for the Reich Chancellor Hitler, who died on April 30, appeared.

After the Second World War , Okraß was arrested and interned. During the internment he had to work as a track builder. In January 1948 Okraß was sentenced to a fine of 6000 Reichsmarks by the Bielefeld Court of Justice , of which he was waived in 2000 due to his internment. A year later, the Spruchkammer classified him in category IV (" fellow travelers ") and ruled that Okraß was no longer allowed to carry out journalistic activities. After the license period ended, Okraß ran a press office in Hamburg.

literature

• Benedikt Erenz: Pure will, perfect delusion. Hitler's empire was a religious community. This is also shown by an obituary for the “Führer” - probably the only one that has appeared in German newspapers. It was written in the press house, today the seat of ZEIT. In: The time. April 23, 2015
• Christian Sonntag: Media careers. Biographical studies of post-war journalists from Hamburg 1946–1949. Martin Meidenbauer Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-89975-577-4 .

Web links

• Newspaper article about Hermann Okraß in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Endnotes

1. ↑ Hermann Okraß. In: hamburg.de. Retrieved July 16, 2017.
2. ↑ Die Zeit 17/2015: Pure desire, bright delusion.
3. ^ Rainer Biskup: Constitutional law teacher between republic and dictatorship: Rudolf Laun (1882–1975). Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-936406-26-9 , p. 187.
4. ↑ Joachim Szodrzynski: denazification - the example of Hamburg. (Article) p. 23 , accessed on August 13, 2015 (German). 
5. ↑ ^{a b} Christian Sonntag: Media careers. Biographical studies of post-war journalists from Hamburg 1946–1949. Munich 2006, p. 255 f. ( online ).
6. ↑ Hanna Leitgeb: The excellent author: Municipal literary prizes and cultural policy in Germany 1926-1971 . Walter de Gruyter 1994, ISBN 3-11-014402-6 , p. 206 (Reprint 2017).
7. ^ Judgment of January 18, 1949, Hamburg State Archives Z 2598.
8. ↑ Szodrzynski, p. 24 f.